Objection · Case 08 · Science
If the quote may be apocryphal, why include it at all? Using a possibly invented quote, even with caveats, is a bad look on a site about accuracy.
One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Response
It is included precisely to correct the common apologetics practice of quoting it as certain, and the scholarly investigation into its origin is cited. That is the right way to handle a famous but uncertain quotation: report it, cite the study, and rest the point on what is documented, which is Einstein’s own published abandonment of the constant. Treat the quote as a footnote to the documented history, not as the headline.
About this exhibit
This objection is to George Gamow’s report of the blunder remark.
Gamow wrote that Einstein called the cosmological constant the biggest blunder of his life. Later scholarship by Cormac O’Raifeartaigh and colleagues concludes it is very plausible Einstein said…
Under Claim 05: Einstein assumed a static, eternal universe and changed his own equations to keep it that way, a move he later regarded as a serious mistake.