From The Mailbag (II)

Having read the previous post on the BCSE's treatment of Boris Johnson, one correspondent wrote in:

I enjoyed your post about the "here-today, gone-tomorrow" Boris Johnson page on the BCSE website! For a very brief time yesterday, the BCSE forum showed a post from Roger Stanyard giving Mikey Brass a slap on the wrist for taking the original page down because it had opened them up "to attack" again (I think they mean you). Then the post, which I presume wasn't meant for public consumption, vanished from the forum and - hey presto - the deleted Boris Johnson material reappeared. They're very entertaining, the BCSE lot, I'll give them that!

Another correspondent wrote in to point out that if you follow links from my blog to the BCSE website, they won't work. The BCSE are apparently blocking your page access if they are sent from here. That's rather easy to overcome - after clicking, just press the "Go" button at the end of your URL bar, or click in the URL bar itself and press return.

Quoth the correspondent:

I am ... not a Creationist, or ID supporter...

However, I have been reading with great interest your blog on the BCSE & think you're doing a great job exposing their dishonesty.

...

Looks like there is a deliberate block from your site. In Firefox, hitting the "reload" doesn't work, but if I put the cursor at the end of the address in the address bar and then hit enter.

Since it's so easily defeated, I can't believe how petty they're being!

I may not be able to go with you on creationism/intelligent design, but really these [sic] BCSE mob are beyond belief!

Another:

... the bcse website ... was brought to our attention just last week.

At first we were very alarmed, but as we got into the sight we, like you, were struck by the anonymity of those responsible for it and also the lack of scientific reason, argument and debate. The sinister tone of the site is most unpleasant. The sense of 'organised conspiracy' ... is almost amusing.

A fourth individual writes this:

I came across the BCSE website when I was doing a search related to creationism. I am grateful to BCSE for directing me to your website...

I was not surprised by their dishonesty, but amazed by the inaccuracy and incompleteness of information about creationist scientists and organisations known to me.

...

If they are genuine scientists, I would like to know why they are so incompetent as researchers of information that is so readily available. If they were serious about accurate research, they could ensure that they were better informed by subscribing to the various creation magazines.

To which I say, "hear, hear". Had the BCSE even a weak knowledge of their opponents, then fiascos like the one exposed in their "research" over aliens would not occur.

Unfortunately, though, I don't think this is going to happen. The BCSE's leaders remind me of Richard Dawkins in his attacks on Christianity. Dawkins represents Christianity so poorly that no knowledgeable Christian could possibly be swayed by such a grotesque distortion. Unfortunately, though, Dawkins is so confident of his own correctness that he sees no need to do the proper research that would show him otherwise.

Similarly, the BCSE's leadership are so poorly informed about creationist or Intelligent Design arguments that nobody with even a meagre familiarity with them could find their counter-arguments even relevant, let alone convincing. But at the same time, they are so sure that they are right that they see no need to do any proper research which might convince them otherwise.

This isn't the way to be taken seriously. That's why "BCSE Revealed" is here - so that nobody makes that mistake. There was a letter in the Guardian from Mikey Brass yesterday. Doesn't "Chairman, British Centre for Science Education" sound grand? As if the fellow's worked his way up the ranks, and has now reached the highest echelons in UK science - a heavyweight voice that really needs to be taken seriously? (http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1975176,00.html)

But you, my dear readers, know the reality...

David Anderson

Bits And Pieces

There's been a lot of posting activity lately. I'm rushing to get a number of things published before I have a few days break. In case you've missed them...

• "Slight Credibility Problem..."
  The BCSE has apparently been threatened with legal action by Leeds University - damning evidence about the BCSE's lack of truthfulness and the failure of its bullying tactics.
  
  
• "Anybody Here Speak English?"
  Here, we document the BCSE's dishonesty in representing their opponents.
  
  
• "A Note on the BCSE's Membership"
  Evidence that the BCSE has had great difficulty in attracting members willing to provide any substantial support. Moreover, the newly named committee is entirely composed of those that I named two months previously - the group overwhelmingly dominated by atheist activists.

Since then, the BCSE has been showing more of how it operates by inventing a new spurious legal threat against me. (Just as I predicted it would do after the previous one failed). I have covered that in these three posts:

• "BCSE Attempt More Spurious Legal Threats And Intimidation (Updated)"
• "Wolf! Wolf!"
• "Calling the BCSE's Bluff"
  

I out-manoeuvred the BCSE in this case by calling its bluff and offering to call the police on their behalf. I have received no reply to this offer; and when it was posted on their forum, they deleted it. (Whilst simultaneously complaining on another page on their website that I have never availed myself of the opportunity to post on their forum and am therefore a coward... go figure!). Well, the BCSE's deadline has passed, and so I will be following through on my offer. Really I expect the police to read the BCSE's allegations, say "This is a waste of our time", and go and do some proper work (maybe rapping Mr. Stanyard's knuckles on the way). The point, though, is to expose the BCSE's bullying tactics, just how hollow their threats are, and how unseriously I need to take such crude attempts to silence me with intimidation. (I am encouraged, though, by the offers of help I've had - including more than one offer of legal assistance). At the moment, we'll wait and see what the BCSE do.)

All this serves to give a bit more evidence to "BCSE Revealed" readers of what kind of group the BCSE are.

Boris Johnson MP

Maybe one possible reason why the BCSE want to dissuade me from reading their website is because I keep documenting and exposing its rapid changes. Those changes are never acknowledged - as soon as one slur is debunked another one goes up; no apology, no footnote - just changed as if the previous falsehoods and smears were never there.

One interesting change in this last week has been on the page for Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP for Henley. (I have fond memories of Henley - it is the half-way point for the non-stop 125-mile Devizes to Westminster Canoeing Race which I completed nearly 10 years ago).

The changes give a revealing insight into how the BCSE work.

In short, if you are suspected as being sympathetic to non-Darwinian theories, then you must be portrayed as being stupid, mad, wicked or generally incompetent - and preferably all of the above.

If however, you say anything against intelligent design, creationism or any other alternative to Darwinism, they you must be portrayed as being a credible and competent witness.

There's no question of fairness, balance, honesty or integrity - it all boils down to whether you're for the BCSE's crusade or against it.

So, here's what the BCSE's page on Boris Johnson said when they suspected him of being friendly to creationism:

Johnson needs to be watched like a hawk... Johnson appears to be sympathetic towards creationism.

Then, because all suspected creationists must have some irrelevant smear put upon them in order to discredit anything they believe about origins, this:

Johnson’s past love live seems to make him an unlikely bedfellow of fundamentalists.

...

Johnson cultivates an image as an eccentric, self deprecating, straw-haired fop, disorganised and scatty (he once explained the lateness of his work by claiming that, "Dark forces dragged me away from the keyboard, swirling forces of irresistible intensity and power"). He has also successfully got locked out of his own house in front of reporters (having just told them he would do what he could to save the marriage). His mobile phone has rung twice on BBC programmes — once on Have I Got News for You (HIGNFY), and again while being interviewed on BBC Radio 2 by Richard Allison by, who was unafraid to scold him for it.

