Science textbooks

[ThreeLittleDinosaursROAR]

My children are still very young, but I'm considering buying a biology textbook or two as the way things are going, I'm worried they'll be changed. It feels a bit like we'll end up like Texas America but instead of excluding evolution it'll be human biology and anatomy.
Do you think my concerns are far fetched or maybe worth buying a textbook or 2?

Having read the 'it'll never happen' thread I'd say buy them. Worst case scenario you have a couple of slightly out of date (due to genuine scientific discoveries) textbooks - which will still be interesting to look at and compare anyway.

They haven't been changed (yet). I like to think that this would not happen but there is so much other stuff that is going on which I also thought wouldn't happen - so who knows.

There was a bit of nonsense with a GCSE exam in the summer but it was noticed and complaints made.
www.tes.com/news/biology-gcse-criticised-confusing-sex-and-gender

There's never any harm in having books! Obviously at this stage you'll want some age-appropriate human body ones.

On that note, does anyone have any books they'd rec for kids approaching puberty? Clear, factual info would be great.

Oh God yes but them. Proper books printed on paper. Keep them.

It's one of my big concerns that books will be changed. We're seeing it a bit with the 'N' word being erased in some instances. We can debate the rights and wrongs of that, of course, but if they are able to change books they will. Especially digital ones. I am currently looking for print first edition of seminal books - not necessarily the big, valuable ones but the sort that form the basis of our thinking. Because in years to come our children & grandchildren will be able to compare and see the travesty that has been wrought when they were 'cleaned up'.

Thank you, I won't feel crazy buying one or two for when they're a bit older then! I wonder if textbooks go on offer during Black Friday.

I'm pro-science, I believe in evolution, I don't think the earth is flat and I also believe in biology and anatomy etc. The movement feels a bit anti-science and keeps going on in the back of my brain that there may not be easily accessible accurate textbooks when my children are older. Thank you for reassuring me I'm not being too far fetched in buying some!

@AncientLights I am sounding a bit dim witted here, but what's the N word? The only one I can think of is the one which rhymes with tigger, but don't think that's right!

Yes that's the one Dinosaurs. Your post was quite specifically about human biology books, I know. And I know my post may seem a bit of a derail, apologies, but it's the whole re-writing thing that worries me. We start doing it for 'sensitivity' but where does that end?

Anyway, buy the book!

The N-Word does indeed rhme with trigger.

And it's one thing to change the title of Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Whathaveyous' to 'And Then There Were None,' quite another to change meanings and print lies.

Another example is the Battle of Britain pilot who was at the time listed as Palestinian, but who in the 1969 film is said to come from 'Israel,' and was in practice an Egyptian jew.

Same part of the world, nearly every history book repeats the falsehood that Col Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, when what he nationalised was the Suez Canal Company, the canal itself having been freely ceded to Egypt by UK in 1955.

So my thought about anatomy for kids was Dorling Kindersley, but a quick look reveals a certain Alice Roberts is a DK author.

@AncientLights Is your objection that it is being erased from history? (I don't know whether or not this is the case!). In which case that seems very odd, surely Black people would also want their history recorded? History is important.
I'm looking on eBay now, they're going quite cheaply secondhand! I think I'll buy one GCSE and one A Level human biology textbook. It's a bit scary how biology is slowly being eradicated as scientific facts are being found offensive. Thank you everyone for telling me it's not too far fetched!

There may be a case for some bowdlerisation of children's editions of classics such as Tom Sawyer, but none if it's being discussed by university students.

PL Travers herself agreed to remove references in Mary Poppins to 'piccaninnies.' She thought it was wrong.

Enid Blyton was retrospectively amended to delete all mention of the gollywogs' names, previously Waggy, Woggy and N-er.

I had no idea! Critical thinking just doesn't seem to be allowed anymore. It reflects the time it was written, and part of the discussion is how time has changed and in some instances, to kill a mockingbird comes to mind first, you can see the injustice of your opportunities and how you were treated based on skin colour. These conversations allow for growth and critical thinking! We can learn a lot from history and literature is absolutely part of history. Who is it that wants them removed? Who does it benefit to pretend racism never existed? I don't understand. History is important.

Does anyone know of any children's (primary/ early secondary) that covers the differences between male & female anatomy?

Dorling Kindersley

www.dk.com/uk/category/science/

I want to teach DD (4.5) the facts of life before she is taught some woke bollocks at school.
I’ve been talking to her about males and females for some time now. I just said to her in the car “if daddy wears a dress is he still a man?” And she said yes. 💪🏼

I just said to her in the car “if daddy wears a dress is he still a man?” And she said yes.

Does she want to be the new head of Stonewall?

@Siameasy It's rather sad parents have to worry about and prepare children for being taught anti-science ideology in schools.
Your 4 year old gets it!

Dinosaurs I am not sure if I have a view on the N word in literature and how it should be dealt with. I was listening to an interview with Martin Luther King recently - the spoken word obvs, nor the written - and he talked a lot about 'the negro'. He wouldn't say that now, I think, had he survived, but should it be bleeped out? Anyway, I am white so not my place. It just sprang to mind as an example of books etc being altered for 'sensitivity' and rights/wrongs of it. Whatever, we should be able to discuss it.

My basic point is to buy and keep hard copies of books as digital ones can easily be altered.

@AncientLights As far as I'm aware, I thought a lot of black people felt that slavery etc was a part of their history, and should not be forgotten, I agree it should not be forgotten. I'm white, but struggling to see how forgetting the racism benefits anyone other than white people. Seems like another injustice to me. But I've not heard the argument.
I will absolutely buy them. I'll be buying the DK book recommended and also a GCSE& A level book on human biology. I figure that should have us covered should accurate scientific information no longer be readily available.

My daughter’s got old encyclopaedias. One’s so old it has the USSR in it, but the science information is really useful. Old books are fine. You don’t even have to buy brand new.

AncientLights

I agree re the sanitising of seminal books.
I had never read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and recently listened to it as an audiobook - )free site LibriVox). I think listening to the use of words, the casual racism I found it really shocking, and quite distressing. I'm not sure such a book can be sanitised. But they are an accurate representation of attitudes at that time and serve their place recording history via fiction.
To remove all such records of the past is to remove the past itself.

It's rather sad parents have to worry about and prepare children for being taught anti-science ideology in schools.

Don't worry too much - just give them a solid basic grounding. They may encounter creationist/'intelligent design' ideas - but they're not going to have much traction with a kid who likes dinosaurs who has had a simple explanation of evolution.

Biology teacher here and the woke hasn't quite infiltrated science departments or their textbooks.
Not so sure about PSHE or primary but secondary biology teachers across the land are raising their eyebrows when a student suggests that somebody can change their sex.