I get what you're saying, but they rammed SCIENCE and SCIENTISTS down our throats up to the point the boy "raised by scientists" blurts out that bit of nonsense. Ugh.

I think this is what happens when writers try to write for scientists and people steeped in science. Writers aren't brain surgeons after all and I'd call it lazy writing.

Edison was however involved in the killing of animals by electricity. This included calves and a horse. As for Topsy the elephant, a film crew from the Edison company was present for its killing by electricity, and the film still exists.

We can argue about whether a corporation, and its owners, are complicit in such an outrage by their planned participation. For me there is little moral ambiguity: Edison was a participant and the charge is reasonable. The charge is also consistent with the prior killing of large animals.

To describe it as an 'urban myth' is quibbling at best and deliberately misleading at worst.

Fwiw, Edison wasn't a scientist, he was an inventor. Most of the inventions people credit to him were the work of others. The movie is correct: he was an asshole.

The owners of the circus and elephant planned on their own (at the urging of the ASPCA) to electrocute (humanely) the animal because they couldn't control it and nobody wanted it. Edison had nothing to do with it save for the fact that workers from Edison Electric handled the cabling and the Edison Manufacturing Company filmed the event.

Edison had nothing to do with the decision to electrocute the elephant, he wasn't there when it happened, and the animals he did electrocute during The War of Currents happened 15 years prior. He wasn't even involved in the electric lighting business at that time since being forced out of control of his company 11 years prior.

All of which is to say that Edison DID kill animals by electricity, and that he had a significant involvement in the killing of the elephant in question. Now, none of this was illegal at the time, so I am not suggesting Edison was a criminal. However, this sort of thing would be illegal today and the involvement of the Edison company would have made them criminal accessories, and hence Edison as a principal of the company would have been subject to any repercussions.

As I have already said, it can be argued as to the level of culpability we can dump on Edison himself, and if you want to excuse this sort of thing then knock yourself out. But let's not be saying that this is some kind of urban myth or that Edison had no involvement with the killing of large animals, including an elephant. He did, and that is a matter of fact. Your suggestion that the writers of this movie got it wrong because they have a different opinion to yourself is just special pleading. It is a perfectly reasonable position consistent with the facts.

so... kids of scientist are never wrong or foolish?

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

As I have already said, it can be argued as to the level of culpability we can dump on Edison himself, and if you want to excuse this sort of thing then knock yourself out.

The facts indicate that no, it cannot in fact be argued. Edison did not electrocute the elephant in question.

@Renovatio said:

so... kids of scientist are never wrong or foolish?

A kid born on Mars and "raised by scientists." It took me 10 seconds to find out what really happened. They did everything they could to show how smart the kid was and yet they let him say that.

And now for something completely different. In the "Bob's Burgers" episode, "Topsy," a Thomas Edison-reenactor/substitute elementary school Science teacher is held up for scorn over the "Topsy" electrocution. (Definitely not Science fact, but that's how ordinary folk remember "The Battle of the Currents"/Edison vs. Westinghouse.)