I guess chemists mistake the fact that you can line elements up in a row ... with the same sort of detail you could do with human beings.
I don't see it as a mistake--just being very analytical with the world. No more harm than taking the letters of a sentence and reordering them. For example, the letters of "SEE SPOT RUN" become E2NOPRS2TU
The converse of analysis in chemistry is synthesis, but reverse engineering "E2NOPRS2TU" back into SEE SPOT RUN requires creativity, insight (and the use of spaces).
A novel's story is defined by a very long sequence of characters set down neatly on a series of pages. A chemist could chop that novel up into a "formula" having just 24 unique characters. Each novel would have a unique formula.
Humans are analytically defined by their DNA, which also is a sequence of encoded information, like a series of characters in a book. But humans are much, much more than just their sequence of base pairs, don't you think?
Ironically, it is a very "Jurassic" question.
Added: Jason, in the comments, pointed out that I neglected the "T" in my formula, so I fixed it.
