4 ms·
I don't think children's books are a good source of facts. Probably a bunch of reasons for this... They necessarily have to be greatly simplified. There may be
by jmull 3y ago
I don't think children's books are a good source of facts.
Probably a bunch of reasons for this... They necessarily have to be greatly simplified. There may be a bit of an urge to jazz it up to better capture the imaginations of children, which may lead to include and overemphasizing some of the more fanciful ideas... It would take a lot of effort to rewrite these books as the science evolves... it's possibly seen as unnecessary to be all that scientifically rigorous for an audience that, e.g., largely believes in the tooth fairy and easter bunny.
We all have to be willing to let go of the BS we were taught as children (and in high-school and as an undergraduate, and in our careers, and on through to today for that matter).
- jasinjames 3y agoI was an intern at a large museum in NYC in 2017. When I visited the gift shop, I found a book which was published when Pluto was still a planet. It was the same book I was given when I was little, ~15 years ago!
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoBut Pluto being demoted is/was a great injustice and a big mistake. It was thought that we would find a huge number of dwarf planets shortly which would make list of planets untenable. However, in the years following, we really haven’t expanded the list significantly. It probably would have just been better to have added these “dwarf” planets to the list of planets rather than come up with a convoluted reasoning about clearing their environments, which isn’t even technically true for Earth.