Scientists react angrily; university plans to concentrate on other areas, such as media.
Month: March 2006
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South Park Dukes it Out With Scientology
Tom Cruise says he never said what somebody said he said.
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Handling evidence in history: the case of Einstein’s wife
Here is a good story: a 26-year-old patent clerk, having
studied theoretical physics largely on his own,
publishes in a single year four extraordinary papers
that revolutionise physics. Most of us believe, for
many reasons, that this story is true. We say that in
1905 it actually happened that it is history.Still, we know that it is unlikely that a single
person in a single year can be so successful in physics.
Accordingly, some people have formulated hypotheses
to explain Albert Einstein’s productivity. Recently, some have argued that he worked with a secret collaborator, his first wife Mileva Marić. It
would be an extraordinary story. Famous physicist
steals credit from his modest wife. Such a story, if
true, would be of great interest to social historians,
and it would serve as a vehicle for reaffirming the
rights of women and for encouraging female students
to study physics. In that sense, it’s a good story. But
is it true?Like many extraordinary stories, it might be
tempting to simply disbelieve it, to dismiss it as
fiction. But if you are a teacher, you may soon find
that some of your students ask you ‘Is it true that
Einstein’s wife co-authored his famous theories? ’
Because, there are currently several books and many
Internet websites that ascribe to Mileva Marić a
contributing role in the creation of Einstein’s works.In 2003, television stations in the United States and other countries began to broadcast a documentary
called Einstein’s Wife (see end-note 1). It overviewed
Marić’s life and highlighted the idea that perhaps she
contributed to Einstein’s scientific works. The
programme was accompanied by a PBS Internet
website (including various errors) on Marić’s life. It
features an online poll on whether she collaborated
with Einstein. It asks: ‘Was it really possible for Albert
alone to produce all the phenomenal physics
generated during 1905?’ Currently, 75 per cent of the
people polled responded that Marić indeed
collaborated with Einstein.The website beckons: ‘Did
Mileva Marić collaborate with Einstein? You Decide!
Take our online poll.’ As if history were a matter of
democratic votes.Carl Sagan used to say: ‘extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence ’. So let’s analyse some
of the ‘evidence’ that the proponents of Marić have
highlighted. By doing so, teachers and laypersons can
increasingly distinguish the various degrees to which
misinformation can be misconstrued as history.Evidence in context
In the 1980s, old letters between Einstein and Marić
were made public by members of their family. In some
of those letters, written around 1900, Einstein briefly
alluded to projects on which the two seem to have
collaborated. He used expressions such as ‘our
research’, ‘our paper ’ and, most interesting, ‘our work
on relative motion’ (Renn and Schulmann, 1992: 41,
39). Specialists in history of physics were fascinated
but concluded that such letters are just too vague, and
do not establish that Marić contributed in any of
Einstein’s publications. Still, plenty of non-specialists
also began to ponder roles that Marić conceivably
could have played.Consider an example. Christopher Jon Bjerknes,
author of Albert Einstein: the incorrigible plagiarist
(2002), claimed that ‘We have direct evidence from
Albert’s own pen that the work on relativity theory
was a collaboration between Mileva and him’
(p. 201). He cited the suggestive letter. Translated, the sentence
in question reads: ‘How happy and proud will I be,
when we both together have brought our work on the
relative motion victoriously to its end!’ (Stachel, 1987:
282, trans. AM.). Non-specialists might hastily conclude
that this letter refers to the theory of relativity.
But it does not. One important point that Bjerknes
omits is that the letter was written in 1901. By no
means did Einstein have the theory of relativity in
1901.At that time, he believed in the ether and sought
ways to detect its relative motion experimentally. This
problem of ‘the relative motion’ was a widespread
concern; many people aimed to solve it. Einstein
attempted many approaches until he abruptly devised
his theory in 1905.Nevertheless, the letter constitutes evidence that
Einstein shared the aspiration with Marić, at least at a
time midway through the ten-year process during
which he pondered questions on relative motion. It is
well known that his obstinacy carried him through.
But what about her? We know that she failed college
examinations twice. She then abandoned her plan to
obtain the teaching degree. We also know that she
abandoned her efforts to do a PhD thesis (for more
on Marić, see Stachel, 1996).Charitable exaggerations
One writer, Dord Krstic (1991), claimed that ‘From
the spring of 1898 until the fall of 1911,Mileva worked
daily at the same table with Albert – quietly, modestly,
and never in public view ’ (p. 98). This is a speculative
exaggeration. The two could not work ‘daily at the
same table’ because, of course, they were not always
at the same place. For example, from mid-1900 until
December 1902 they lived mostly in different cities,
even in different countries. Moreover, the two did not
leave any written evidence that they regularly worked
together on physics once they reunited in Bern,
Switzerland.Regardless, Krstic wrote: ‘Almost simultaneously,
Marie Curie opened the door into the world of
radiophysics and radiochemistry and Mileva Einstein
bravely began to explore the secrets of quantum and
relativity – the fields that even today we call modern
physics’ (p. 85). Does it sound like a good story?What role did Mileva play once she lived with
Einstein in Bern? It is well known that Einstein and
two friends,Moritz Solovine and Conrad Habicht, had
a discussion group that they called ‘the Olympia
Academy’. Their readings and discussions were very
influential in Einstein’s development. Nowadays,
some writers claim that Marić too was an active
participant. In the television programme, Einstein’s
Wife, the narrator says:Maurice Solovine writes: Mileva would sit in
the corner during our meetings listening
attentively. She occasionally joined in. I found
her reserved, but intelligent, and clearly more
interested in physics than in housework.Where did the producers of the show get this
information? The source can be traced to the book
Einstein in love , where Dennis Overbye wrote:Marriage had made Mileva a de facto member
of the Olympia Academy, and Solovine later
recalled her sitting quietly in the corner during
the meetings at their apartment, following the
arguments but rarely contributing. He found her
reserved but intelligent, and clearly more
interested in physics than in housework.
