TIPSters may recall the discussion towards the end of last year of the "Einsteins Wife" documentary broadcast by PBS and the associated website of the same name: http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/
The subject may be off-topic as far as psychology is concerned, but I think it has lessons for anyone involved with education or interested in the dissemination of information of a scientific and/or historical nature to the general public. Gerald Holton, physicist and historian of science, has some pungent comments on the documentary, to which he was one of several contributors who had no idea of the product being planned. On the "film's falsification of Maric's role in the work of Einstein" he writes that "if such a false product were published by a scientist, he or she would be deprived of eligibility of further funding, and (in the USA) punished by the Office of Research Integrity". One has to question the role of the relevant producers at PBS in promoting such a travesty of historical research without submitting their website material for examination to the three physicists and historians who made contributions to the documentary, Gerald Holton, John Stachel and Robert Schulmann, all of whom have detailed knowledge of the subject matter. Holton's comments in full are at: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=201 Gerald Holton's homepage: http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/holton.html An important article on historical research: Martinez, A. A. "Handling evidence in history: The case of Einsteins Wife", School Science Review, March 2005, 86 (316), pp. 49-56: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=183 Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
