I don't have any pre-existing bias about Beaty, so I thought I would look at some of his stuff and post a middle view here. He actually has much stuff available, so I can't read it all now, but I tried to read one simple benign looking article, and then I looked at one that seemed more controversial.
First, I looked at this one: http://amasci.com/elect/vwatt1.html entitled "HOW ARE WATTS, OHMS, AMPS, AND VOLTS RELATED?".
I found it to be reasonable accurate from a scientific view, and it seemed like a great way to introduce concepts to beginners. It's useless to me personally, and probably useless to anyone with experience, but I find no objection in the presentation as it seems it would help someone who is struggling to be introduced to the basics.
Then, I looked at this one: http://amasci.com/emotor/cap1.html entitled "Capacitor Complaints".
I fully expected to find objections to the technical presentation here, but to my surprise, I was impressed with the discussion and the analogy. Again, this is useless to me (unless I used it as a teaching point someday), but could be useful to someone learning the basics and confused by the usual presentation.
Clearly, these two articles are far too few to make a real judgement, however, so far I'm encouraged that there is something useful there.
The only thing I take issue with is his needless statements, such as the following from the second article:
"Maybe the more skilled of electrical engineers and scientists gain their extreme expertise NOT through classroom learning. Instead they gain expertise in spite of classroom learning. Maybe the experts are experts because they have fought free of their classroom learning, while the rest of us are still living under the yoke of the many electricity misconceptions we were taught."
He is actually making a good point here because students are required to mentally go beyond classroom learning to become experts. However, he does it in a way that denigrates the traditional approach, which is not a good thing to do to beginners. Why scare them away from the very thing that can help them go to the highest levels? What he calls "misconceptions" are better termed "potential points of misinterpretation". Students and teachers are able to work through these points, no problem for the most part. Misconceptions are not taught by good teachers and texts, but students can misinterpret even the best presentations, especially on tricky points. But, alternate viewpoints, such as Beaty's, can be helpful in the process. I feel that traditional approaches help bring someone to the highest levels needed for real useful design and research work, so why knock that?
Anyway, a person should use any and all methods to learn, especially if they find themselves floundering. I think most people can come up with the types of analogies and ideas that Beaty puts forth, but there is no harm in helping people in this process. Some of the stray comments (needless and useless, at best) should just be ignored. Somewhere I stumbled across a pointless dig against Feynman. There is no cause for such an extreme statement. Feynman had the same goal that Beaty claims, - to make people think and see things from another point of view, and he did that in much more intricate and impressive ways than what I see from Beaty so far, but that is no insult (certainly not intended to be) given the stature of Feynman.