In reality, Johnson has a really sharp mind despite the cultivated Bertie Wooster personification. The problem is that there is a lack of the restraining hand of a Jeeves. He gets himself into all kinds of capers (most notably with women – that he wears his hair on back to front doesn’t appear to put them off).

Did you get all that? Johnson is obviously an unreliable and adulterous buffoon, and therefore you should ignore anything he believes about origins.

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/BorisJohnson - before the 17th of December

But Then...

All that changed, though, when one of the BCSE's supporters decided to write to Mr. Johnson, and ask him what he really thought. Our MP wrote back, and said that he was not a creationist.

What happened to the BCSE's page on him, then, do you think? This:

1. All the words about his apparent marital infidelities were removed from the page.
   
   
2. The paragraphs about Johnson's eccentricity and need for a restraining hand were also removed.
   
   
3. Instead of being called simply "Johnson" 7 times throughout the page, he suddenly becomes "Dr. Boris Johnson" in all mentions!
   
   (I looked at his official website, and the profile on his party's website, and Wikipedia, and a fan website, but could not find any mention of this doctorate).

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/BorisJohnson - after the 17th of December


Ho Hum

My point is not to say anything either for or against the BCSE's previous allegations about Mr. Johnson being an adulterous buffoon... my point is to show the BCSE's lack of integrity and consistency.

We're seeing the same old thing again. The BCSE do not behave with even-handedness, honesty or decency. Respect is accorded to you in strict proportion with whether you agree with its hard-line materialism or not.

If you do not agree, then you are unqualified, wicked and eccentric; if you do agree, then you are none of the above. And if the BCSE mistakes whether you agree or not, you can make an amazing transformation from being one to the other, overnight!

Does the BCSE have integrity? Is its website a place to go for reliable, even-handed and honest information? You be the judge...

Update: And within hours of me posting this article, the "Boris Johnson" page was re-written again, to bring back all the previous information... does this smack of desparation?

David Anderson


(Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed).

Calling the BCSE's Bluff

Roger Stanyard has until midnight tomorrow (the 20th of December 2006), to make up his mind about whether he's standing by his allegations of criminality. If he is, then he can look forward to explaining them to the proper authorities. He knows and I know that he doesn't have a shred of evidence - which is why, of course, like most bullies, he just makes spurious threats about calling the police instead of actually doing it.

To:

North Walls Police Station
North Walls
Winchester
SO23 8DW

(Which is a police station under 2 miles from Roger Stanyard's home).

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you about allegations of criminality being publicly made against me by Mr. Roger Stanyard, of number XX, Langton Close, Winchester, SO 22 6RJ. I have written to Mr. Stanyard, asking him to withdraw these allegations - but he has refused to do so.

Therefore, I would like to ask you to investigate these allegations speedily. They are false, Mr. Stanyard refuses to give me any evidence for them, and I desire the public slur on my character to be cleared up as quickly as possible.

The background to Mr. Stanyard's allegations are that he is the spokesman for an activist group (the "British Centre for Science Education") whose dubious credentials and fraudulent methods of operation I have repeatedly exposed on my website. As such, Mr. Stanyard is very keen to discredit me.

Mr. Stanyard alleges that:

• I have been making attempts to "hack or hijack" his organisation's website.
  
  
• In connect with such attempts, I have made "hundreds of failed password attempts". This, he says, is proved by the logs on his website, which identify my computer (by its "IP address").
  
  
• I have consumed "a massive amount of bandwidth" on his website.
  
  
• That he has "received legal counsel" to "contact the police" (which he has not yet done), as I am breaking the "computer misuse act".
  

Mr. Stanyard knows that these allegations are false; I have made no efforts at all to "hack" his organisation's website. Furthermore, Mr. Stanyard knows that my computer accesses his website using the same IP address as many thousands of other Internet users - it is not even technically possible for Mr. Stanyard to pick me out from these users.

I enclose a copy of Mr. Stanyard's allegations from his website, plus some other relevant materials.

I gave Mr. Stanyard a deadline by which to withdraw his allegations. The fact that you are now receiving this letter indicates that he chose not to do so.

I ask you to let me know the outcome of your investigations as promptly as possible.

Kind regards,
David Anderson esq.

(The above article was also copied to roger@dttconsulting.fsnet.co.uk, roger@bcseweb.org.uk, stanyardroger@yahoo.com and committee@bcseweb.org.uk. Or in other words, you can be sure that Mr. Stanyard has seen it. And for the record, in posting part of Mr. Stanyard's address, I am not doing or intending him any harm because he has himself published it in full on another website).

Update 20th December (10 p.m.)
Roger Stanyard is known to be aware of this challenge, as he has posted in a thread on the BCSE forums in which it is mentioned. Another poster in those forums says that I am "obviously" carrying out a "smear campaign" against Roger Stanyard. One more example of the reality blindness that exists over in those forums... hello? Who is the one publishing allegations and making threats about criminality and calling the police, please?

A Note On The BCSE's Membership

(If you want to read the latest on the BCSE's latest backfiring attempt to discredit me, go here).

Some of you may remember the embarassment caused to the BCSE a couple of months ago when I focussed attention on its membership policies (one, two, three).

How The BCSE De-Cloaked

In the first phase of its existence, the BCSE kept very tight-lipped about who its members were; nevertheless, it insisted that it had a considerable number of them - numbers from 80 and increasing. The BCSE revealed an early sensitivity to the charge that its essential membership contained little more than a handful of atheist activists.

However, "BCSE Revealed" shed some light on how the BCSE was obtaining the numbers it was boasting for its "membership" - it simply included everybody who had ever joined its e-mail or web discussion forum. This number included various people who were posting in order to strongly disagree with the BCSE, some obvious pseudonyms - and a significant proportion of people who had never posted and single message and could not be identified at all.

Moving on from there, "BCSE Revealed" then identified who the core members really were. And for the next two months, that was all the information the outside world had available. But in early December, the BCSE finally succumbed to the pressure to name some of its official representatives (beyond the single figure of Roger Stanyard, its "spokesman"), and named a leadership of seven on its website.

Vindication for "BCSE Revealed"

Despite the BCSE linking back to my former article from two months previously with the words "the information is wrong" (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk), the BCSE's list instead gave a boost to "BCSE Revealed" by establishing the accuracy of the identification which I had made two months earlier: all seven of the BCSE's named committee were on the list of ten core, generally religiously motivated activists who I had named , giving my readers a satisfying proof of just how on track I have been.

I found this "list of seven" pleasing for another reason - it meant that the BCSE's efforts to recruit credible and qualified authorities to represent and work with it had failed. Whether this was due to the light shed by "BCSE Revealed" in dissuading any prospective individuals who had been wondering about doing so or not, I do not know - but I can always flatter myself!

Problems Attracting Real Members?

I want today to point to some evidence that the BCSE are having continuing problems in attracting real supporters - supporters, that is, who are willing to do more than just allow their name to boost the purported membership, but to actually do some work.

