You’ve Got to be Taught

In my recent tutoring I have come across numerous instances of the indoctrination of our little skulls full of mush by agenda-driven authors/teachers. Here are two recent examples I detected in Modern Biology by Albert Towle (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, copyright 1999, ISBN 0-03-01744-803. According to Google, Albert Towle is a Professor of Biology at California State University.)

On page 421 Prof. Towle states, “Evaporation adds water vapor to the atmosphere. Heat causes water to evaporate from the oceans and other bodies of water, from the soil and from the bodies of living things. At least 90 percent of the water that evaporates from terrestrial ecosystems passes through plants in a process called transpiration.”

Other than the fact that this is clumsily written, it is just wrong. In rebuttal -- The U.S. Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior states: “Studies have revealed that about 10 percent of the moisture found in the atmosphere is released by plants through transpiration. The remaining 90 percent is mainly supplied by evaporation from oceans, seas, and other bodies of water (lakes, rivers, streams).” See: Department of Interior  In other words, Professor Towle has it ass backwards. (I strongly suspect on purpose.)

And on page 422, he says’ “In the last 150 years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen nearly 30%. Almost half this increase has occurred in the last 40 years. Human activities are responsible for the increase.”

Prof. Towle sounds convincing enough, eh? Poppycock!  In rebuttal -- The U.S. Department of Energy is referenced when it is stated: “Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic). Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.” See this interesting publication for the source of this data (Table 1 in particular): Department of Energy  I strongly suggest it’s worth a few minutes of your study.

Why do such egregious errors pepper our High School textbooks and teachings?  Stay tuned ... as I intend to display other examples of how the charlatans in our classrooms are trying to shape (warp?) the minds of our children.