Humanism affirms that there is an innate or natural “goodness” in man, that every person has dignity and worth. However, a number of people — from serious to humorous — have tried to calculate how much a human being is worth, from a merely chemical perspective.
Almost all are agreed about the top seven chemical elements that compose the human body: 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, 3% nitrogen, 1.5% calcium, 1% phosphorus, and 0.35% potassium. The chemical value placed on these and other elements in the human body varies from $1 to $160 or more [see: www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12011/ and several other websites under Google search on “chemical worth of man”].
Chemically worth a little under $2,000 at best, man is “cheap.” And thus a lot of people so regard human life: cheap and expendable.