The Milpitas Post reported on May 30, 2002, that "Milpitas
High School's science department is considering adoption of "Biology,
Principals [sic] and Explorations," by publisher Holt, Reinhart
and Winston, for ninth to 12th grades." That's their spelling,
not mine.
Here are some reviews of this text book:
Examining
Holt's Novel Nonsense
Nature is much more interesting than the simple-minded twaddle
beloved by schoolbook-writers. Evolution has produced a living
world that teems with diversity, disparity, convergence and coincidence,
beggaring the pat, anthropocentric scheme of the ladder. ~William
J. Bennetta.
A Mediocre
Book Built Around a Gimmick
An overdone, overstuffed, mediocre textbook built around a sales
gimmick. Holt's advertising proclaims this book to be both innovative
and up-to-date, but I am not convinced. If I disregard the gimmick
and concentrate on the book's content, I find that the Holt writers
have assembled a great mass of conventional material, have recycled
a lot of conventional mistakes and misconceptions, and have labored
to sustain the thoroughly conventional, thoroughly discredited
notion of "nature's
ladder." ~William J. Bennetta.
It's
the Same Lame Book, Printed with New Colors
The 1998 version of Biology: Principles and Explorations
is identical to the 1996 version in every way that matters. Holt
has tried to make the 1998 version seem new by changing some
color schemes, by altering some graphic devices and some typography,
and by placing a new picture at the start of each chapter --
but the book's content hasn't been changed at all.
Principles and Explorations, then, is still the book
that I described in my review of the 1996 version. It has some
sound passages and even some good chapters, but these don't compensate
for its poor organization or for the load of superstitions, misconceptions,
factual mistakes, contradictions and evasions that appeared in
the 1996 version and that now have been reprinted, word-for-word,
in the 1998. ~William J. Bennetta
William J. Bennetta is a professional editor, a fellow
of the California Academy of Sciences, the president of The Textbook
League, and the editor of The Textbook Letter. He writes frequently
about the propagation of quackery, false "science"
and false "history" in schoolbooks.
Big
Biology Books Fail to Convey Big Ideas
From AAAS Project 2061
In today's society, one cannot read a newspaper without recognizing
the central importance of the discipline of biology to the life
of every American. Sadly, it appears that our textbooks continue
to be distorted by a commercial textbook market that requires
that they cover the entire range of facts about biology, thereby
sacrificing the opportunity to treat the central concepts in
enough depth to give our students a chance to truly understand
them. ~ Dr. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy
of Sciences
Dr.
George B. Johnson
About the main author of this book. Contact information included.
