Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1093618" data-attributes="member: 151">Nail mentions it above. Here's some examples of flawed textbooks for your entertainment:<a href="http://nydailynews.com/front/story/45580p-42789c.html" target="_blank">From an article in the New York Times.</a><a href="http://edreform.com/forum/2001/textbook.pdf" target="_blank">Here's a link to a PDF at the Education Reform site discussing many of the problems with textbooks.</a><a href="http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm" target="_blank">Here's an excerpt at the Textbook League site from a nobel-winning scientist who was tasked with reviewing textbooks...in 1964</a>:  "Finally I come to a book that says, "Mathematics is used in science in many ways. We will give you an example from astronomy, which is the science of stars." I turn the page, and it says, "Red stars have a temperature of four thousand degrees, yellow stars have a temperature of five thousand degrees . . ." -- so far, so good. It continues: "Green stars have a temperature of seven thousand degrees, blue stars have a temperature of ten thousand degrees, and violet stars have a temperature of . . . (some big number)." There are no green or violet stars, but the figures for the others are roughly correct. It's vaguely right -- but already, trouble! That's the way everything was: Everything was written by somebody who didn't know what the hell he was talking about, so it was a little bit wrong, always! And how we are going to teach well by using books written by people who don't quite understand what they're talking about, I cannot understand. I don't know why, but the books are lousy; UNIVERSALLY LOUSY! Anyway, I'm happy with this book, because it's the first example of applying arithmetic to science. I'm a bit unhappy when I read about the stars' temperatures, but I'm not very unhappy because it's more or less right -- it's just an example of error. Then comes the list of problems. It says, "John and his father go out to look at the stars. John sees two blue stars and a red star. His father sees a green star, a violet star, and two yellow stars. What is the total temperature of the stars seen by John and his father?" -- and I would explode in horror. "</blockquote>

Verification