After reading that essay. i got the impression that the author was out to discredit Einstein in the same fashion he accuses Einstein of doing to hold up his theory. he makes sweeping and "exacting statements" but they are making assumptions witch to me appear biased in their motivations.
Two points. one it should be easy now to retest the solar deflection of a star with todays technology thus confirming or rejecting Einstein's theory. this author does not mention any more current experiments .
second. all work of all science is done by building on the work of others Einstein readily admits this. some discoveries have happened at the same time in different parts of the world. and in Einstein's time communication was much less. his letters are what give us a glimpse into his thinking and "discoveries" also creating a new way to interpret data is science and is done all the time and can be quite useful.
i think using a strong word like plagiarism is in an attempt to demonize Einstein as a means to discredit him. something i find to be a sociopath trait. but i resist using such labels as they are defining unfairly an individuals potential in the negative. absolutes wall off learning.
so making such absolute claims to my mind ends the conversation and only reveal someone's agenda to be right. i still make no assumption that what was said in the article is untrue. i question the motive. truth should be the only motive and not an emotional reactionary personal attack bassed on some internal personal conflict.
Chaz

When we assess the great thinkers of the past...we must be careful not to judge the orginality and quality of their ideas and the work that they did to develop those ideas, based on assumptions and partial information. The author of this essay, Moody, has (according to his bio) a degree in geology and has written extensively on the subject of chess. However, his research is only based on approx. 4 years of effort and detailed investigation. Compared to the efforts of many of the great thinkers that he references AND the body of work that Albert Einstein contributed to our knowledge, this is a drop in the ocean. This does not imply though, that his viewpoint is entirely incorrect. Only somewhat limited, in the scope of how important these ideas are to the various fields of science that Einstein is popularily known for.

In a recently published book, "Einstein's Luck - The Truth Behind Some of the Greatest Scientific Discoveries", by John Waller, the background and details of how the Theory of General Relativity grew to be the accepted (as the entirely newest and most important theory of it's time) unfolds as a combination of hard work, thought provoking arguments and complete revisions in the former framework that was thought to be the foundation of the non-mechanistic viewpoint of the universe since Isaac Newton's intensive examinations of these same subjects.

Einstein's theory was only "confirmed" in 1919, because Sir Arthur Eddington massaged the figures for general relativity. Why Eddington did so, and the reasons for his support of Einstein's departure from previous models is considered to be the turning point in the development of science that led to our understanding of Atomic energy and all of the major advances of theoretical physics that have come about since then.

In regarding the importance of Einstein to the "culture" of science and theoretical physics, take into consideration that these are exceptionally difficult concepts to grasp. The history of human thought has rarely encountered such a superbly inventive and reason-defying concept as the general theory of relativity.

In regarding Einstein as a "plagiarist" of Poincare's ideas, the author of this article only examines the span of years between the publishing of the general theory and the 'proof' supplied by Eddington. He does not however, examine the additional material that became the underlying premiss of this whole viewpoint.

In another recently published work, "Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps - Empires of Time" by Peter Galison (who is the Mallinckrodt Professor for the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University) we learn about the fantastic meaning of DISTANT SIMULTANEITY. Einstein's Light Clock model gave the simplist explanation of time dilation by using 2 parallel mirrors with a pulse of light reflecting between them, each traverse of a 'tick' appearing to the observer at rest as a sawtooth wave.

A more generous view--than the viewpoint of Moody--of the importance of the work and life of Albert Einstein, would be that the very starting point of relativity theory consists of a new and very astonishing idea about the properties of time, namely the relativity of simultaneity.

I wonder if Einsteen would think that he was only part of the work since it seems his work talks about everything being connected anyway.

The images I have of him is his devotion to the work, til his death, trying to solve a paradox and the energy he put into it. I heard a quote recently, maybe it was posted on this tribe of him saying how people are looking for ways to satisfy themselves when all they really want is to be really excited about what they do. It sounds like he was.