It's nothing specific to Kandel, I just find the standards of scholarship practiced by textbooks to be poor. Like I said, the book will be filled with claims like:
"The optic nerve is directly connected to the superior colliculus"
It seems very factual and set in stone but I bet if you read the primary literature there will be variation and doubt. If you read my last ref you will see they claim direct connections between CST and motorneurons in rats of some ages but not others. Perhaps this optic nerve claim was made based on using animals of a certain age, so it won't generalize. Who knows? That's why there should be a citation.
tl;dr Current textbook practices promote false certainty, and I don't think it is helpful for learning about a topic.
Thats what I love about mathematics. Its entirely proof based. And yet the good books strive to give intuition too and show how new ideas and structures can be used.
"The optic nerve is directly connected to the superior colliculus"
It seems very factual and set in stone but I bet if you read the primary literature there will be variation and doubt. If you read my last ref you will see they claim direct connections between CST and motorneurons in rats of some ages but not others. Perhaps this optic nerve claim was made based on using animals of a certain age, so it won't generalize. Who knows? That's why there should be a citation.
tl;dr Current textbook practices promote false certainty, and I don't think it is helpful for learning about a topic.