Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 4/25/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Deceptive tactics seem to be a recurring theme at the Discovery Institute. Its staging of the "Darwin vs. Design" religious event as science comes to mind. Suggesting that a "find-and-replace" name-changing scheme run on the text, OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE, re-qualifies an old, rejected Creationism textbook as a radically new and different Intelligent Design textbook, simply because a new alias has been used comes to mind. There's much to be learned about the ID proponents and deliberate deception in the Kitzmiller v. Dover transcript. If you have some time, check out who paid for the "PANDAS" textbooks in Dover. It makes for some interesting reading.
What about such tactics on the local SMU scene? Anika Smith, a defender of ID and contributing writer to The Daily Campus also appears to be very closely associated with the Discovery Institute. She is listed as "Press Contact: Anika Smith, Discovery Institute" in various internet blogs, and appears to use a Discovery Institute e-mail address and telephone number.
Several Daily Campus readers have found it disturbing that Ms. Smith has co-authored her recent articles with Ms. Sarah Levy as "recent graduate of Seattle Pacific University" and omitted any mention of her Discovery Institute affiliation. She even provided a Seattle Pacific e-mail address.
I personally don't really care how she refers to herself, but I do have two questions I would like to pose to the SMU community:
(1) Why would Ms. Smith omit such a relevant affiliation from her Daily Campus articles? I can only speculate. Perhaps it was embarrassment, perhaps forgetfulness, or perhaps it was purposefully meant to hide this relevant piece of information from the general SMU community.
(2) If the answer to the first question turns out to be the latter, I wonder whether there are any important ethical questions to be asked of both authors, one of whom is a third year law student here at SMU?
John Wise, Ph.D., jwise@smu.edu.
What about such tactics on the local SMU scene? Anika Smith, a defender of ID and contributing writer to The Daily Campus also appears to be very closely associated with the Discovery Institute. She is listed as "Press Contact: Anika Smith, Discovery Institute" in various internet blogs, and appears to use a Discovery Institute e-mail address and telephone number.
Several Daily Campus readers have found it disturbing that Ms. Smith has co-authored her recent articles with Ms. Sarah Levy as "recent graduate of Seattle Pacific University" and omitted any mention of her Discovery Institute affiliation. She even provided a Seattle Pacific e-mail address.
I personally don't really care how she refers to herself, but I do have two questions I would like to pose to the SMU community:
(1) Why would Ms. Smith omit such a relevant affiliation from her Daily Campus articles? I can only speculate. Perhaps it was embarrassment, perhaps forgetfulness, or perhaps it was purposefully meant to hide this relevant piece of information from the general SMU community.
(2) If the answer to the first question turns out to be the latter, I wonder whether there are any important ethical questions to be asked of both authors, one of whom is a third year law student here at SMU?
John Wise, Ph.D., jwise@smu.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Scott Beach
posted 4/26/07 @ 10:31 PM CST
Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute has described Professor John Wise's response to Anika Smith as "nothing more than a string of misdirected or misinformed ad hominem attacks" (http://www. (Continued…)
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