For one, knowledge is a cumulative process…we are constantly adding to our knowledge of the world. THUS for anything you read in a text book, any topic, there are researchers, scholars, etc examining the issue and continuing to research it! They’re getting paid to do this, and their findings can either totally alter what we thought we knew on a subject, OR can add to a more complete picture of the topic. So your textbook can never be 100% correct. And this is why authors of popular textbooks write new editions of the texts, to encorporate our new knowledge.

Second, knowledge is relative, and by this I mean that our knowledge is based on the context we find ourselves in. September 11th and the Iraq War may be approached differently in history books from different parts of the world, so in a way the knowledge in text books reflects our cultural understandings as well. Also, even just looking at the United States, the 1890’s book would paint a different picture about women than the 1990’s book.

Finally, a textbook is written by a particular author, and the textbook is thus, in a way, an organization of what that author knows and thinks. Now most writers present information in a non-biased way, but their own leanings, and their own research may be given greater weight in their writing. I’ve read academic journal articles where it was obvious that the author’s point of view was being pushed onto the reader without sufficient backing on the alternative side, because I knew research that backed the alternative side.

In the end there may be other reasons not to believe everything in school textbooks. Conspiracies? Cover-ups? Lies? But the point remains…you cannot believe 100% of everything you read in textbooks.

I have a history book from 1906. ‘Manifest Destiny” and the wonders of business are very much the tone of the book.

I have a 1905 human physiology textbook that mentions that ‘While it is a theory, it is not known if oxygen is necessary for life.”

The best thing to do is to read and understand it. Add in other reliable information you have and can gather.

An example of that is that it wasn’t too many years ago that they United States of America was shown on school maps as larger than it actually was so that students would think the US was large in comparison to other countries.

If i were the student ,due to lack of further information and for exams sake i’d have believed it.