  In 2003, Simon Baron-Cohen, a world expert on autism, diagnosed Einstein
posthumously with Asperger's syndrome. I think we cannot diagnose a dead
person. Historians of science have fiercely objected to this trend of
diagnosing deceased scientists by reconstructing from scant evidence, calling
these diagnoses myths. Despite the historians' efforts at demolishing myths,
Einstein has been constantly diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. I will stick
my neck out and suggest in this paper that although historians' critique of
Baron-Cohen and others includes debunking myths, it piggybacks on another myth
that uses the following metaphors: a dull and socially adept Einstein who
worked at Zurich, Prague, Berlin, and Princeton, an industrious scientist who
earned his living through his work as a professor at the university; he had a
special gift of friendship and collegiality, and he was deeply embedded in the
academic community. These explanations do not make sense from the perspective
of Einstein sitting in his office at Princeton, let alone Einstein sitting in
the patent office. This perhaps explains the tendency of people to find
counterclaims and myths more persuasive than historians' explanations which
seem deeply problematic.