This is not a new problem - you may remember that back in August, Roger Stanyard, whilst boasting in public that his organisation had 50 members, was saying something quite different in private. Here's what he said in public (from the front page of the BCSE's website on the 18th of August):

(http://www.blackshadow.me.uk)

And here's what he said in private:

(http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/BlackShadow/message/2198)

Well, after "BCSE Revealed" exposed what was going on, the BCSE announced a new policy. From now on, members would only be defined as those who were willing to make a financial contribution.

Now, frankly I think that's a fair policy. It would be a lot better if a minimum contribution was specified, as knowing that someone is willing to back the BCSE with at least 1 penny of their cash doesn't tell us a lot. But it's a start. (There may of course have been a minimum contribution that was just not publicised).

Here's what was said by at least the 6th of November (and possibly earlier) on the BCSE's website about their new rule:

(http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/PressCoverage)

The key thing to note in that quotation is that membership was made "dependent on a financial contribution to BCSE".

However, by the 12th of December, something changed. Because on that date, BCSE Committee Member Ian Lowe announced a new policy:

"Joining the BCSE ... There is no membership fee this year, so if you wish to join, all you have to do is send an e-mail to membership@bcseweb.org.uk including the following information..." - http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3525#3525

What is more, at about the same time, Lowe set up a page on the BCSE website soliciting donations, which was then linked from every page on the BCSE website (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/MakeADonation).

Evaluating This Change

Now, what should we make of this change in policy?

Of course, I don't have any of the BCSE's internal records, but I think it's pretty clear that the "you must give the BCSE some money before you can join the membership" policy was not working.

If the BCSE was successfully recruiting members who were willing to pay a subscription, then why would the subscription fee be dropped? If people were signing up in good numbers to the BCSE's agenda and providing money to forward it, then why would they stop asking them to?

There is only one obvious reason why the BCSE should perform a U-turn and announce that membership will, after all, be free. The people who were willingly to support them on any other terms simply didn't exist in sufficient numbers to make the BCSE viable. Hence a new method of raising money had to be found - such as providing a link to solicit donations from every page of the BCSE's website.


If this is correct, then it provides further evidence (on top of that from the eventually announced committee) that the BCSE is failing to persuade outsiders of its credibility. No matter how much protestation it adds to the front page of its website that its leadership are not religiously motivated, it is not managing to be convincing. (And those who share their religious motivations are apparently not willing to bet on the BCSE's competence to help forward them).

And how could the BCSE be convincing, when "BCSE Revealed" keeps showing them up? Let's remember again the words of two individuals who the BCSE previously claimed amongst its membership, but who have since distanced themselves:

1. "I am against fighting alongside other members of BSCE who are, themselves, religiously motivated" and "One of the reasons I distanced myself from the BSCE is for the very reason you have pinned that they are ... a small number of individuals claiming to be something bigger than they are." - see here.
   
   
2. "I am fed and bored with the strident tones of BCSE.
   
   ... many posters prattle on about Dawkins' nonsense about religion being a virus and faith contrary to reason (and moderators delete my posts if I challenge them) and adopt this view with no understanding and less tolerance.
   
   ...
   
   I expect BCSE (BSE?) to be fatal and soon disappear.
   
   Many of their articles are both shoddy and strident.
   
   ...
   
   I was fed up with atheistic bigotry." - see here.
   

I have three final thoughts:

1. It is interesting to note what details (in the previous quote) Ian Lowe says that would-be members have to send in:
   
   
   • Your Name
   • Postal Address
     
   • Preferred Email Address
   • Your worldview – Atheist, Agnostic, Theist, Christian etc. (optional: This will be used *only* to provide broad membership statistics, and for no other purpose.)
     
     
   What's missing from that list? Oh yes - any details about whether you have any scientific or education credentials! Not surprising - we have already seen that if there were any kind of test for such credentials before you could become a member of this "Centre for Science Education", then most of the BCSE leadership themselves would not pass (Lowe himself included).
   
   But notice what Lowe is interested to know about - your religion. Not science - religion. The BCSE's website, discussion forums and leaderships' motivations are full of religion - we keep seeing that. Little science - plenty of religion. Quite telling, isn't it?
   
   
2. I wonder if the BCSE will now resurrect its previous practice of claiming to have large numbers of members? But now at least they know that this won't fool anyone - we now know that membership can be obtained in exchange for a mere e-mail.
   
   
3. If the BCSE makes it into future years, I wonder what their renewal policy will be. Will members be culled from the list unless they send money next time? Or will the BCSE resurrect its previous practice of defining members in such a way that the number can only realistically go up, and never down?
   
   

Whatever happens, one thing is clear - all is not well for the BCSE.

David Anderson


(Some of the links above refer to pages which existed previously but which the BCSE have removed - I have archives of all cited evidence and am willing to provide copies to any researches who wish to verify my accuracy).

"Wolf! Wolf!"

To follow this post you'll need to be familiar with the fairly short one that sets the context - "BCSE Attempt More Spurious Legal Threats And Intimidation (Updated)". If, however, you want the big picture on the BCSE then you should skip over this post to see some of the previous research.

In the previous post, you'll remember that we saw two things:

• The BCSE's disastrous attempt to discredit me by inventing a new theory of copyright law hasn't put them off from trying again.
  
  
• The BCSE's new attempt is turning out to be equally disastrous. Without producing any evidence, they have accused me of "hacking" their web-site, making "hundreds" of attempts to crack passwords, and consuming "massive amounts of bandwidth". And they do some big talking about calling the police - to which I say, "bring it on!".
  

I think you'll want to read this new response down to the bottom - some of the more damning evidence of the BCSE's incompetence in how it was led to this new allegation is in the second part.

After I blogged my response and asked the BCSE to reproduce it on the forum, something interesting happened. You may remember that the BCSE's page on their website which seeks to discredit me says a couple of relevant things:

• I am "free to reply to our comments through [their] public forum". And they say I'm "scared" to do so.
  
  
• They throw in a bit of irrelevant stuff about other people (presumably because the material available to rebut BCSE-Revealed was a bit thin...). One of these criticisms is of William Dembski's blog over at www.uncommondescent.com. According to the BCSE, this is a "notoriously censored" blog - by which they presumably mean that comments are sometimes deleted.
  

Well, if you were to look at the BCSE's forum now, you'll see this:

In case you can't make that out, it says that there are no (0) replies to what Stanyard posted.

If, however, you were to have looked at the same page on Saturday evening, you'd see this...

Hmmm! Four replies! Where did they go?

Here's what happened:

• I asked the BCSE to publish my reply on their forum.
  
  
• They completely ignored this request. So much for all the waffle about being "free to reply", and too "scared" to do so. I sent them a reply, they refuse to publish it! Big words - but when challenged... (for more of which, see the footnote here).
  
  
• One poster suggested calling the police immediately. Though the intention was obstensibly malicious, I'm all for this. Big-talkers need their bluff to be called!
  