(Overbye, 2000: 110)This passage sounds plausible. Since Albert and
Mileva now lived together, it is easy to imagine that
Mileva now participated to some extent in the
meetings of the Academy. But what is the evidence?
What Solovine actually wrote was only that once
Einstein and Marić married:That event did not effect any changes in our
meetings. Mileva, intelligent and reserved,
listened to us attentively, but never intervened in
our discussions.
(Solovine, 1956: xii, trans. A. M.)Compare this passage to the derivative accounts.
Writers have skewed the history. Solovine did not
write that Marić ‘occasionally’ or ‘ rarely’ contributed,
nor that she was ‘clearly more interested in physics
than in housework ’. There is no evidence that she was
an active participant. In none of the correspondence
between Einstein, Habicht, and Solovine, does Marić
appear as a ‘member ’ of the Academy, nor even in
Marić’s own letters.So readers beware. Moreover, errors lurk even in
reliable places. For example, the Collected papers of
Albert Einstein (Klein,Kox and Schulmann, 1993: 617)
state that the Academy began in Easter of 1903. But
that is a mistake. The meetings began in the Spring of
1902, months before Mileva lived in Bern (see, for
example, Solovine, 1956: vi).Einstein had lively discussions with Solovine and
Habicht. He also greatly enjoyed discussing his
research with his close friend Michele Besso, whose
help he acknowledged in his first paper on relativity.
What about discussions with Marić? Consider a
statement that her proponents never cite. Philipp
Frank, a colleague and friend who interviewed
Einstein for a biography, noted that Marić ‘was
taciturn and reticent ’ and that ‘When he [Einstein]
wanted to tell her, as a fellow specialist, his ideas,
which overflowed from him, her reaction was so scant
and faint, that often he just did not know whether she
was interested or not ’ (Frank, 1949: 39, 44, trans.
A.M.).Checking the sources
In her book, In the shadow of Albert Einstein: the
tragic life of Mileva Einstein-Marić , Desanka
Trbuhovic-Gjuric (1969/1993: 79) claimed that the
Russian physicist Abram Joffe, in his article ‘In
remembrance of Albert Einstein’, pointed out that the
1905 papers were originally signed ‘Einstein-Marić’.Following Trbuhovic-Gjuric, Evan Harris Walker
wrote a letter to Physics Today , published in 1991,
reiterating the claim. Walker claimed that, regarding
the 1905 papers, Joffe noted that ‘Their author was
Einstein-Mariti’ (Walker, 1991: 123). That phrase is
Walker’s translation from an article of 1955 in
Russian. Furthermore, Michele Zackheim, in her book
Einstein’s daughter (1999: 19), stated that ‘Abram F.
Joffe, a Russian scientist, wrote in Meetings with
Physicists: my reminiscences of foreign physicists,
that three original manuscripts, including the one
describing the Special Theory of Relativity, were
signed “Einstein-Marity” .’ Likewise, Bjerknes (2002:
195) stated that ‘Joffe (Ioffe) recounts that the paper
was signed “Einstein-Marity” .’ Furthermore, in 2003
the claim that Joffe cited Marić’s name on the 1905
manuscripts was aired in the television programme,
Einstein’s Wife. And, the companion website (see endnote
1) claims that ‘there is at least one printed report
in which Joffe declared that he personally saw the
names of two authors on the 1905 papers: Einstein
and Marity’.To add credibility to their claims, writers who
ascribe such words to Joffe often add that he was a
successful and respected physicist. Hence they attempt
to argue by appeals to authority along with allusions
to purported evidence. But what did Joffe actually
write?First, Zackheim and others are wrong in claiming
that in his book Meetings with physicists Joffe claimed
anything about how the 1905 manuscripts were
signed. He did not even claim to have ever seen them.
As for the article ‘In remembrance of Albert Einstein’,
published in 1955, it was an obituary for Einstein.
Literally translated, it reads:In the year 1905, in Annals of Physics , there
appeared three articles, thereupon beginning
three most important, relevant directions in the
physics of the 20th century. Those were: the
theory of Brownian motion, the photon theory of
light and the theory of relativity. Their author –
unknown until that time, a bureaucrat at the
Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marity (Marity
– the last name of his wife, which by Swiss
custom is added to the last name of the
husband). (Joffe, 1955: 187, trans. A. M.)This passage shows that, for example, Walker’s
‘translation’ is a gross misrepresentation: ‘Their
author was “Einstein-Mariti”.’ Likewise, a few other
writers have distorted Joffe’s words to make it seem
as though he made a controversial claim. It is unusual
that Joffe this one time happened to refer to Einstein
by the name ‘Einstein-Marity’. But that simple
peculiarity does not entail that he ascribed any
authorship to Einstein’s wife. It is clear that Joffe
meant that the author was one person, a male
employee at the patent office, namely Albert Einstein.Still, proponents of Marić have tried to make
something out of the fact that Joffe happened to write
‘Marity’ instead of ‘Marić’. For example, Walker
claimed that Joffe just had to have seen an original
paper, with the name Marity on it, because otherwise
he would not have known the alternative spelling of
Marić, since it ‘apparently is not found in any of the
Einstein biographies ’ (Walker, 1991: 123). Again,
Walker was wrong. The name ‘Marity’ appears, for
example, in Carl Seelig’s well-known biography of
Einstein published in 1954 (p. 29). Moreover, when
Joffe first sought to meet Einstein in Switzerland, he
happened to meet Marić (Joffe, 1967: 889). At the
time, she used the name Einstein-Marity.The key point remains the same. Joffe did not
claim that Marić co-authored or collaborated in any
of Einstein’s papers. And he did not claim that her
name was on the original manuscripts or that he ever
saw any such manuscripts. In multiple places throughout
his career, like anyone else, Joffe acknowledged
Einstein for having authored the famous works of
1905.In a particularly careless confusion, the producers
of Einstein’s Wife and the companion website pictured
a fragment of a page that reads that the articles were
‘signed Einstein-Marity’, purportedly written by Joffe.
