CCL:orbitals and reality

Dear CCL-community!
 I became curious whether the disagreement in the current
 discussion on 'Orbitals and Reality' might originate in
 misleading or unclear presentations in introductory chemistry
 textbooks. Is the confusion introduced here, leading perhaps
 to the use of improper language in scientific articles, even
 by frontline researchers in leading journals?
 First I looked up Zumdahl's "Chemical Principles" and found
 the following careful explanation of the situation. Can it be
 stated more clearly?
 Yours, Jens >--<
 Steven S. Zumdahl: "Chemical Principles", Fourth Edition,
 Houghton Mifflin, Boston 2004. pp673-675:
 "14.6 Orbitals: Human Inventions
 "In the treatment of the bonding and structure in molecules we
 have stressed that the descriptions we have given are models -
 and simple ones, at that. These models are extraordinarily
 valuable because they provide pictures in our minds of what
 molecules might look like and how they might behave. This
 helps us decide what questions to ask (what experiments to do)
 as we try to understand more completely the complicated
 behavior of matter. However, as valuable these pictures are,
 we must remember that they greatly oversimplify a very complex
 situation. We must realize that these models can give us a
 rather superficial view that is often highly misleading.
 "For example, after all of the talk about orbitals in the last
 several chapters, you probably have the distinct impression
 that orbitals actually exist. The truth is, they do not - at
 least not in the physical sense. Orbitals are mathematical
 functions - solutions to a modified Schrvdinger equation (the
 changes made to allow separation into independent electron
 equations).
 "Thus orbitals are mathematical tools we use to describe atoms
 and molecules. However, they have no physical reality in the
 sense that if you could look at the water molecule you would
 probably not "see" anything like the pictures we have shown in
 this book. These pictures merely help us visualize the
 theoretical imformation we have accumulated for water.
 (...)
 "The point made here is ... to make sure that you appreciate
 the nature of models and that you recognize the difference
 between the information learned about matter from experiments
 and the information learned from theories. Because matter is
 so complex, we often tailor our theories to explain a limited
 area of nature so as to keep the theories simple enough to
 understand and use. However, it is very dangerous to assume
 that such a limited theory can then be used in a wider sense.
 We must be very careful to ask proper questions of our
 theories or we face the danger of being greatly misled."
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 JENS SPANGET-LARSEN         Office:         +45 4674 2710
 Department of Chemistry     Fax:            +45 4674 3011
 Roskilde University (RUC)   Mobile:         +45 2320 6246
 P.O.Box 260                 E-Mail:        spanget=at=ruc.dk
 DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark   http://virgil.ruc.dk/~spanget
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