I think it is a bit unfair to blame chemistry books per se. Yes the
'chemist's convention' regarding electric dipoles is mind-bogglingly wrong
and I have refused to teach it without telling my students that is is
bass-ackwards and defies physical reality; nonetheless organikers see to be
able to work with this idea in a useful way to exploit 'electron-rich' and
'electron deficient' (their terms) regions in 'molecules' - another concept
which JD seems to think chemists don't understand.
At the same time, one doesn't have to look far in physics to see silly
ideas promulgated as fact. Even silly ideas coming from good scientists.
Does the name Fleischmann ring a bell? Did you know he also published one
of the first articles on surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0009261474853881
I'm a member of both APS and ACS. I would have named this thread " strange
things in crappy books & scientific methods."
I still love Art Schalow's line that 'a diatomic molecule is a molecule
with one atom too many.'