3 ms·

I remember books using simplified models, but being flat out wrong?

• bonoboTP 2mo ago
  It is sometimes typos, but even those can be confusing. But okay I'll admit books are usually on the end of simplification, at least for hard sciences. But sometimes they do handle the edges of the authors knowledge and sometimes misconceptions creep in. Famous ones include the reason for airplanes flying or similar "let's relate the hard science to practical reality" and making mistakes there where they think they can just improvise and wing it. Even evolution is sometimes explained very wrong. History and humanities is more murky. Of course "it's just simplified" is a defense that can be attempted to explain away all mistakes.