This is ridiculous! I'm going to rant and I hope I don't regret the passionate tone later...
First, it was really nice of them pick instances of misquotes or potentially inaccurate information in an attempt to market some kind of "Writing Department Gold Standard" to JWs. A Newton story that hinted at a Designer, a Gandhi quote that almost no one would argue with whether it was true or not, and spider silk?! Seriously?! None of these things have any significant bearing on JW doctrine and are low risk admissions. How about discussing changes like 1914, organ donation/blood fractions, water canopy theory, etc? Of course they wouldn't, because they don't want to remind JWs of how drastic some of those changes were (if the avg JW even knew of the old interpretations in the first place!). By featuring "adjustments-lite" they made a low risk, cowardly, self serving move.
Second, this is damage control. Many JWs smell something fishy either in an odd remark in an assembly talk, a hardline statement in the WT, or in ever shifting "New Light." With the unlimited amount information at their fingertips via the internet, big questions can be answered in a few minutes. Claims can be verified in seconds. The Jehovah's Witness Wikipedia entry contains some scandalous accounts that most publishers don't know about. What if a publisher saw these claims and had doubts? Well, the yearbook says Wikipedia isn't trustworthy. For most dubs, that's all they need to go back blissfully to Imagination Land. Same with scientific claims. If a JW watched a nature show that presented compelling information for evolution and then had doubts about the JW version of Creation, the WT, through this yearbook entry will soothe their doubts with their "impressive" (please note sarcasm) library of thousands of books and their access to even larger libraries with all the perfect and accurate and well researched information that you will find in the unadulterated pages of the WT magazine (again, sarcasm).
I'm really upset about this because there are several people close to me who have noted the inaccuracies, inconsistencies, hyprocrasy, and flip-flops over the years. They have that little feeling that something isn't right in one way or another. But they're loyal and they want so badly for the WT to be right. So they'll read this mildly persuasive bit of swill in the yearbook and regress right back to robot mode. Well played, WT. Well played. You know how to control your adherents all too well.