But the page pictured is instead from a popular science
book from 1962, by a Russian writer, Daniil
Semenovich Danin, who, again, did not even claim
to have ever seen the original manuscripts or to have
known anyone who had (Danin, 1962: 57).Suppose, imagine, that some credible individual
actually had claimed to have seen manuscripts that
listed Marić as co-author. Would that constitute
evidence? It would only constitute the testimony of
an alleged witness. Further evidence would be
required to substantiate the claim. Likewise, imagine
that a famous scientist, or perhaps a wealthy writer,
gets divorced. And suppose that then the ex-spouse
claims to actually have been the true author of some
works. Such allegation, by itself, would not constitute
authorship. We might reply: ‘That is a serious
allegation.What evidence do you have to support it? ’Lacking evidence, some writers cultivate rampant
speculations. For example, Bjerknes (2002) claims
that Einstein probably stole the credit from Marić and
that she, in turn, probably plagiarised the ideas from
other writers.Who really said what?
In her book, Zackheim (1999) claims that ‘Mileva and
Albert’s son Hans Albert told Peter Michelmore, an
Einstein biographer, that Mileva helped Albert “solve
Certain mathematical problems” .’ (p. 19). Is Zackheim
claiming that Marić spoke with Michelmore? We must
reject that impression because Michelmore never met
Marić. Better syntax would be: ‘Hans Albert Einstein,
son of Mileva and Albert, told Peter Michelmore …’.Michelmore (1962) wrote that, while Einstein
struggled to solve puzzles of relative motion in
electrodynamics, ‘Mileva helped him solve certain
mathematical problems, but nobody could assist with
the creative work, the flow of fresh ideas’(p. 45) .But is it true that Hans Albert really told that to
Michelmore? We do not know. It is conceivable that
he did. But strictly speaking, the historical evidence
does not certify the claim. We know what Michelmore
published. We do not know for certain what parts of
it were really told to him by Hans Albert. He visited
and interviewed Hans Albert for two days in February
of 1962, in California. In his book, Michelmore
admitted that Hans Albert never saw or proofread the
manuscript for the book:he answered all my questions, and waited while
I wrote down the answers. He did not ask to
check my notes, or edit my book. He trusted me.
It was the sort of naiveté his father had. Thank
God for all naive people, and I use the word in
its noblest sense. (p. vii)Unfortunately, when interviewees do not check
writer’s accounts, errors and inaccuracies often
increase.Alongside correct and verifiable statements,
Michelmore’s book also includes incorrect information.
For example, he mentioned that while Einstein
studied at the Polytechnic in Zurich he befriended
‘Maurice Solovine, a Frenchman taking the physics
course ’ (p. 36). But actually, Moritz Solovine was
Romanian, born and educated in Romania, until he
moved, not to Zurich, but to Bern, where he met and
befriended Einstein in 1902, almost two years after
Einstein had graduated at Zurich. Michelmore also
wrote that once Mileva fell in love with Einstein, by
their final year of college, ‘Her personal ambition
had faded’ (p. 36). But we know from letters that she
remained interested in a career at least until mid-1901.
Such inaccuracies detract from the credibility of an
author’s words.Years ago, John Stachel, editor of the Collected
papers of Albert Einstein, enquired whether Michelmore’s
family happened to posses Michelmore’s
manuscript or ideally the notes from the interview
with Hans Albert. The answer was negative. If we
had the notes from the interview, then perhaps we
might know what Hans Albert apparently told
Michelmore.Faced with such ambiguities, each historian must
decide whether to believe, disregard, or at least
incorporate, a given passage into a historical
reconstruction. Personally, in a manuscript that I am
finishing on the origins of special relativity, I chose
to incorporate Michelmore’s suggestive words about
Mileva. But I hope that readers will realise that the
sentence in question is not necessarily a photograph
of the events that happened. It is but a passing claim
that appears in a popular biography written by an
author who only interviewed a son of the individuals
in question, a biography that was not proofread by
the individuals discussed in it or by the interviewee.
It was written and published almost 60 years after the
event in question. Hans Albert himself could not
possibly testify to such an event, since he was a one-year-
old baby in the spring of 1905. Hence, if he
actually spoke such words in 1962, he was merely
voicing a conjecture or echoing words voiced by
someone else. The point is to distinguish this kind of
indirect claim from evidence from the historical
moment.Several documents shed light on Marić around
1905. For example, Krstic provided this translation
of a letter from Marić to her friend Helene Savic,
written after the 1905 papers were published (see endnote
2):My husband spends all of his free time at home,
often playing with the boy; but … I would like to
remark that this, together with his official job, is
not the only work he does – he is writing a great
number of scientific papers. (Krstic, 1991: 94)As usual in her letters to her intimate friend, Mileva
made no claim of working on science herself, ever
since she left college. Now notice the ellipsis in the
quotation above. What did Krstic omit? An uncut
translation of the original letter was published later
by a grandson of Helene Savic (see end-note 3). It
reads:My husband often spends his leisure time at
home playing with the little boy, but to give him
his due, I must note that it is not his only
occupation aside from his official activities; the
papers he has written are already mounting
quite high. (Popovic, 2003: 88)So we see that Krstic chose to omit a phrase in which
Marić herself further acknowledged Einstein’s
labours; she gave him his due credit.Likewise, on 3 September 1909, when Einstein
was receiving much recognition from physicists,
Marić wrote to her friend ‘I am very happy for his
success, because he really does deserve it ’ (Popovic,
2003: 98).Scale of likely reliability for
information sources- 1 Original notes and drafts of the scientist’s
labours and ruminations - 2 Contemporary private diaries of the scientist,
peers, or friends - 3 Contemporary documents such as letters to
friends - 4 Contemporary accounts of statements
among scientists and peers - 5 Manuscripts, the original scientific work
- 6 Early retrospective accounts by the scientist
- 7 Early interviews of the scientist, proofread by
the scientist - 8 Later retrospective accounts by the scientist
- 9 Later interviews of the scientist, proofread by
the scientist - 10 Systematic interviews by historians,
psychologists, or other specialists - 11 Informal interviews of the scientist
- 12 Recollections that exist only in an indirect
form, such as a transcribed lecture - 13 Retrospective accounts that exist only in a
doubly indirect form - 14 Late recollections by an intimate
acquaintance - 15 Biography based on interviews, approved by
the scientist and interviewees - 16 Account based on multiple interviews but not
proofread by the interviewees - 17 Account of interviews with a close relative or
peer, proofread by that person - 18 Material based partly on interviews from a
relative, peer, or acquaintance - 19 Rough translations of biographies or sources
- 20 Hearsay, late indirect accounts of what
someone allegedly told someone else

Distinguishing among sources
Students and laypersons may lack a clear understanding
of the extent to which different sources
warrant different degrees of credibility. Therefore, it
seems useful to illustrate such differences. Historians
sometimes disagree on what weight to attribute to any
one document, but I can at least sketch my own
outlook.The list in Box 1 describes some of the different
kinds of information that may exist pertaining to the
genesis of a scientific work. To distinguish them, I
have ranked them in order of proximity to the
historical event, the instance of scientific creativity.
