Maintaining Scholarly Standards in Feminist Literature

Abstract

In the editorial Introduction to Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies, published in 2001, can be found the exemplary statement that among the norms for acquiring scientific knowledge is “skepticism (all claims should be scrutinized for errors)”. In this article, I address a section relating to historical contentions in the same volume that, I argue, fails to live up to this basic standard of scholarly research. It is now quite widely believed that Mileva Marić, Einstein’s first wife, played an active role in Einstein’s early scientific work until well after they married in 1903. Some commentators go so far as to argue that she coauthored his three major 1905 papers, while others contend that she solved the mathematical problems for him. I examine the claims made in relation to Marić in the section in question in the above-cited volume, and investigate the sources of the evidential claims that have been adduced to support them. I conclude that the several claims are without reliable evidential bases.