. The problem is that this episode interrupted a substantive discussion some of us were having with Baylor apologists on a related post. We had been arguing that Baylor was not being true to its mission over objections that we were “dragging the school’s name through the mud.” Obviously, such was not the case, and we had pretty much proven the point. So much so, that our critics had run out of excuses and had apparently been silenced.

The news that this new post was a parody changed the dynamic completely. Having been vanquished, our detractors found new life. Suddenly the claim was “see I told you were mean-spirited and this proves it. All those reasoned arguments you presented earlier mean nothing now.” In any other context, this kind of creativity would have been a welcome diversion. But the difference between a diversion and a distraction is timing. Perhaps if we hadn’t already been psychologically invested in the argument, we would have been alert enough to pick up on the joke.

Also, was the letter posted under humor? I have a difficult time seeing the tags because of their color.

Clearly, readers of UD fell for it, but so did many people on the other side, judging by all the many emails they sent President Lilley to confirm whether Botnik’s parody actually represented Lilley’s words

Botnik thought he had ventured beyond “The Edge of Anti-ID”, but apparently didn’t go far enough, since people on both sides believed that a university president might actually pen such a letter.