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Allen Esterson on Alana Cash on Mileva Marić
February 26th, 2010Evidence lacking, evidence pointing the other way, evidence twisted then twisted again.… Read the rest
Walter Isaacson, Einstein, and Mileva Marić
April 17th, 2007Alan Boyle on Allen Esterson on Mileva Marić
November 4th, 2006The evidence and historical documentation are not there.… Read the rest
Mileva Marić: Einstein’s Wife
March 6th, 2006Allen Esterson on Maintaining Scholarly Standards
March 14th, 2013It is now quite widely believed that Mileva Maric, Einstein’s first wife, played an active role in Einstein’s early scientific work.… Read the rest
On reading with a modicum of scepticism
March 29th, 2011Scientists Anonymous
November 6th, 2010Scholarly Standards in Feminist Science Studies
April 18th, 2010In September 2009 I submitted an article to the feminist journal Women’s Studies International Forum, and in February 2010 I was informed that the journal had decided against publication. Nothing unusual in that, of course. No doubt the great majority of articles submitted to journals are rejected, for a multitude of reasons. But when I enquired why no reason had been given, the Editor-in-Chief replied that the paper had not been sent out for review as she did not feel that it had sufficient evidence in terms of references or citations to back up some of the claims that were made.
Now, whatever deficiencies there may have been in the article, insufficient citation was not one of them. In … Read the rest
Einstein’s Wife: PBS continues to fail the test of integrity
November 12th, 2007What’s my motivation in this scene?
August 6th, 2007Have you read Allen’s article on PBS and Einstein’s wife? PBS is extremely irritating. It’s doing a bad thing. It’s ignoring its plain duty and responsibility. It’s not doing its job properly. It’s sneaking around. First it was stalling and delaying and making excuses, and now it’s sneaking around. It’s being bad. It has not only failed to take down the Einstein’s Wife website, despite the advice of its own ombudsman and despite telling Allen ‘We are looking for additional scholarly review to help us know how to proceed in making sure that the web site content is as accurate as possible,’ it has now commissioned Andrea Gabor to rewrite it. That’s like commissioning Michael Behe to rewrite … Read the rest
Einstein’s Wife: PBS Fails the Test of Integrity
July 31st, 2007Queen Beatrix defends free speech
December 29th, 2006The discussion of what the Statement of Academic Freedom means, of what it means to cover and what (if anything) it doesn’t mean to cover, goes on in comments, so I wanted to add a point or two.
The trouble is that it’s rather carefully worded in such a way that it’s hard to figure out exactly what it does and doesn’t cover. ‘[A]cademics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted liberty to question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions, whether or not these are deemed offensive’ and ‘academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this freedom by members of their staff’. What is ‘received wisdom’ and what are ‘opinions’? … Read the rest
Both sides
November 28th, 2006Alan Boyle posted Allen Esterson’s reply to Troemel-Ploetz on ‘Cosmic Log’ today. I meant to say something else about the November 20 post (the one with Troemel-Ploetz’s reply) yesterday but I forgot. (I know, I know. But I can only hold one thought in my head at a time. Be patient with me.) But it’s interesting, and it’s always coming up. It’s something Boyle said this time:
We’ve gone back and forth over the role that Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, may have played in the development of the special theory of relativity…and now I’ve gotten the other side of the story from Senta Troemel-Ploetz…
The other side. Of the story. But it isn’t a story, and there isn’t … Read the rest
Yes but do you have any actual evidence?
November 27th, 2006So maybe women really do think logic is ‘a pestiferous male invention’ (The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense). It would seem so by this, anyway – Senta Troemel-Ploetz replying on Alan Boyle’s blog to Allen Esterson’s article on Troemel-Ploetz’s paper claiming that Mileva Marić ‘did Einstein’s mathematics.’ It’s a cringe-making performance, frankly. She offers no real evidence, she simply cites ‘a tradition that always attributes achievement to men even if the men themselves claim their wives were the authors’ and then gives three quotations from Einstein to Mileva Marić:
… Read the rest“How happy I am to have found an equal in you (eine ebenbuertige Kreatur) who is as strong and independent as I am.” “Until you are my dear little wife,