> One parent asked a very good question of what she could do, given that
> the school district spent thousands of dollars on these textbooks and
> that some science teachers have been quite reluctant to admit nor see
> the errors in these books (applies to physics texts as well). Wells did
> not really have an answer for her.
There are numerous shortcomings in textbooks that could be cited. Yes, even
physics/astronomy textbooks. Some years ago I used a college-level physical
science text that I thought looked pretty good overall, but I was later
dismayed to read in that text that "most galaxies rotate counterclockwise as
viewed from outer space." Utterly stupid! Yet I have not given up my belief
that there are rotating galaxies out there. The credibility of particular
scientific theories does not rest on the quality of selected textbook
treatments of that theory.
Howard Van Till
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