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4th grade school textbook tries to explain electricity, gives up

16 points by kevinrpope 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tdoggette 15y ago
The sample chapter on the moon is appalling. This book is designed to make people chronically incorrect.
marshray 15y ago
I agree that it's a ridiculous textbook, but these "point and laugh at the stupid believers" articles get a bit tiring sometimes. I'm in Kansas, a typical family goes to church on Sunday. There are a lot of Christians around here, but I've never come across such a science textbook (you can bet I would have picked it up and looked it in if I had). To mean anything, the article really should at least try to put some kind of figure on the number of kids actually being educated from this book today. I'm pretty sure it's the exception rather than the rule among Christians to endorse that kind of silly science. It almost looks like these scientists go out to find the weirdest possible examples they can (and there are some weird ones) and then hold them up as a representative sample. Not a good example of how science should work. I can't resist linking to this classic article about how even the conventional descriptions of electricity "moves from the negative to the positive" are basically wrong: http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html
- beej71 15y ago
  This book is so over the top, I almost can't imagine it's real, but... > I can't resist linking to this classic article about how even the conventional descriptions of electricity "moves from the negative to the positive" are basically wrong Or how Ohm's Law or Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation are wrong, for that matter. But there are varying degrees of wrong, and neither the true direction of charged particles nor superconductors nor relativity can make our sample infractions remotely competitive with those in this book. And even if they were of the same caliber of wrong, it would not make any of it more right. Kids would be better off simply reading the Bible passages, and not being exposed to the rest of it.

16 points by kevinrpope 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tdoggette 15y ago

The sample chapter on the moon is appalling. This book is designed to make people chronically incorrect.

marshray 15y ago

I agree that it's a ridiculous textbook, but these "point and laugh at the stupid believers" articles get a bit tiring sometimes. I'm in Kansas, a typical family goes to church on Sunday. There are a lot of Christians around here, but I've never come across such a science textbook (you can bet I would have picked it up and looked it in if I had). To mean anything, the article really should at least try to put some kind of figure on the number of kids actually being educated from this book today. I'm pretty sure it's the exception rather than the rule among Christians to endorse that kind of silly science. It almost looks like these scientists go out to find the weirdest possible examples they can (and there are some weird ones) and then hold them up as a representative sample. Not a good example of how science should work. I can't resist linking to this classic article about how even the conventional descriptions of electricity "moves from the negative to the positive" are basically wrong: http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html

beej71 15y ago
This book is so over the top, I almost can't imagine it's real, but... > I can't resist linking to this classic article about how even the conventional descriptions of electricity "moves from the negative to the positive" are basically wrong Or how Ohm's Law or Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation are wrong, for that matter. But there are varying degrees of wrong, and neither the true direction of charged particles nor superconductors nor relativity can make our sample infractions remotely competitive with those in this book. And even if they were of the same caliber of wrong, it would not make any of it more right. Kids would be better off simply reading the Bible passages, and not being exposed to the rest of it.