  
• However, Ian Lowe did instead post a reply, in which he stated: "he claims that he was "only" taking a complete copy of our website, including the forums, once a day, every day - as if that makes it okay!!!)"
  Anybody who has read my e-mail, though, will know that Lowe was entirely fabricating - it says no such thing.
  
  
  
  
• A little later, an apparently sympathetic poster, noting my desire to have my reply added to the forum, did so.
  
  
• And just minutes after that... Lowe deleted it. Moreover, he e-mailed the poster to scold him for doing so. That poster apparently decided that enough BCSE hypocrisy was enough, and forwarded Lowe's comments to me. Here is what he said:
  
  David,
  
  Just 13 minutes after I posted my message, I recived this message [Forum time 10.17pm, 16 Dec] from Ian Lowe, accompanied by a terse note: "Your post has been deleted":
  
  "You clearly posted David Anderson's Blog post as an act of mischief. Please do not post this material to our forum again. If anyone wants to read David Anderson's lies, they can do it at his own damn website. Ian."
  
  Remember, that though the BCSE has put all this effort into seeking to discredit me (including a series of private abusive e-mails from Lowe himself), they haven't yet documented any of my "lies". So much effort... still no substance.
  
  
• And at some point after that, all the replies were removed - including the one which effectively called the BCSE's bluff in urging them to call the police.
  

Where does this leave all that fine sounding talk about the BCSE's desire to see me reply to their forum, I wonder? And how about that grand talk about "censorship"? And all that complaining about being "smeared" with no right of reply?

Ho hum. It leaves it where we've left an awful lot of other subjects - with the BCSE's hypocrisy, bias and true agenda once again exposed for us all to see.

More Tricky Problems for the BCSE...

If the BCSE want to make the "Anderson is hacking our website and consuming all our bandwidth - we're thinking of calling the police!" line stick, then I've got a few more problems for them - some of which are pretty major.

• I'm only on a £9.99 per month bandwidth-limited account... please do tell, how have I managed to consume such massive amounts of bandwidth from your site? I must be a genius - especially with all the bandwidth I've used up this month downloading highlights of the Ashes... (sorry to mention the A-word.)
  
  
• Visiting http://www.whatismyip.co.uk/ shows that my IP address is 62.254.128.4 (oxfd-cache-1.server.ntli.net):
  
  My ISP is on the NTL backbone (the "NTL" in "ntli.net"), and as such, all of my web accesses come through the nearest NTL proxy - which is in Oxford (a 113 mile journey, according to Google). NTL appear to funnel all web traffic through their regional proxies.
  
  NTL are one of the biggest backbones; I don't have the figures, but I'd guess that, say, a third of all domestic Internet traffic is routed through them. (A source from May 2005 states that they claimed to be the UK's largest consumer ISP).
  
  It seems that the BCSE identified my IP address, and then jumped to the conclusion that every access from that address must be me. Or in other words, they attributed all visits to their website from NTL's Oxford cache to me. Obviously NTL's Oxford cache covers a huge area (it's a good 2 and a half hours in the car from here to Oxford).
  
  ... and so it's pretty obvious that whoever in the BCSE identified the whole of this traffic as being from me blundered pretty big. Just who is the BCSE's IT Manager, I wonder? It's Ian Lowe...
  
  
  http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/
  
  
  
  I wonder if now the other BCSE members are feeling pretty stupid that they took Ian's word for it. And that upon that word have made themselves look silly again?
  
  Stanyard, wrote, in order to provide the damning evidence of my guilt: "In his blog this week he admitted that it was him - the same IP address which accessed our "AllRecentChanges" page attempted to log into the private areas of our website more than two hundred times in four days." (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3795#3795) Stanyard, though, appears not to have been informed by Lowe that the very "same IP address" is shared by hundreds of thousands of households over an area of hundreds of square miles.... ooops. I wonder what he'll be saying to Lowe now.
  
  
• Whilst I have downloaded a complete copy of the BCSE's website and forum, I'd love to see how the BCSE argue that this is illegal. If it's illegal to read to the pages on their website... then just why did they put them there anyway?
  (By the way, a complete copy of the website takes up only 5.7Mb on disk - hardly "massive"... it's about the same size as a single MP3 download of one of my sermons).
  
  
• I also have a complete copy of Truth in Science's website, and of my own blog too. In fact, the backups of TiS which I have take up more space on my computer than those of the BCSE... so am I hacking TiS too? (And if I'm consuming massive amounts of BCSE bandwidth, then I must be consuming more from TiS - all on that £9.99 a month limited-download package!).
  
  
• More on the reliability of Lowe's testimony in general... let's bring out this quote again, in which Lowe explains what he aims to do in his campaigning with the BCSE:
  
  It should be relatively easy to rally against the fundies.
  
  Pick an obnoxious trait, focus on what that would mean for the public at large, exaggerate it, and demonise that trait to the point that no rational person would consider supporting them. - see here.
  

That's right, folks. For it's new attempt to discredit me, the BCSE is producing no evidence on its website that anyone independent can verify, but merely asking you to take the word of an incompetent IT manager who has already been exposed as stating that he deliberately intends to lie in order to help the BCSE's campaign....

... which is of course why I look forward to the BCSE calling the police so that we can see just how seriously they're taken. Come on guys! I'm calling your bluff!

The aim of "BCSE Revealed" is to show how the BCSE operate, and assess their level of competency and credibility. And that's what we've just done.

David Anderson

BCSE Attempt More Spurious Legal Threats And Intimidation (Updated)

Readers may remember that the BCSE previously tried to discredit me and intimidate me into silence by inventing a new legal theory of copyright.

This claim rather badly backfired, because:

1. I wasn't so silly as to take their word for it,
   
   
2. I had already checked my facts on what copyright law permitted, and
   
   
3. It was rather easy to demonstrate that the BCSE were and are flouting actual copyright laws on a significant scale.
   

You can read about that here: one, two, three.

Let's Try Something Else...

Well, the BCSE are today trying a new one. On their forum, they have put up a "sticky" (i.e. permanently visible) post claiming that I have been attempting to "hack" or "hijack" their website. Roger Stanyard goes on to write:

An examination of our server logs shows clear evidence that he has been using software to search every single section of our website, and have made numerous attempts to access the restricted areas of both our website and forums - the logs show him are responsible for hundreds of failed password attempts and consumption of a massive amount of our bandwidth. - http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3795#3795

And accordingly, Mr. Stanyard goes on to explain, he has taken advice from "legal counsel", who have told him to inform my ISP, block my access, and tell the police. Ouch! Of course, those "server logs" are not put up for you or anyone else to verify...

Now, given the BCSE's previous pronounciations on copyright law, I'm inclined to believe that Stanyard's "legal counsel" is probably Stanyard himself, or failing that, his budgie. Certainly it's hard to believe that it's somebody with legal training! My budgie, though, tells me that Stanyard would probably end up having to answer questions about wasting police time.

