Review of science textbooks from 50 years ago

Summary: Many teachers rely on outdated science textbooks as authoritative sources, leading to misconceptions about fundamental concepts. The proposed project aims to systematically review science textbooks from 50 years ago to quantify inaccuracies, providing clear metrics that reveal how much knowledge has advanced and challenging the notion of these texts as infallible.

A lot of teachers talk about science textbooks as if they are the holy grail and truth – ”so you think the textbook is wrong?” followed by chuckles. It would be amazing if someone did a proper review of a few textbooks from 50 years ago, and tried to put a number to just how wrong they were about how things worked. I don’t really know what this number is - could be low or high. Not sure how many books from so long ago still survive but maybe some do.

Source of Idea:

I thought of it when I found out that the tounge map concept we had been taught in school was wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue_map

Skills Needed to Execute This Idea:

Historical ResearchTextbook AnalysisData CollectionQuantitative AnalysisLiterature ReviewCritical ThinkingWriting SkillsStatistical AnalysisEducational AssessmentScience CommunicationArchival ResearchComparative Analysis

Categories:ResearchScience

Hours To Execute (basic)

100 hours to execute minimal version ()

Hours to Execute (full)

150 hours to execute full idea ()

Estd No of Collaborators

1-10 Collaborators ()

Financial Potential

$0–1M Potential ()

Impact Breadth

Affects 10-1,000 people ()

Impact Depth

Moderate Impact ()

Impact Positivity

Probably Helpful ()

Impact Duration

Impacts Lasts 1-3 Years ()

Uniqueness

Moderately Unique ()

Implementability

Very Difficult to Implement ()

Plausibility

Questionable ()

Replicability

Moderately Difficult to Replicate ()

Market Timing

Suboptimal Timing ()

Project Type

Research

Project idea submitted by u/aclearbag.