The greater the number of an item, the less credibility
I would tend to ascribe to it as a likely source of precise
information about that moment in time.This list is not exhaustive. My aim is only to
distinguish among some different kinds of information.
The line following item 5 sets a boundary
between evidence generated during the production of
the scientific work and various kinds of hindsight and
conjecture.In this scale, the biography written by Michelmore
falls on level 18. In contradistinction, a letter by
Einstein to his friend Conrad Habicht, written in May
of 1905, while he was drafting the paper on relativity,
counts as evidence of level 4. That letter, which historians
cite often, is a precious though narrow window
to the creative moment. There are many different kinds
of information between the two, to which we ascribe
various degrees of reliability.For example, in 1922 Einstein delivered a lecture
in Kyoto, Japan, titled ‘How I created the theory of
relativity’. He delivered it in German without having
written it down, and, as he spoke, it was translated
into Japanese. The translator kept notes that were soon
published in Japanese. In my scale, I would rank this
Japanese rendition of the lecture as being of level 13.
It is ‘doubly indirect’ in the sense that Einstein did
not write it, and that we only have the version in
Japanese. It is not a very late document in Einstein’s
life, so that we may imagine that forgetfulness perhaps
did not distort his account very much. But still, the
transcript was not proofread by Einstein. Less
credible, for instance, might be a document placed in
level 14. Consider one such example: a letter written
in 1948 by Michele Besso. At 74 years of age, he
asked whether Einstein’s early reading of a book by
Ernst Mach, following Besso’s suggestion, had been
at the root of Einstein’s thoughts about clocks and
measuring rods when conceiving the theory of
relativity ( Besso and Einstein, 1972: 386 ) . Einstein
replied in the negative. He acknowledged a great
influence of Mach on his intellectual development in
general. But he noted that his reading of DavidHume,
which he discussed with Solovine and Habicht, had
been of greater importance (Besso and Einstein, 1972:
391).Readers can identify how the different claims
about Marić fall at various levels in the list above.
Any document, even a document from level 1, can
include errors, omissions, inaccuracies or even lies.
Likewise, information of all kinds can include truthful
claims, of course. The important point is to realise
that the further a document stands away from the
period it purportedly describes, the more layers of
potential inaccuracy. Inaccuracies can exist in the
translation, rewording, interpolation, and so forth. A
letter written, even decades later, by a participant in
the events in question, can still be very informative,
even though placed at level 14, though we should still
be careful with its contents. More so, an even later
account, by someone who was not present at the events
in question, involves greater uncertainties.
Unfortunately, we cannot always confirm or refute
all such uncertainties. But we should at least
acknowledge them.Teachers should carefully grant different degrees
of trust to various sources. Most readers do not usually
have the time or opportunity to research and examine
the validity of a given source of information.
Nevertheless, one should cultivate a moderate
scepticism, especially against outstanding stories that
resonate with what we would personally like to
believe. We can teach students that historical claims
should be inspected carefully, as when testing
hypotheses in science. Too often, writers enamoured
with a sensational conjecture tend to misread
evidence. Too often, they seek not to test a hypothesis,
but to confirm it. But what makes a good story, or
plausible fiction, is not necessarily what makes good
history.This article was first published in School Science Review and is republished here by permission.
Copyright 2005, Alberto A. Martínez and
School Science Review.End-notes
1 Einstein’s Wife was produced by an Australian company, Melsa Films, in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Oregon Public Broadcasting in the United States.
2 Krstic (1991: 94) dated this letter as being from ‘the very beginning of 1906’.
3 Popovic (2003:88) dated this letter as being from December 1906, apparently following notes by Julka Savic, see p. xi. The historians who edited The collected papers of Albert Einstein Vol. 5 (Klein, Kox and Schulmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) also dated the letter as being from December 1906, owing to its contents (see p. 45). Popovic’s translation is a literal rendering of the original in German (copy at the Einstein Archive, item 70-724; someone wrote ‘juli 1906’ on the letter itself).
References
Besso, M. and Einstein, A. (1972) Correspondance 1903–
1955, with notes and translations by P. Speziali. Paris:
Hermann.Bjerknes, C. J. (2002) Albert Einstein: the incorrigible
plagiarist. Downers Grove, Illinois: XTX Inc.Danin, D. S. (1962) Neizbezhnost strannogo mira. Moscow:
Molodaia Gvardia, Gosudarstvenaaja Biblioteka SSSR.Frank, P. (1949) Einstein, sein leben und seine zeit. Reprint
(1979) Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn.Joffe, A. F. (1955) Pamiati Alberta Einsteina. Uspekhi
fizicheskikh nauk. 57 (2), 187.Joffe, A. F. (1967) 2nd edn. Begegnungen mit Physikern.
Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Translation from the original
(1962) Vstrechi s fizikami moi vospominaniia o
zarubezhnykh fizikah. Moskow: Gosudarstvenoye Idatelstvo
Fiziko-Matematitsheskoi Literatury.Klein, M. J., Kox, A. J. and Schulmann, R. (1993) The
collected papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 5. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.Krstic, D. (1991) Mileva Einstein-Marić. In Hans Albert
Einstein: reminiscences of his life and our life together.
Einstein, E. R. Appendix A, pp. 85–99. Iowa City, Iowa:
Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research.Michelmore, P. (1962) Einstein: profile of the man. New
York: Dodd, Mead & Company.Overbye, D. (2000) Einstein in love: a scientific romance,
New York: Penguin Books.Popovic, M. ed. (2003) In Albert’s shadow: the life and
letters of Mileva Marić, Einstein’s first wife. Baltimore,
Maryland / London, England: Johns Hopkins University
Press.Renn, J. and Schulmann, R. ed. (1992) The love letters.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Letters of Albert
Einstein to Mileva Marić, 4 April 1901 and 27 March 1901,
respectively, trans. Shawn Smith.)Seelig, C. (1954) Albert Einstein, eine dokumentarische
Biographie. Zurich/Stuttgart/Wien: Europa Verlag.Solovine, M. and Einstein, A. (1956) Lettres à Maurice
Solovine. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.Stachel, J. ed. (1987) The collected papers of Albert Einstein,
Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Stachel, J. (1996) Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić: a
collaboration that failed to develop. Reprinted in Stachel, J.
(2002) Einstein from B to Z. pp. 39–55. Boston/Basel/
Berlin, Birkhauser.Trbuhovic-Gjuric, D. (1993) Im Schatten Albert Einsteins,
das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Marić. Bern/
Stuttgart/Wien: Paul Haupt. Translation from the original
(1969) U senci Alberta Ajnstajna. Krusevac: Bagdala.Walker, E. H. (1991) Letter: Mileva Marić’s relativistic role.
Physics Today, 44(2), 123.Zackheim, M. (1999) Einstein’s daughter: the Search for
Lieserl. New York: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam. - 1 Original notes and drafts of the scientist’s
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Dragged Away Kicking and Screaming
Enough of all this pallid nerdy arguing and wondering and marching back and forth. I have been persuaded. much against my better judgment, that what I really want is a very long walk on a mountain trail. I don’t think it is, I think I’ll cry and whine and ask to be carried and say my foot hurts and ask for ice cream and say my face is cold and ask for a cookie and say why aren’t we there yet and ask for brandy and say I want to go home right now. But I have acquiesced, despite the insufficiently theorized nature of this proposed very long walk and the absence of coffee houses and bookshops on this much-advertised trail thingy. I have acquiesced, I have bowed, I have given in, I have said oh all right. I’m told we will see eagles and lions and orcas and lyre birds and stoats and wildebeest, and I must say I do like the sound of that. Not as much as cookies and brandy and coffee, but enough.
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Moral Philosophy
Eve Garrard comments at Normblog on this whole incompletely theorized thing we have going here (though not in those terms, which I have only just this second dragged in). Her comment is interesting, and it helpfully omits the part about being puzzled as to why I keep etc etc (yes, I am having fun with that, why do you ask?) – but it still isn’t quite what I’m talking about, at least I think it isn’t.
It’s very hard to see why we would think that Holocaust-denial ought to be legally permissible unless we think that there’s a moral right in play, that people have a moral right to speak their minds, even if what their minds contain is false and indeed disgusting. But this is what Ophelia jibs at – given that Holocaust-denial involves lies and falsifications, why should we think we have a moral right to engage in it? How can we have a moral right to lie, falsify the evidence, play fast and loose with the truth?
That isn’t exactly what I jib at. Because I don’t think Holocaust denial does necessarily involve lies and falsifications. It can involve error, self-deception, misinterpretation. It can also involve, no doubt, transient lies in speech rather than in print, and it can involve minor infrequent lies in print – lies that are unsystematic enough to fall short of unmistakable deception and falsification. But I take systematic falsification to be a different matter – and, again, I think it is telling that people mostly don’t defend Irving’s right to engage in systematic falsification; at the very least I wonder why that is, and if it doesn’t hint at something.
This is not an unreasonable question. Lies and falsifications are generally (and certainly in the case of Holocaust-denial) morally wrong. And it does seem puzzling, even paradoxical, to say that we can have a moral right to do that which is morally wrong. Nonetheless it’s true that we do: we sometimes have the moral right to act – that is, people ought not to prevent us from acting – in ways which are undoubtedly morally wrong.
Hmm. Which people and in what sense of ‘prevent us’ I wonder. In the examples Eve gives, I’m not sure it’s true that people close to us ought not to try to prevent us by persuasion, for instance. But no doubt she means forcibly prevent, which is another matter. Anyway, this is Eve’s field, and it’s certainly not mine, so I’ll take her word for it. It’s like that comment Jon Pike made in reviewing Honderich in Democratiya – ‘there is a standard, ordinary language distinction between having a right to do X and X being the right thing to do.’ I’ve been keeping it in mind throughout this discussion. But I don’t think it applies to falsification on the scale Irving practiced it – or at least I’m not convinced that it does. I’m just not convinced that he does have a moral right to deliberately falsify the evidence on the scale he did (remember what Lipstadt said: every single footnote had something wrong with it). I don’t think it should be a police matter, I don’t think it should be an imprisonable offence, but I’m still not convinced it’s a free speech right or a moral right. I think it’s something in between those (something not fully theorized, perhaps).
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Oh So That’s What That Is
I’m going to do a Cool Hand Luke on you. What we have here is an incompletely theorized agreement.
From ‘Incompletely Theorized Agreements,’ chapter 2 of Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict by Cass Sunstein, pp 35-37.
Hence the pervasive legal and political phenomenon of an agreement on a general principle alongside disagreement about particular cases. The agreement is incompletely theorized in the sense that it is incompletely specified. Much of the key work must be done by others, often through casuistical judgments at the point of application.