Anyway, the BCSE sent the same to me in an e-mail. Here is the reply I sent them:

Dear Mr. Lowe / BCSE Committee,

This e-mail contains misdirection and misinformation.


The fact:
* I employ a program which downloads a full copy of your website.


Your misdirection and misinformation:

* Said program makes no attempt to guess any passwords. ("failed password attempts").

* Said program makes no attempt to "hack". In fact, it doesn't even include such a facility - it is merely a program for downloading web pages.

* Said program makes no attempt "to log into the private areas". (Of course the program gets served up with a number of password forms when it tries to view protected content, but it makes no attempt to actually guess a password or perform a log in).

As such, your claim to have found "clear evidence" "literally hundreds of failed password attempts" is false.

My ISP has not troubled itself to be in touch and so I assume that it takes your attempt to intimidate me with further spurious legal threats about as seriously as I do.

I will be grateful if you would add this response to your forum.

Kind regards,
David Anderson

I do not know whether the BCSE actually know that they are misdirecting, or if their IT manager (which according to their website is Ian Lowe) is simply incompetent at reading log files.

Either way, though, it's clear that they rushed to publish something on their website to discredit and/or threaten me (and report me to my ISP) without troubling themselves to check out the facts.

And that's one more piece of evidence about the way the BCSE do business. Each time this happens to me, I'm going to ask my readers: "And do you think they've done any less of a hatchet job on any of the other non-Darwinists they give you their 'research' on in their website?"

Maybe one day some of the BCSE's core will wake-up and say: "Hmmm. We were wrong about that one too. I wonder how much else we could be wrong about?" Until then though, "BCSE Revealed" presses on...

Update: Instead of publishing the above e-mail as requested, Ian Lowe added some new falsehoods to Roger Stanyard's original claim. Amazing. (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3814#3814) Notice what Ian says: "he claims that he was 'only' taking a complete copy of our website, including the forums, once a day, every day - as if that makes it okay!!!" Now, you've read the e-mail above. Can you find anything resembling what Ian says in it? (I don't take a copy daily, by the way - or even close. I'm on a limited package with my Internet Service Provider, and if I downloaded anything like as much data as Ian suggests, I would use up my monthly allowance within days). Can you find the word which Ian puts in quotes? ("only"). Can you find any word connected with "day", "daily" or "every"? Is Ian being even remotely truthful?


I'm glad again to demonstrate again what's going on here - the BCSE continues to invent words, meanings and slurs out of thing air (for more of which, see here)... which is of course, precisely what "BCSE Revealed" exists to document. And to that sort of thing, I blow (blog) one big fat raspberry.

David Anderson
bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk

Anybody Here Speak English?

(If you've missed the story about the BCSE being threatened with legal action by a leading UK university, see here).

In a previous investigation (one, two), I looked at some of the BCSE's "Research" (main article, follow-up). My aim is not to debunk every article on the BCSE website - but to show the BCSE's general practice of mangling the truth beyond all recognition. In that investigation, we saw how the BCSE took and misunderstood one claim from a secondary source, and blew it up to make generalisations about the whole creationist movement - claims which just a moment's research or basic knowledge would have shown to be completely false. That the BCSE had not done that basic research and did not possess that knowledge, is rather telling.

Today's Agenda

Today, I want to show you more of the extremes that the BCSE go to in manging the truth in order to make their case. Again, I want to make the case that the BCSE's handling of facts is utterly unreliable. I will show you more of their practice in twisting, distorting and misrepresentation. I hope that you will agree with me that the BCSE are thoroughly unreliable.

Where Are The Solid Arguments?

As you surely know, I'm not a Darwinist. Therefore, I don't agree with the BCSE's campaigning position that Darwinism is proven scientific truth. I agree with British philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge: "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."[1]

I am, however, heartened by the inability of the BCSE to string together a decent argument against either intelligent design or creationism or their proponents - without resorting to caricature, distortion and naked ad-hominem. This inability, to my mind, shows up just how weak the BCSE's case really is.

The aim of the following paragraphs is to show you another prominent example from the BCSE's web site of its penchant for distortion. As you go along, I want you to ask the question that I've been asking - "Why do they do that? If they have good arguments, then why not bring them out instead of this kind of thing?"
Charlatans

This investigation starts off with a quotation reproduced on the BCSE's site, and referred to 13 times. It apparently comes from Stuart Burgess, Professor of Engineering at Bristol University, speaking at some point in or before March 2004. In this quote, Professor Burgess is apparently explaining to some of his Christian friends what he hopes the as-yet-unlaunched (for more than another 2 years) Truth in Science organisation will help to accomplish:

"Non-believers must be challenged in such a way that they can no longer hide behind the delusion that science has disproved the existence of God. TIS seeks to encourage scientists to present the truth fairly and to expose as charlatans those who deliberately mislead."

Now, let us assume that this quote is genuine. Notice what Burgess says he is concerned about, in the first sentence: people hiding behind the "delusion" that God has somehow been disproved by science. (It is hard to read this statement today without being reminded of Richard Dawkins and his new book - which argues precisely this).

Burgess hopes that such a "challenge" will "encourage scientists" to not distort the truth, but to present it fairly. That seems like a fair aim to me. Nevertheless, Burgess doesn't appear to believe that this aim will meet with universal success - there will be some who "deliberately mislead". In context, Burgess means those who argue, as Dawkins, that the non-existence of God is provable from science. In a recent Time Magazine interview, Dawkins wrote: "The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no." [2] Those who "deliberately" argue in this way, according to Burgess, are "charlatans" who need to be "exposed".

Now, frankly I agree with Burgess. And reviewers of Dawkins' book seem to agree - many of Dawkins' favourite arguments against God are not scientific, but philosophical. Not only that, but the kind of philosophical arguments that a beginner in the subject would be embarrassed to allege were unanswerable. "Who designed the designer?" "If there is a God, why is there so much evil in the world / evil done in God's name?" and so on[3]. Real science, on the other hand, gives plenty of data which would lead us to believe that there is a super-intelligence behind the universe: data such as the existence of a physical universe in the first place, or the incredibly complex coding to be found in the genetic material of even the "simplest" organisms, or the existence of intelligent life, or the existence of self-consciousness and so-on: all real, detectable phenomena than defy materialistic explanations for their origins.

But the point is not whether or not I agree with Burgess. The point is to note what Burgess actually says. Note this carefully:

1. There are some people who are peddling the "delusion" that science has proved an atheistic position.
   


2. Those who are doing this in order to "deliberately mislead" (i.e. atheist activists who seek to co-opt "science" as their ally) ought to be exposed - because they are "charlatans".
   

What Do The BCSE Make Of That?

I have collected 13 sentences from the BCSE website which refer to this quotation. Let us see how they use it. It will give us another data-point to see how fairly and accurately the BCSE interpret their sources.

The first 7 usages are from this page: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/TruthInScience

1. "Truth in Science is on record as saying that its objectives are to confront people who don’t agree with its religious opinions and expose them as charlatans".

