The popular retelling of how Einstein created Special Relativity to "Resolve the contradictions of Michelson-Morly experiments" is very reductive to the history of the question. The epitome is the quote from the paper:

> From the two postulates, Einstein derived the Lorentz trans- formation ...

If Einstein derived them, who is "Lorentz"?

The groundwork for Special Relativity was the study of electrodynamics and symmetries of Maxwell equations. The Einsteins paper was literally called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" and never cites Michelson and Morley.

Einstein seems to be so conveniently dismissive that he knew about the seminal Michelson-Morley experiments but he probably knew about it too well [1].

Einstein is not the first great scientist who are in denial of other important prior contributions, and he also not the last one. Newton also probably knew too well about Al-Haytham (Alhazen), arguably the father of modern science, and his breakthrough experiments but never directly cited Alhazen's works in his seminal books on Optics.

[1] Millikan, Einstein, and the Birth of Relativity (4 letters):

https://www.aps.org/archives/publications/apsnews/200403/let...

"Abraham Pais, who knew Einstein well and wrote his scientific biography, was certain that Einstein did know about Michelson's experiment before 1905. He points out that Einstein was over seventy and in poor health when he spoke to Shankland; at the first interview he probably did not remember that Michelson's experiment is discussed in Lorentz's 1895 monograph, the famous "Versuch", which Einstein had definitely read before 1905."

This isn't offered as a defense of Einstein since I couldn't speculate on what ideas he must have been consciously aware of, but several times in my life I've thought I had a novel idea only to find a very similar idea was in something I read and had just forgotten about. It's a very human phenomenon.

Science rightfully recognizes the mind that doesn't just first describe the idea but provides a robust framework to test it and communicate it.

I agree with you in general. However:

> If Einstein derived them, who is "Lorentz"?

You can (re-) derive a lot of existing stuff.

I get really tired of Einstein being portrayed as if he’s the greatest scientist who ever lived, when he doesn’t even belong in that conversation. If Einstein never existed, the fields he was in were already moving strongly in the directions of his conclusions. If Maxwell or Newton had never existed, the world today would be quite different.