Later, the chief executive of WIF responded, angrily claiming that I was no longer a Fellow and making various demands. Since threatening me never achieves anything I invited him to calm down, and did some investigating of my own.In fairness I should report that he responded very well, apologised fully, and provided some pointers to help me find answers to some of my questions.
I also wrote
I conclude that it is well meaning and that many would endorse the goals on its web site. But I fear that its influence will never match the impressive list of names of its fellows and members (e.g. large numbers of Nobel Prize winners) because most of what it does is done quietly, and done only by a tiny subset. All the rest are happy to announce that they have been chosen to be members or fellows and then forget about it.
I now think that on the basis of the limited investigations I carried out this conclusion was too sweeping, and even if correct at the time could later become, inaccurate -- especially if, as could well happen, the WIF manages to attract funds to support more extensive activities and more of its fellows and members take an active role. Some contributions from people other than the Chief Executive can be found here.
Aaron
6th August 2007