There are two very obvious inaccuracies with this first use of the quotation:

1. The Burgess quote talks about deliberately bogus appeals to science; the BCSE instead talk about "religious opinions".


2. The Burgess quote mentions confronting deliberate deceivers - but the BCSE refers it instead to anyone who doesn't agree with Truth in Science's position.

That's a pretty severe mangling by any standard. Not a good start - what Burgess actually said is unrecognisable after here after passing through the BCSE editor's hands.

2. "The original article on Truth in Science ... clearly stated that the aims of the organisation were religious and to expose those that disagreed with it as charlatans. That means people who teach science..."

We might not have thought it possible, but this usage is even worse - being precisely opposite to what the quote actually says.

Whereas Burgess expresses the desire to confront those who deliberately misuse science to promote atheism, the BCSE manage to contort it into a statement against those who properly teach science. The BCSE take Burgess to be aiming at anyone who disagrees with Truth in Science - whereas Burgess explicitly limited his statement to those who deceive deliberately. Quite a difference, I think.

There are, though, another two problems with making this quote apply to "Truth in Science" instead of just Burgess:

1. Stuart Burgess is not one of the directors of Truth in Science - he is one of the Council of Reference. In other words, he is an advisor - not an official.
   


2. At the time that Burgess spoke the words, Truth in Science was, according to Companies' House, still a year away from existing. (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/9605c66e71302864b48a95fea6d2ae3d/compdetails)
   

As such, it is not obvious to me that it is legitimate to generalise from Burgess' early thoughts to an official pronouncement, as the BCSE do.

3. "... there is nothing fair and balanced about Truth in Science. It has demonstrated in public that it is highly confrontational and believes that scientists and teachers who disagree with it are charlatans."

Here, Burgess' remarks amongst those symphathetic to him have become a public confrontation with those opposed (unless this sentence is referring to something else). And whereas only spoke of exposing scientists, the BCSE now bring in teachers too. And once again, the BCSE remove all limits off the original statement - whichever scientist or teacher disagrees and for whatever reason and whatever motive is now said to be a charlatan. That's a pretty drastic mangling of the quote.

4. "... this organisation is aiming for students at Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester Metropolitan University to accept that the academics teaching them are 'charlatans'. Yes, that’s the very word they are using."

Either the BCSE have again grossly mis-quoted Burgess, or they are alleging that the academics at the named universities are deliberately indoctrinating their students in atheism on the grounds of bogus science. I think it's more likely that it's the former!

5. "But you will still be paying part of their salaries. Really democratic, isn't it? They take your money, deceive you and the government in lobbying, call you a charlatan if you disagree with them and, all the time, they are attempting to hijack the education system."

This statement is rather bizarre. The author appears to be under the impression that Truth in Science is publically funded. Either that, or it is implying that anyone who is publically funded is not allowed to dispute Darwinism in his own time. Either way, the author seems to have some very peculiar ideas.

The point, though, is that again in this reference to "charlatans", all limits have been taken off the quote, and it is made to apply to anyone who disagrees. For emotive value (presumably), the BCSE makes it apply to you. Are you offended now? Aren't those Truth in Science people real bad eggs? See - they've called you a charlatan! Apparently.

This isn't a good record so far - 5 references, and all 5 are complete distortions. Will we come across a single fair use?

Talk about deceiving the government is of course particularly rich for the BCSE, bearing in mind its own documented record of telling known falsehoods to MPs about Truth in Science.

6. "McIntosh, Burgess, and Linkens ... continue to draw salaries from universities full of charlatans, including the students they teach."

Here, it's not only the university lecturers who are charlatans - but the students too! This is a further widening in the usage of the quote. By this point in the article, the quote has morphed beyond all recognition. We note too the BCSE's implicit sugestion that academics not towing the Darwinist line ought to be sacked. Wow! Is this what they mean on the front page of their website when they say, "BCSE believes in ... Pluralism, Freedom and Righteousness." ?

7. "those that don’t agree with Layfield and his pals are 'charlatans'. The authors of biology textbooks used in schools are charlatans because they don’t accept Layfield’s religious opinions."

This quote refers to Stephen Layfield, a former director of Truth in Science. As such, we imagine that it is a case of the BCSE failing to keep its website up to date. (Leaving aside the issue if whether Professor Burgess' quotes a year before Truth in Science legally existed can be put into the mouth of anyone associated with them).

But notice who is now taken into the quote - "authors of biology textbooks". Why, we ask? Are biology textbooks now arguing that atheism has been proved by science? If they are, then certainly those authors are charlatans... but that's not the case. The case is that it's another gross misrepresentation of Burgess' quote by the BCSE.

Note again what it is that qualifies one as a charlatan in this instance - not accepting "Layfield's religious opinions". Not "promoting atheism whilst using alleged science as a trojan horse" as in the original quote - but Mr. Layfield's "religious opinions". Are there any usages which the BCSE couldn't find for this quote?

The next five references to the quote come on this page: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/AndyMcIntosh

8. "may we remind the reader that anybody who believes in evolution (and the old age of the earth) is, according to McIntosh, a charlatan."

As far as I can see, there is no material on the Truth in Science site relating to the age of the earth. As such, this is another invention by the BCSE.

But note again: it's "anyone who believes in evolution" who's roped in this time. Not just people promoting atheism by abusing science - it is anyone at all who believes in evolution, whether Christian, Muslim, theist or atheist.

Quite clearly, again, the BCSE have just made this up. The words which they this time attribute to McIntosh bear no resemblance to the ones that Burgess actually spoke. Why, if there is real evidence to discredit Truth in Science, do the BCSE have to invent bogus quotes out of thin air?

9. "Perhaps he is unaware of Professor Kenneth Miller (another charlatan, according to the arrogance of Truth in Science). Miller is a practising Catholic and a world-class authority on biology."

This reference is especially perverse. Here, the BCSE make it apply to a Catholic - who by no stretch of the imagination could be represented as a campaigning atheist.

10. "those that McIntosh disagrees with are 'charlatans' and are to be 'exposed' as such such. These are respected, decent and highly qualified academics and, indeed, decent members of the public that are to be exposed as charlatans – including academic staff and students."

This reference is so far twisted that it says the very opposite of what Burgess actually said. Whereas Burgess actually said that those who deliberately mislead ought to be exposed, the BCSE here make it say that "respected, decent" academics and "decent" members of the public are the targets. Unless being "respected and decent" and "deliberately misleading" are the same thing, it's plain that the BCSE are indulging in a bit of deliberately misleading of their own here.

11. "He is also involved with Truth in Science, stating publicly that those who disagree with young earth creationism are charlatans and display a dogmatic approach to science."

More of the same... comment is needless.

12. "Truth in Science ... is on record as saying that those who disagree with its creationist pseudo-science are 'charlatans' and must be 'confronted'. "

Mmmm, no. I don't think those are his exact words, are they?

Finally, one from http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/ManIsntDescendedFromApes:

13. "But what Truth in Science ... have openly stated, and subsequently tried to hide the fact, that they believe anyone who disagrees with them is a charlatan and must be confronted."