Well there you go. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not so odd – and in fact it happens all the time. That’s what Sunstein means by referring to a ‘pervasive legal and political phenomenon’ – that you see a lot of it. It’s all over the place. It’s not rare. It’s not astonishing or peculiar or inexplicable; it’s pervasive. Pervasive, I tell you! So all these people knitting their brows in puzzlement and surprise and puzzlement at my persistence in seeing problems and ambiguities where they see simplicity and everything being settled, are puzzled at the unpuzzling. In fact, I should be the one who is puzzled at their puzzlement. I’ll do that: I’ll be puzzled. ‘What ho,’ I’ll say, ‘have they never read Cass Sunstein? Whence comes all this perturbation and surprise? This sort of thing is the merest commonplace; it is pervasive.’ Then I’ll polish off that glass of whiskey and demand another, and a pizza while you’re at it.
Abstract provisions protect ‘freedom of speech,’ religious liberty,’ and ‘equality under the law,’ and citizens agree on those abstractions in the midst of sharp disputes about what those provisions really entail.
Don’t we though. That’s all I’m saying. We agree on the abstractions and then immediately proceed to have sharp disputes about what those provisions really entail – disputes which aren’t always and necessarily easily resolved or settled. Disputes which one party can declare settled but which the other party (or parties) can still, however unaccountably and puzzlingly and brow-knittingly, obstinately declare not settled, still open, still unresolved, in fact perhaps of their nature not resolvable to the satisfaction of all people (even all reasonable people, sensible people, paying attention people). The other party remains at liberty (freedom of speech!) to say no, not settled, there are still tensions and competing goods, and I’m not going to say there aren’t, not if it was ever so.
I’m not even being inconsistent. Incoherent, no doubt, unclear, as one reader mentioned, but not inconsistent. I’ve always said I’m not a free speech absolutist; I think it’s a very great good, and certainly a much greater good than the protection of notions such as the holy, the sacred, blasphemy, heresy, orthodoxy, taboo; but I don’t think it trumps everything; there are some cases about which I’m simply ambivalent, I’m uncertain, I’m torn. I’m incompletely theorized.
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Night Waves on Religion
Dennett, Armstrong, Williams, Ruthven discuss.
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Heritage Piously Declared Legacy of All Humanity
But possessive jealousies of particular claimants pose huge obstacles to our common inheritance.
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Hijab Occupies Women’s Lives Even When Off
Their behaviour is ‘veiled’: they must not laugh or speak loudly, nor move freely.
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Fear not of the Unknown but of the All Too Familiar
‘Our own history makes us only too familiar with the dogmatism and fanaticism we see in Islam.’
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‘Lumières!’ Next to ‘Torah, Bible, Koran’
Enlightenment values again under threat from fundamentalism, terrorism, concentration of media power.
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Judith Shklar on Putting Cruelty First
‘To put cruelty first, therefore, is to be at odds with both religion and politics.’
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Not Barking in the Night
Some more house-circling, since Jonathan asked me a question, which seems eccentric after wondering why I keep talking, but never mind.
Jonathan points out that Norm does mention the point about falsifying the evidence; true; a fair cop; I should have looked harder and qualified what I said. But, he only mentions it, he doesn’t address it, and since it’s most of what I’ve been wondering about, I still say he’s been talking past me rather than ‘settl[ing] things pretty definitively’.
Ophelia also stands by her view that Holocaust denial shouldn’t be a criminal offence – from which the inference is surely unavoidable that this is a liberty right that she not merely notes as a legal fact but also endorses. Yet she resists the conclusion that Holocaust denial, falsifying the evidence and so on, is then covered – as she appeared originally to deny, or at least to question – as protected free speech (this, of course, provided it does not breach laws against incitement).
But my whole point has been that Holocaust denial and falsifying the evidence are two separate things, not more or less the same thing along with ‘so on’. Or at least, in the questions I’m asking, they are. I did say that, after all.
But on the other hand, that still leaves out what I’ve been wondering about, which is the fact that Irving did more than just write and publish that the Holocaust did not happen or that it has been exaggerated – he also falsified the evidence…
And (er) so on, for the rest of the paragraph. So Norm mentioned falsifying the evidence, but he didn’t address it, which is what I said in the latest post: ‘Well, he’s no doubt settled what he was talking about, but he hasn’t settled what I’ve been talking about, because he’s barely mentioned it, and he hasn’t addressed it.’ The ‘barely mentioned’ referred to the mention that Jonathan quoted, and the ‘hasn’t addressed it’ referred to just that. I separated the two, for instance by saying that Irving did more than just deny the Holocaust, he falsified the evidence. So a mention of the falsification that runs it together with denial and with so on is just what I’m taking issue with.
Now that I’ve started I’ll just say a little more, since I was meaning perhaps to comment on Norm’s post (not really answer, since I think he’s said all he wants to) anyway. The comment is what I’ve said: I think mere denial is one thing and falsification is another. I don’t think denial should be a crime (although I think it tentatively, and I don’t therefore think Germany and Austria shouldn’t make it a crime – I suspend judgment on that – because they have understandable reasons to do so), but it doesn’t follow that I think falsification of evidence shouldn’t be a crime. I don’t know what I think about that; but I do think they are separate questions. I mentioned that commenters mostly don’t mention the falsification aspect. You get people saying Irving shouldn’t go to jail for an opinion, however offensive it is; you don’t get (so much) people saying Irving shouldn’t go to jail for lying and falsifying evidence. Why is that? One reason, I’m guessing, is that it’s pretty hard to think of any situation in which saying something ‘offensive’ is against the law (except the UK’s blasphemy law – ?) but it is not hard to think of situations when lying is against the law. Vendors can’t lie, you can’t lie in a contract, perjury is against the law; there are all sorts of situations in which falsifying records would be obstruction of justice or fraud and be against the law. So – it’s not self-evidently absurd to think that there is an issue here. Have I been clear enough about it this time? I’m saying that falsification of evidence is not identical or equivalent to saying or writing an offensive opinion.
