Authority and Authorship in a 21-Century Encyclopaedia and a ‘Very Mysterious Foundation’

In May 2007 the keynote address to the Association of Professional Sri Lankans (APSL) was given by Dr. David Hill, MSc (Eng), MBA, PhD, DSc (Hons), FWIF, FCMI, FRSA. The Chief Executive of the World Innovation Foundation (hereafter the WIF), Hill spoke on the theme of ‘Collaborating for a Better Tomorrow’, offering a sweeping analysis of the political and environmental crises facing denizens of the 21 century. The WIF, Hill told his audience, ‘was formed for the sole purpose of putting the vast collective knowledge base of [the membership of the] WIF to applied projects in the “field”’. At the heart of this base are over one hundred Nobel Laureates, including the now-deceased Glenn Seaborg, a venerable American chemist who smiled down at the audience from Hill’s PowerPoint slide, crooking a finger at a periodic table featuring element 106, ‘Seaborgium’. Hill also mentioned John Argyris, the late chairman of the WIF, a world-renowned engineer. Indeed, Hill concluded, ‘in early 1999 therefore when both Glenn and John were still with us the WIF had debatably at its helm the world’s foremost scientist and engineer’ (WIFa). Much of Hill’s lecture was nothing new; he had delivered an identically worded presentation at the University of Leiden in March 2005