I really hope I’m being wooshed.
Read your own quote again. It shows that Bricker is right and you are wrong. “millionS of years ago” is innacurate when you’re describing a repeating phenomona that most recently occured less then 2 million years ago and ended less then 20,000 years ago.
What part of “During that time it has experienced several ice ages, each lasting tens of millions of years” are you having trouble with?
Your quote is internally inconsistent. If the most recent ice age (the Pleistocene epoch) began 1.6 million years ago and ended 16,000 years ago, then it did not last for “tens of millions of years.”
Y’know, if the pitter were writing a textbook, all these nitpicks would be warranted.
SpazCat can speak informally, inaccurately, whatever - the stupid Texas requirement for a science textbook is still bullshit.
You don’t need to know much about the ice age(s) to know that ‘in the distant past’ is a crappy punt that whitewashes over much more accurate scientific info.
The Language Police by Diane Ravitch
Point well made and well taken. However, I just think you could have used a better example. In this particular discussion, the Right is trying to skew and obfuscate facts, conveying patently false assertions to children. In essence, misinformation and ignorance are being enshrined somewhere that is supposed to be dedicated to knowledge.
Including that Declaration in a list of “Great Historical Documents” would add to children’s wisdom and experience. Not take away from it, which is what is happening while the Gabler’s are in control.
I am not denying that both sides have an agenda, and if you can find an instance where the Left strongarmed textbook companies into lying to students, I would love to hear about it. I’m just not convinced that your example is one of those times.
re: The Ice age thing. Neither proposal is very good wording. I’d be MUCH more concerned with what that textbook had to say about the age of the earth. Was the earth formed about 4.5B years ago, or “sometime in the distant past”?
I was looking to see which math books got a fair or worse rating for not saying pi is really equal to 3 as god had intended.