Jonathan asked:
Perhaps Ophelia might explain what the salient difference is between denying that the Holocaust took place, which is what Norm has been talking about in all his posts, and “falsifying the evidence” about it?
Denial can be a mere opinion, an intepretation of the evidence; it doesn’t entail lying; it needn’t involve perjury. Falsification does entail lying. That’s why millions of dollars were spent on examining Irving’s books – to find evidence that he had falsified, and thus lied, rather than merely been mistaken. That’s what the 2000 trial showed about Irving: he wasn’t just wrong, he wasn’t just wrong and malevolent; he falsified the evidence, and that was not ‘free speech’, it wasn’t protected. That’s the salient difference. I’m not saying therefore he should be in the slammer, I’m just saying there’s an issue. I can’t help suspecting that the reason we don’t hear people defend his right to lie all that much is that they don’t entirely believe in such a right. I don’t entirely believe in it myself – I have grave doubts about it.
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Because I Just Got a Real Estate License, That’s Why
Hmm. I had moved on to other things for the moment, while still planning to say another word or two later if I got around to it. But I’ll say another word or two now, out of irritation. There’s nothing like irritation to cause one to say a word now rather than later. (See, this is where misanthropy comes in. Lycanthropy too, if you argue with wolves. That’s a swell movie with Kevin Bacon – Argues With Wolves.) I’ll tell you why, since you ask.
I’ve been following with some interest the discussion between Norman Geras and Ophelia Benson about David Irving’s imprisonment. Norm’s most recent post seemed to me to settle things pretty definitively…The best sense I can make of Ophelia’s position, which she has reiterated in a further reply to Norm, is that she thinks that Irving deserves all the moral opprobrium, short of legal sanction (which she says she disapproves of), that comes his way…But that doesn’t touch Norm’s point, as he makes clear here. Which is why it seems odd to me that Ophelia should have chosen to go round the houses again – especially as the clearest bit of the new post just restates Norm’s view for him.
Because it’s my Notes and Comment, that’s why (at least, unless and until its owner closes it down, it is). Because I can go around any dang houses I want to go around; because I can bore up one side and down the other if I want to; because I can talk about dust, or shopping lists, or plumbing, or philately, or Akron, or macadam, or laundry, or weeds, or nail clippings, or bus schedules, or any boring thing I think of, that’s why. Because nobody has to read it, that’s why. Because I like going around houses, and around and around and around, and anyone who doesn’t like going around houses doesn’t have to go, so why bother complaining if I like to? Hah?
And since I’m irritated, I’ll point out that in fact some of the things I’ve been talking about have still been left unaddressed and unmentioned by Norm’s definitive posts, and that I’ve mentioned them again, and that this last most definitive post still didn’t mention them. So I’m not so sure things have been settled pretty definitively. Not the things I was talking about anyway…crooning and mumbling away to myself while I went wandering blamelessly and innocently around all these tiresome houses. The main thing that still hasn’t been addressed, that seems to be an elephant in the living room, is the fact that Irving lied and falsified the evidence. I’ve only said that about four times now, but that aspect keeps getting left out so I trudge around the houses again only to have the point about lying and falsification (oh look, it’s not four times, it’s six) left out yet again. And then I get chastised for going around the houses yet again when Norm has definitively settled the matter. Well, he’s no doubt settled what he was talking about, but he hasn’t settled what I’ve been talking about, because he’s barely mentioned it, and he hasn’t addressed it.
And I am not convinced. All right? That’s the reason for all the house-traipsing; I’m not convinced. I’m not convinced people actually think Irving has a right, whether a liberty right or a moral right or a natural right or an inalienable right, to lie and falsify the evidence. And if people do actually think that, I find it odd that they don’t say it more often. That’s where all this started. I wondered why commenters – in newspapers and the like – who talked of Irving and free speech didn’t mention the lying and falsification question. I still wonder. I suspect it’s because they’re not convinced Irving or anyone has such a right any more than I am, but they’re also not sure what they think about that or how to address it, so they don’t, they just cover it up, instead, and talk about the much easier issue, of what is ‘offensive’ or outrageous or the like in what Irving says. Except Lipstadt and Evans, of course. They’re sharply aware of that aspect, and don’t leave it out, but other people do.
So. That is a house that remains insufficiently explored, let alone settled, as far as I’m concerned, and I might go around it yet again at any time, so consider yourselves warned. If you don’t want to go around the houses again, then don’t join the tour.
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Yes Yes and Black is White and Gray is Red
John Gray is naughty. He’s not Leon Wieseltier, he’s not Steve Fuller, but he’s doing the same strawmannish kind of arguing. Why do people do that? It’s odd. Why do they attack things people don’t claim? If the claims haven’t been made, what is the point of attacking them? I mean, what do they get out of it? What is their aim? Wouldn’t you think the point would be to say what is wrong with what the person did actually say, so as to alert readers to that and persuade them of what’s wrong with it? What’s the point of saying what is wrong with things the person didn’t say? It just seems like a waste of time and effort.
Typically, philosophers take it for granted that religions are systems of belief, and condemn them for failing to meet standards of proof that are applied in other areas of human life, above all in science.
That’s just wrong, and crudely wrong. It’s not a matter of ‘standards of proof,’ it’s a matter of evidence. Gray must know that; it’s very basic. So why does he get it wrong? What’s the point? And philosophers don’t typically take it for granted that religions are systems of belief, they typically point out that that is what they are, giving evidence (not proof, evidence) to show that that is true. So right from the start we have Gray misdescribing two central issues. That doesn’t bode well.
One cannot make a sharp distinction between natural processes and supernatural agents unless one presupposes a view of the world something like that presented in the biblical creation story, and the distinction is not found in most of the world’s religions. For example, in animism – which must rank as the oldest and most universal religion – spirits are seen as part of the natural world.
