Hunter Baker / National Review Online Controversy
In 2004 the Harvard Law Review published a review by Lawrence VanDyke, a Harvard Law student, praising a book written by Beckwith that defended the teaching of intelligent design in schools. In response to a scathing review of VanDyke's review by professor of law and philosophy Brian Leiter, the National Review Online published a response to Leiter written by Hunter Baker defending Beckwith and alleging Leiter was "attacking" both a student writer and "academic freedom." Baker's article was republished by the Discovery Institute.
Leiter revealed that Hunter Baker was Beckwith's teaching assistant when he wrote the defense of Beckwith for the National Review, something both Beckwith and Hunter did not disclose. This prompted Leiter to question the journalistic integrity of Baker and to describe such tactics as "fraud" and a "right-wing slime and smear job."
During the controversy over Beckwith's tenure Hunter Baker went on to write another National Review article arguing that the denial of tenure was an attack on academic freedom, again without disclosing his relationship to Beckwith.
Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly reported in the magazine's weblog that this controversy led to the creation of the blog the Panda's Thumb, which has become one of the most notable fora for critics of intelligent design; however, Ed Brayton of the Panda's Thumb stated that the timing was a coincidence.
Read more about this topic: Francis J. Beckwith
Famous quotes containing the words hunter, baker, national, review and/or controversy:
“Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament—you against me!”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)
“American future lies in the East. The great free markets of the Pacific Rim are the American destiny.”
—Donald Freed, U.S. screenwriter, and Arnold M. Stone. Robert Altman. Richard Nixon (Philip Baker Hall)
“I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.”
—Howard Barker (b. 1946)
“Reading any collection of a man’s quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won’t go away hungry, but it’s not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.”
—Christopher Buckley, U.S. author. A review of three books of quotations from Newt Gingrich. “Newtie’s Greatest Hits,” The New York Times Book Review (March 12, 1995)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)