At Caltech in the 1960s, Professor Borsook began his introductory biochemistry course with the suggestion that we should all know the structures of the amino acids and certain other biologically important molecules. He reinforced this suggestion soon afterward by pointing to several students in the class and asking that we all go to the chalk-board and write the structures of the amino acids. He then interrogated us from left to right, beginning one year with your editor who had stationed himself on the far left. Sternly he asked if the structures I had drawn were amino acids - to which I replied, "the book says that they are.'' This was definitely the wrong answer. Borsook immediately launched into a lecture on the dangers of believing everything one reads in books. It turns out that proline and hydroxyproline are imino acids rather than amino acids, although they are often erroneously listed as amino acids.

Professor Borsook was concerned about errors. It is difficult to write a whole book without making some sort of unintentional error, so the student should be cautious - thinking about the meaning and reliability of each thing that he reads.

Today, however, unintentional errors are the least of the problems. Materials are being inserted into elementary text books and presented as facts even though the authors know that these "facts'' are, at best, unproved assertions and hypotheses.

Traditionally, elementary text books in science and mathematics contained solely the most reliable knowledge of the time. Only hypotheses and theories that had stood the test of definitive experimental observation or of rigorous mathematical derivation were included.

Where possible, the derivations and experimental observations were included in the text to encourage the student to evaluate them himself. As the misinformationists have worked their will on college text-books, the humanities have been the first to fall. Moral and ethical absolutes - right and wrong in human affairs - lack anchors in mathematical derivation. While there is a wealth of experimental observations in the histories of those peoples that have abandoned moral absolutes, this information is easily handled by simply not presenting it to the students. Labeling themselves with pseudoscientific labels such as "social science'' and "political science'' or with traditional labels such as "history'' and "literature,'' humanities curriculums have generally become unfit for human consumption.

Now, the sciences are being dragged down, too. While introductory chemistry books of the past restricted themselves to teaching fundamental physical principles on which a sound understanding of chemistry and of the scientific method could be built, current textbooks include politically correct chapters with contents that masquerade as facts on the basis of little more than their presence in a science book. Chemistry: The Central Science: Seventh Edition by Theodore L. Brown, H. Eugene LeMay, Jr., and Bruce E. Bursten, Prentice Hall (1997), which is the introductory chemistry text at Southern Oregon University, provides an example.

Moving quickly through acid rain, again with qualitative, enviro-friendly statements, the book leaves the student with the false impression that this is a serious environmental problem - but without any data from which to draw his own conclusions. Then we come to an odd section on carbon monoxide - another demon which, we are told, comes mostly from automobiles and binds strongly to hemoglobin molecules. The primary listed hazard is death from carbon monoxide inhalation. Although again no quantitative data is given, the inquisitive student may notice that he has not seen many bodies lying beside freeways or hulks from accidents caused by the sudden deaths of drivers behind the wheel. Quantitative information would help in teaching studentsthe specific circumstances under which carbon monoxide is dangerous, but this would diminish the desired generalized fear.

The authors, who were ever so detailed in their description of the binding of demon carbon monoxide to hemoglobin molecules, neglect, of course, to mention the photosynthetic benefits of rising CO2, which increases the amounts of plants and animals in the biosphere. With all of this, it is hardly a surprise that, in Chapter 21 under the section on "Radiation Doses,'' we discover a section demonizing radon as a "health hazard . . . estimated to result in as many as 10 percent of lung cancer deaths.'' The students are told that "The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recommended that radon-222 levels in homes not exceed 4 pCi per liter of air.'' If they were shown a graph of the research data from Bernard Cohen's study of radon concentrations vs. cancer deaths, these students would see that there is indeed a link between radon and lung cancer - a 20% reduction in lung cancer deaths caused by radon levels of about 6 pCi per liter of air.

So, should we lobby for balance in freshman chemistry books? Should data countering these enviro sections be inserted? No! The enviro sections should simply be deleted. Fundamental principles of chemistry - discoveries in this field that have stood the test of experimental observation and which underlie a basic understanding of physical science - are all that should appear in an introductory text.

The Lewis text is exemplary. Lewis would not have dreamed of inserting into his text anything other than fundamental chemistry. The text is pure science at its best (for the advanced student who has already completed introductory chemistry and physics). The Pauling text (General Chemistry, Third Edition), published a generation later (I helped a little with this book and taught introductory chemistry with it in the 1970s), shows the first glimmerings of drift from fundamentals.

The phrase "evolution of species'' appears once, in one sentence. Pauling can, I think, be forgiven for this. He was so much the father of the field of inquiry that is called "molecular evolution'' that the unit of rate of change in protein structure is known as the "pauling.'' Even so, he sneaks it into his fundamental text so minimally that it is evident that he realizes it does not belong there. Had I pointed it out at the time, he probably would have removed it. Without comment on the evolutionary hypothesis itself, it is obvious that hypothetical material which has not been experimentally verified and is not pertinent to the subject of chemistry does not belong in the book. The Pauling digression is, however, one sentence buried in an otherwise impeccable section - not a separate 26-page chapter devoted entirely to trust-and-parrot propa-ganda as in the book profiled above.