Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007
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| Quote (Ftk @ June 10 2007,11:26) | | I also am beginning to understand why college students accept this stuff as fact. It's all written without any consideration that a lot of it is speculation. And, it only covers topics ever so slightly. I find myself asking why, why, why and how do they come to that conclusion? I wouldn't have asked those questions as a college student because I was more interested in getting through the hour of class, getting a decent grade, and getting back to the bar & my social life ASAP. |
Honestly, if you can find ANYTHING in a college-level intro textbook that is "speculation", and not clearly labeled as speculation, then you get a gold star. Saying it is true doesn't make it true. And if you want to read speculation, I have a copy of "Pandas", as well as a copy of the Bob Jones University textbooks "Biology for Christian Schools". Please give us an example of any unwarranted speculation in Campbell, Reese and Simon, and I'll easily match you one-for-one from Pandas or the other books. Thanks.
Furthermore, given that there are literally hundreds of scientific papers backing up every single sentence in an intro-level college biology texttbook, how, exactly, do you expect the authors to give all the evidence for the things that you label "speculation"? In what other college-level intro textbooks do the authors provide all of the evidence for their sentences?
Finally, intro-level college biology textbooks must cover a lot of material, and there is really no way to cover any topic in any detail. That's why it's an introductory book, BTW. If you want the detail, you take other classes with other more specialized textbooks. Then you take other classes which use (and critique) the primary literature on which this is all based. Then you will understand the sheer silliness of your criticisms of this introductory level textbook. It has nothing to do with the bar and social life expectations of college freshmen; it has a lot to do with the reality of science, and how it is done, and how it is taught.
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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
- Pattiann Rogers
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