Huh? Why can’t one presuppose a view of the world not at all like that presented in the biblical creation story, and not see ‘spirits’ as part of the natural world because there is no evidence for them?
More fundamentally, it is a mistake to assume that belief is the core of religion. This may seem self-evident to many philosophers, but in fact belief is not very important in most religions…For the majority of humankind, religion has always been about practice rather than belief. In fixating on the belief-content of religion, Dennett emulates Christianity at its most rationalistic and dogmatic.
Well, I’m sorry, but I just don’t ‘believe’ that. I can believe that religion has always been about practice as well as belief, but not rather than. Not around these here monotheistic parts, anyway – and monotheism does take in a fair bit of the planet. Godbotherers do have beliefs about that god. Gray should ask some one of these days.
Wolpert interprets religion as a type of adaptive behaviour in which our beliefs are shaped by our practical needs. Like Dennett, he seems ignorant of the vast range of religious traditions in which belief is peripheral. Again, he thinks of religion as having to do with supernatural phenomena, writing naively: “Religion is concerned with the supernatural, and this involves forces and causes beyond our normal experience of nature.”
Naïvely. What planet does Gray live on? I’d be quite happy to live there too, it sounds much safer than this one, but I have no idea where it is. (Naïve of me, no doubt.)
[I]t is not supernatural belief that is hard-wired in humans: it is the need for myth, and it fuels secular belief as much as traditional religion…Myths are not primitive scientific theories that belong in the infancy of the species. They are symbolic narratives that give meaning to the lives of those who accept them. The chief difference between religious and secular believers is that, while the former have long known their myths to be extremely questionable, the latter imagine their own to be literally true.
Oh, come on. The Iliad is a symbolic narrative that gives meaning, so is Hamlet, so is Wuthering Heights. Religion is something else, and the people who ‘accept’ religion – and there are a good few of them around – do not in the least know their myths to be extremely questionable, which is why they’re always whanging the rest of us over the head with them. This whole silly trope ‘religion is myth is narrative is questionable and tentative and not believed and it is atheism or ‘secular belief’ that is the real religion and that is truly certain and dogmatic and believed without question’ – is false, and endlessly triumphantly smugly recycled as if it were both true and original. How irritating it is. I said Gray isn’t Wieseltier or Fuller, but he does border on arguing in their style here. Very tiresome.
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Not so Fast
It’s great that the Home Office is taking on forced marriage. But in looking at their page on the subject, I was unable to help looking at things in the margin of that page, which prompted feelings of dread and nausea and revulsion. So I clicked one of the links and the feelings got worse. Is this just me? See what you think. The page in question is called (the nausea begins already) ‘Faith Communities’.
Multi-cultural communities are often multi- faith communities and this should be fully recognised in policies aimed at promoting diversity. Fostering understanding and respect between different faiths is vital in practically implementing community cohesion strategies.
Partly it’s just the language. It’s the irritating insistence on repeating the words ‘community’ and ‘faith’ as often as is humanly possible, or indeed oftener. As if anyone might be in danger of not getting the idea, that we’re supposed to think both are good things, really good things, really really good things. And then there is the absurdity of insisting on community and diversity at the same time. Well which is it?! But more basically there is the peremptory expectation of understanding and respect between different ‘faiths’. They don’t get it, do they. ‘Faiths’ are just the things that are not good at mutual ‘respect’ and ‘understanding’ because part of what is supposed to be respected and understood, part of what is supposed to be held as a matter of ‘faith’, is who the Big Guy is, who the Big Guy’s prophets or children or PR agents are, what the Holy Book is; and the ‘faiths’ in question have different answers to those questions. So hammering away at ‘faith’ at the same time as expecting them to understand and respect each other is – ludicrous, frankly. It is only to the degree that the ‘faith’ becomes attenuated and weak and not really doctrinally or dogmatically adhered to that mutual respect and understanding become possible.
And that of course is quite apart from the way that the whole idea simply ignores the existence of the faith-free, and of secularists. And then there’s the thing about community cohesion strategies. Oh how that does make the fjords seem to glimmer invitingly in the distance – the welcome antidote to and refuge from mandatory cohesion. I so don’t want to cohere. You know? Not unless I choose to anyway. Not unless I’m allowed first to consider (quietly, in a corner by myself somewhere, in silence and calm, without any social workers or parish outreach personnel or community cohesion officers gripping me by the back of the neck and squeezing) exactly what it is I’m expected to cohere to. Not unless I have time and ability and suitable conditions to examine every line of the contract before signing it. But that’s just what that passage doesn’t mention. It’s all very unconditional and demanding. It’s like conscription rather than like joining a club. As a matter of fact it’s like forced marriage as opposed to the voluntary kind. Ironic that the HO is opposing forced marriage on one page while demanding rhetorically-forced community cohesion on another page. The problem is the same. No, I want to see if I can stand the prospective spouse first; I want to be able to say no. No, I want to see if I can stand the prospective community first; I want to be able to say no.
And it’s the same with respect and understanding, as well as cohesion. All three of them are things that really shouldn’t be expected or demanded ahead of time, sight unseen, no matter what the content. They all ought to be things that are in our own gift to bestow or withold as we choose. We really have to be able to choose our friends and the people we respect because we actually do respect them, as opposed to having them thrust upon us by the Home Office or by the district nurse.
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Gremlin
Just to let you know, a system crucial for B&W’s functioning seems to have shut down completely, so if it all freezes or disappears, that’s why – it’s not because I’ve run off to the fjords.
Meanwhile I’ll just keep going as long as it works. Who knows, maybe that will be years!
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John Gray on Dennett and Wolpert
Relies on claim that belief is peripheral to religion, and calls others ‘naive’. Hmm.
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Intelligent Design and Stupid Education
Cultural critics of ‘the dominance of the scientific elite’ lay the groundwork.
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Home Office: ‘Faith’: Forced Marriage
‘Forced marriage is an abuse of human rights and cannot be justified on any religious or cultural basis.’
