RE: Jonathan Well's Icons of Evolution

From: Adrian Teo (ateo@whitworth.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 10 2001 - 19:29:22 EDT

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    Howard, that is a great quote! I fully agree with your conclusion, but the
    problem remains that perpetuating these errors diminish the quality of
    education our children receive, and worse if teachers are also unaware of
    them. Wells, wanting to be controversial, or course, charged that the errors
    (in evol bio texts) are not careless random errors, but systematic ones.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Howard J. Van Till [mailto:hvantill@novagate.com]
    Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 1:57 PM
    To: Hofmann, Jim; 'Adrian Teo '; asa@calvin.edu
    Subject: Re: Jonathan Well's Icons of Evolution

    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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