���In his 24 August posting on the Lockerbie affair, Mike Palij wrote: >Perhaps it's a good time to remember that even experimental >research only provides tentative knowledge subject to support >through replication. All other 'knowledge' is frequently of even >less quality. [My "scare" quotes!]
I'd like to broaden the discussion to academics and academic literature, mostly out of my own experience. First consider Dr. Hans Koechler, an academic with the impressive credentials of being a professor of political philosophy at Innsbruck University: http://hanskoechler.com/index.htm In relation to the original Lockerbie trial Dr Koechler stated: "In my opinion there seemed [sic] to be considerable political influe nce on the judges and the verdict. My guess [sic] is that it came from the United Kingdom and the United States. This was my impression [sic]." http://i-p-o.org/times.jpg A professor of political philosophy offers his considered opinion in terms of "seems" and "guesses", while displaying a colossal ignorance of UK affairs! Would I buy a used car from Dr Koechler? Only after it had been checked very carefully by an expert. My first close encounter with academic literature occurred in the field of Freud studies. It rapidly became obvious that 'facts' in wide circulation in psychology texts and the academic literature required only the merest examination of original sources (namely Freud's=2 0own writings) and of the work of a few independently minded researchers to demonstrate that they were either false, or at the very least grossly misleading: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/print/borc01_.html More recently I have found a similar uncritical recycling of dubious 'facts' in relation to Einstein (e.g., about his supposedly poor educational prowess), and, especially, concerning the claims that his first wife Mileva Maric collaborated on (indeed was the co-author of) the celebrated 1905 epoch-making papers. I'm no longer talking about feminist academic literature, where unfortunately one has come to expect such things, but in mainstream serious literature. In a book by Ruth H. Howes and Carolin e L. Herzenberg, who both have held distinguished academic positions in physics, we find Mileva Maric hailed as one of the five "Founding Mothers" of nuclear physics (pp. 20, 26-28): http://tinyurl.com/l4c97m In *Creativity and the Brain* (eds. Mario Tokoro, Ken Mogi), Luc Steele, professor of computer science at the Free University of Brussels, writes that "[Einstein's] first wife, Mileva Maric, … is actually credited now with having worked out the mathematics of special relativity", and was a joint author of other important papers (p. 116). In *Alfred North Whitehead on learning and education: theory and application*, Franz G. Riffert (Department for Educational Research and Cultural S ociology at Salzburg University) likens the alleged Einstein/Maric collaboration to that of Whitehead and Russell's joint authorship of *Principia Mathematica* (!) : "The second type of collaboration is typified by the collaboration of a team, such as Whitehead and Russell's collaboration in creating the magnus opus, Principia Mathematica, or that of the young Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric-Einstein, in pondering the questions of light that led to relativity theory." (p. 170) http://tinyurl.com/ldbvup These academic authors show a colossal ignorance of basic facts, such as that Einstein had virtually acquired the knowledge of the rather elementary mathematics required for his 1905 special relativity 20paper by self-study by the age of 15, and that Maric twice failed exams for a diploma to teach mathematics and physics in secondary schools, with a dismally poor grade in the basic mathematical component, theory of functions. So where do they get their 'information' from? They are recycling 'facts' that they read in a book (of which there are now several perpetuating the mythical story). It takes a bit of effort to track down the original sources for these claims, a book and an article by Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric and Senta Troemel-Ploetz respectively, both of which display abysmal scholarship, and a lack of understanding of basic notions of scholarly historical research: http://www.bu tterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=218 However, with a bit of Googling there can be found references to scholarly refutations of the claims by knowledgeable historians of physics, such as Gerald Holton and John Stachel. See also Alberta A. Martinez, "Handling Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein's Wife": http://tinyurl.com/2dzrmo So what general conclusions can be drawn from all this? Don't accept a supposed 'fact' on the basis of its being found repeatedly in serious/academic literature. And, above all, don't be overly impressed by the academic credentials of an author (not even by my B.Sc from University College London!). Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
