I'm sorry, but parts of this justification strain credulity.

Let's start by making a distinction between the staff of the NMNH and 
the administrator(s) who made the decision to sponsor the film.

The _staff_ of the SI-NMNH didn't agree to bring the film in. In fact, 
members of the staff are among those who objected to the film being 
shown.

The SI-NMNH has a review process, with adults in charge, your so-called 
'gifted people'. The Discovery Institute may be slick but certainly no 
more slick than any for-profit outfit that would ask to rent the 
theatre space.

Further, the process to review and agree to such an agreement is not a 
process subject to high-pressure or episodic time constraints - this 
was not an emergency decision making process where slight errors become 
magnified by rapidly cascading consequences.

The rapid consequences in this case took the form of the many 
exclamations of surprise and disgust that SI-NMNH would condone ID on 
its premises, one such example leading to why the topic is being 
discussed on this mailing list. (The sequence from announcement to 
ersatz-retraction took less than three days.)

This was not an instance of an event 'falling between the cracks' as 
much as one of 'senior administrators' trying to push something 
through. What it shows is that the current NMNH administration includes 
at least some people who have an agenda that is not as 'scientific' as 
they might pretend.

That is, unfortunately, not surprising given all of the changes that 
have taken place (over the past several years) as a result of the 
're-structuring' of the SI by the current government administration, 
which, as anyone should have observed by now, is opposed to certain 
scientific inquiry (climate, ecology, biology, medicine, etc.).


The next stops on this film's circuit will probably NOT be anyone's 
museum, but WILL be your local middle school and high school, as well 
as local PBS stations, no doubt with funding from the Corporation for 
Public Broadcasting.

time to get up!

-L.D.



On Jun 4, 2005, at 12:01 AM, MUSEUM-L automatic digest system wrote:

> Date:    Fri, 3 Jun 2005 14:12:14 -0500
> From:    "Michael A. Mares" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Smithsonian out-maneuvered...
>
> As a member of the Secretary's Smithsonian Council, an advisory
> group, I have had a chance to speak with a senior administrator at
> the Smithsonian Institution about the ID movie situation. I can say
> that the SI was blind-sided by this entire matter. Staff members at
> one level were not aware of what staff members at another level were
> doing. Any of us who have been museum administrators at much smaller
> museums can sympathize with this situation. It is, perhaps, even less
> surprising in an organization with so many thousands of employees and
> with the enormous complexity of the Smithsonian (the SI handles
> 30,000,000 visitors each year). Though all of us attempt to keep our
> fingers on the pulse of our museums, some things do fall between the
> cracks. Unfortunately, this one was a doozy. The Smithsonian is the
> nation's largest and perhaps most public museum. Thus when mistakes
> are made--and this entire matter clearly developed from a mistake by
> one or more staff members--they are writ large.
>
> Unfortunately, once the contract had been signed, there was no good
> way for the SI to get out of it. Many of us might simply have
> cancelled the film on principle, but there are various scenarios that
> could be imagined developing from that decision that might damage the
> institution far more than the damage incurred by the decision that
> was made to permit the film to be shown. There was no good decision
> to be made.
>
> The administrators and staff of the Smithsonian are gifted people who
> have the best interests of the various museums at heart. They manage
> a huge conglomerate of museums for the nation's benefit.
> Unfortunately, they got snookered on this one, and badly so. Yes,
> better controls should have been in place to catch this type of thing
> before it happened, but even the tightest regulations require staff
> members who are alert to often subtle hidden agendas and who know
> exactly what to do in a particular situation. A senior staff member
> might see the ramifications instantly, especially a scientist or
> someone in upper management, but for a marketer, PR person or junior
> staffer to understand a hidden agenda by a very smart group of people
> who have masked their true intentions of taking advantage of a great
> institution, it may be far too much to ask.
>
> A ball was dropped by the Smithsonian Institution. Let this be a
> cautionary tale to all of us. If our great national museum could be
> fooled, for whatever internal reasons based in management. personnel
> mistakes, or failures of internal checks and balances, imagine how
> vulnerable those of us are who work in smaller museums that are not
> quite so public.
>
> Having managed a museum for 20 years I can say that the decisions
> made by senior management before and after any crisis are often
> (maybe always) second guessed by everyone from staff members to the
> public. After you have sat in the "big chair" for a while you realize
> that a decision must be made before things that are going bad in a
> hurry get even worse, and one cannot wait for a broad consensus to
> develop before making the decision. Generally these things are not
> easy calls to make, and no one is so prescient as to know whether or
> not this or that particular decision will prove to be right or wrong.
>
> The Smithsonian is not the villain in this story, it is the victim.
> The Smithsonian--our great national museum-- needs our support in
> this matter, now more than ever.
>
> Tomorrow, the movie will be coming to your museum. What will your 
> decision be?
>

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