Now, instead of being a private word to sympathetic friends over a year before Truth in Science existed, Burgess' words have become an open statement (subsequently hidden - the dastardly plotting knaves that they are!).

And now, it's not just scientists, not just teachers, not just students even - it is again "anyone who disagrees with them". The quote has become a monster. In the beginning, it was just those who deliberately abuse science in order to push atheistic propaganda - now, it's anyone at all who disagrees!

Is there any possible advance on this distortion? This seems to be the end of the line! And in fact, it is - there are no more references to the quote on the BCSE website.

Conclusion

What have we seen?

1. The BCSE, on their website, make use of this quote 13 times.



2. All 13 of those quotations are severe perversions of what the quote actually says.



3. The quote itself clearly limits the description of "charlatans" to atheist activists who knowingly and deliberately abuse science in order to push their religious agenda. People like Richard Dawkins and Steve Jones are presumably in mind here.
   
   
4. The BCSE, though, variously take the quote to apply to teachers, lecturers, students, Roman Catholics - in fact, anyone who disagrees with anything at all that Truth in Science argue for.
   
   

This is the general standard of the BCSE's research. It seems that if they can find anything that they can possibly abuse for own propaganda purposes, they will - and how! Scientific, rational, fair, or reasonable - it ain't!

Once again, I invite my readers to view anything coming from the BCSE with extreme skepticism. Unless you can trace it back yourself to the primary sources - and in some cases, even if you can - the likelihood is that it's had the standard BCSE treatment. Distortion of accuracy beyond all recognition is a BCSE speciality.

Addendum...

There is one further usage of the quote from Roger Stanyard on the BCSE forum (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=205).
"Still, what do you expect from Truth in Science who's [sic] avowed ambitions are to confront and expose people it disagrees with as charlatans.... That includes members of BCSE."

Stanyard is again abusing the quote, applying to "people it disagrees with" instead of "people who deliberately mislead for religious reasons" - just as on the website.

But, if we do take the original quote in its proper context, then maybe we are on to something. Stanyard here makes the quote apply to the BCSE. The quote itself is meant to be applied to atheist activists who deliberately mislead.

Hmmm....

The BCSE. Atheist activists who deliberately mislead. Atheist activists who deliberately mislead; the BCSE. Haven't we been here before? (one, two, three, four, five).

Are they charlatans? If the cap fits...

David Anderson


[1] Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980, p. 59
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-1,00.html
[3] For a Christian answer to some of these questions, see here: http://www.johnblanchard.org/newsline/Where is God when things go wrong - final draft.pdf

Slight Credibility Problem... Leeds University Distances Itself From BCSE And Threatens Legal Action

OK. For the record following my earlier posts (one, two), the BCSE have not replied to my e-mail or to my public request for their side of the story. The BCSE's page on me changes daily; today they no longer claim that I've never asked them for their side of any story, but they are semi-attempting to resurrect the bogus copyright claims.... but let's get to today's news.

The BCSE's Campaigning

The BCSE's campaigning agenda is to paint all non-Darwinists as cranks and crackpots. It wishes to present itself to the public as the defender of true science education - upholding the undisputed and undisputable dogma of Darwinism.

This agenda presents quite a challenge, though, for several reasons - even if we leave out the science! (Life arising from non-life, a universe arising out of nothing...).

For one, the BCSE's core contains nobody with any experience in providing science education. There's not a single science teacher in there, let alone any especially eminent ones. The BCSE was set up and led by a management consultant without experience in either science or
education (one, two, three). We've documented extensively where the leaders are generally
coming from (one, two, three). In short: Dawkins-style "all religious people are idiots" atheist activism.

Another difficulty in presenting themselves as the defenders of unanimous scientific orthodoxy is that the BCSE's targets, on the other hand, contain many eminently qualified and published scientists, teachers, professors, members of the Royal Societies, etc. Hmmm.

Scientific Research, BCSE-Style

And, as we have investigated the quality of the BCSE's "Research", we see that it fails the most basic tests of accuracy and reliability (one, two). One correspondent in my mailbox (who I've already quoted) commented:

"What does strike me about BCSE, however, is that they demonstrate an incompetence when it comes to research. As good science depends so largely on the quality of research, their inability to gather accurate and complete information ... does not give me much confidence in their ability as scientists. Could I trust their scientific investigations when they are clearly incapable of providing an informed and objective assessment?"

So, What's Happened?

The difficulty for the BCSE now is that apparently one British University, Leeds, has been so appalled at the BCSE's pronouncements and use of its name to further its agenda, that it has actually threatened the BCSE with legal action. Let's look at the facts, and see if they bear out this assessment.

On December 7^th, a number of pages on the BCSE's website changed suddenly. Consider this page, for chemical engineer Mike Gascoigne:

How curious! Why should there be legal reasons for not mentioning which university the fellow obtained his BSc from? Hmmm, I wonder. What else has changed?

Doing a search for "legal reasons" across the BCSE's website, the phrase turned up several times - all on pages that changed on the 7^th of December. Here's another, containing some of the BCSE's comments on Truth in Science's materials. This particular paragraph is part of the
data for our previous investigation which demonstrated that the BCSE had knowingly told falsehoods to MPs:

I was able to find that phrase at least 10 times. So, the question arises - what used to be behind it? One of two phrases. In the first case (which is most cases), it's Leeds University:


In the second case, it's Leeds University student Chris Hyland:


What is more, there used to be a whole page on Leeds University on the BCSE's website:


This article used to contain some serious nonsense about one of Leeds' non-Darwinist professors, plus claims about the university itself. As this nonsense was apparently adjudged by the university to be libellous, I suppose that I'd better not repeat it!

What happens if you try to visit that article now? It's gone...



If, on the 7^th, you were to have looked for the word "Leeds" on the BCSE's website, then you would find that it had totally vanished, as far as references to the university were concerned. (Actually they missed one, but I assume that was an oversight).

Today, all of the harmless mentions of the University (such as the one above) are back; but the page on Leeds University itself is gone, gone, gone.


Working This Out
So what happened here, then?

Well, sticking with what we know, the BCSE replaced all references to Leeds University, or the present student of that university mentioned, with the phrase "name withheld for legal reasons". On the other hand, there were no other universities or students which had their name replaced in this manner. This pretty well proves that something specific involving Leeds happened.

What possible legal reasons could there have been for removing the name of this university and its student? Surely there's only one possibility - Leeds University have threatened the BCSE with legal consequences unless they do it. Who else would threaten such action, except the university? I cannot imagine another reason that would explain this action - can you?

So it seems pretty certain that Leeds have contacted the BCSE, and required this action from them.

A couple of days later, the "harmless" mentions returned - but the main article stayed down permanently. So it seems fair to infer that the BCSE decided to remove all mentions of the university whilst it had an internal deliberation over how far it could go in responding to the legal threat - and decided that it would have to remove its entire article on the university, keeping only the "harmless" mentions in other contexts.

