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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 10 2001 - 19:29:34 EDT