This is all the more interesting, because the BCSE were pointing to some of Leeds' actions as agreeing with its own fight to establish Darwinism as unchallengable orthodoxy. Rather, it seems that Leeds were so appalled by the statements that the BCSE were making, and by its use of the name of the university, that they actually got the lawyers onto the case.

If this is so, then Leeds University are to be applauded. In the climate of fear and censorship which campaigners like the BCSE are seeking to whip up - where any criticisers of Darwinism are ridiculed - academic freedom is the loser. Unless proper action is taken, academics end up operating in a climate of "forbidden thoughts and illegal ideas". Academic freedom is too precious to be jeopardised by such as the BCSE.

So, the BCSE has had to withdraw a whole article from its website. As the days go by, more and more of the BCSE's "research" is being picked off. How much confidence can you have in what remains? The BCSE apparently don't have enough confidence to stand by what they said in their article on Leeds University to keep it up. A legal challenge seems to have seen it off fairly quickly. Can you trust the rest? I wonder who'll be next to distance themselves?

None of this was in the BCSE's script - according to that, the BCSE are the champions of orthodoxy, and those who oppose it are obvious nutters! The universities are meant to be distancing themselves from non-Darwinists, not threatening to sue the BCSE! Oh dear...

Of course, I have not seen any letters from Leeds University's lawyers - nor do I even know for certain that they exist. But I've shown you the evidence, so you can decide for yourself. Is there any other possible explanation?

Conclusion

Well, I wonder if there's any work left for "BCSE Revealed" to do. Once you've been proved to have knowingly lied to MPs, once you've been exposed as having no qualified science educators within your purported "Centre for Science Education", once your research has been exposed as lacking all honesty or reliability, and once your own pronouncements on your real religious, political agenda have been widely published, I'd have thought it's pretty much "Game Over" as far as being taken seriously is concerned.

But once a prominent university actually threatens to sue you, and once you admit that your articles are so bogus that on the first threat of such action you delete them... well, I think you have to be pretty reality-blind to expect people to take you seriously after that.

A Footnote

The BCSE talk big. Up until receiving the communication from Leeds University, the BCSE's contact page said this:

Did you get that? Any letters threatening legal action "WILL BE PUBLISHED". No doubt about it!

Enter, one such letter. But not the kind of letter that the BCSE expected. Guess what? That paragraph's gone from the website now!

More evidence - the BCSE's word is one thing; the truth, is another.

David Anderson


Whilst I have on file copies of the deleted material, out of respect for Leeds Universities' apparent wishes to not be associated with the BCSE or slandered by its false propaganda, I am not at this time offering to share it with other researchers.

Criticism of the BCSE : Not Welcome!

So, what kind of organisation are the BCSE? One that is up-front, nothing to hide, and is confident it can stand up to scrutiny?

Or one that will find any kind of detailed scrutiny (such as I am attempting) just a bit too much to handle?

Well, today the BCSE have given us some more data to chew over...

Try This

Now, if you were to follow this link to the BCSE's homepage, then I expect you'd not have any trouble: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk.

However, if I follow it, then this happens:

Yup. They've blocked me.

Why do you think they might want to do that? Surely not because I exposed this, this or this?

Meanwhile, following yesterday's post, the word "aliens" has disappeared from the BCSE website, as far as allegations that creationists believe in them go. But, precisely as I predicted, a new set of allegations has taken their place and the old ones have vanished as if they were never there. That's right - no apology to those they told falsehoods about, no footnotes to let you know that they are admitting that they got it hopelessly wrong... just a good ol' whitewash and the hope that nobody will ever come round here and find out what went on!

As I've said before, my response to this isn't going to debunk every last allegation the BCSE can concoct. My aim is to show how the BCSE do business, and let you draw your own conclusions. I think we've done that pretty well on this one.

One final change on the BCSE website. Up until yesterday, if you knew the link, you could obtain from it a list of pages that had changed recently. It goes without saying that researchers into the BCSE, such as myself, found this rather helpful! Now, once again, the BCSE, having found out that information about them was leaking, and have put a stop to it...

(http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Site/AllRecentChanges - this is a different link to the one which the BCSE shut down earlier)

I plan to be posting tomorrow on the university which has threatened the BCSE with legal action over its statements. If you remember, the BCSE have complained that I never check my facts with them before posting. I've given them an opportunity, having e-mailed their chairman last week and posted a public invitation on my blog yesterday - and so far, it's just silence. Will they give me their side of the story? Will they edit the propaganda page on their website which says that I never check facts with them? Find out tomorrow...

David Anderson

What Are The BCSE Hiding?

This is the second story published today, so don't miss the other one. This is just a quickie.

We've previously discussed the BCSE's attempts to smear me, and how this back-fired (one, two, three).

If you've read the third link above, then you'll know that the BCSE's claim on its website that I have never approached them prior to publication in order to check facts is also false. In that story, you can read for yourself the e-mails I sent to BCSE chairman Mikey Brass in order to get his side of the story before going public. Brass chose to entirely ignore my questions about the BCSE's hypocritical stance on copyright.

But, accurate, verifiable statements about those they disagree with aren't the BCSE's forté, as we've seen. I've said before, though, that I don't want to point out all the BCSE's errors, as it would involve giving more publicity to allegations that just don't deserve the light of day. My approach has instead been to show the BCSE's general unreliability and agenda.
(Though here's a little fact-let if you wanted another one - the BCSE's section on me claims that I'm 28 years old, but gives you no way of verifying that claim... and in fact, I'm not. I wasn't when they put it up, and I'm not now either).

Well, let's come back to the point. Today I am making my question to the BCSE public. I have previously asked Mikey Brass, BCSE chairman, to provide me with his comments on this issue via e-mail - but he's ignored me. So, I'll put it here where everyone can see it. Here it is:

Dear BCSE,

I know that a certain UK university has threatened you with legal action over (now withdrawn) parts of your website.

Would you care to give me your comments before I publish the (already written) article about it? Obviously, I will be suggesting that this is pretty damning as far as your credibility goes. What are the facts according to the BCSE, please?

I will be pointing out that you were not willing to stand behind your own article when the solicitors called round - and that if you're not willing to stand behind your own articles, then why should anyone else take them seriously?

Also, I would like to draw attention to some statements on your "Contacts" page (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/Contacts). There, it says that "any letter threatening legal action WILL BE PUBLISHED. Do not under any circumstances contact this e-mail address with legal threats containing demands that correspondence be kept private. By contacting the above e-mail address, you are agreeing to these terms & conditions. If you do not agree with them - then DO NOT GET IN CONTACT."

Now you have received a communication threatening legal action. Why haven't you published the letters concerned on your website? I would suggest that the paragraph quoted above is just an attempt to bully your opponents into silence. But like the school bully when a real authority comes along, though, you slink away quietly. Why aren't you being true to your word? Isn't this more evidence that you can't be trusted? Isn't it true that if you posted the university's letter, it'd make you look bad? What does "WILL BE PUBLISHED" actually mean?

If the BCSE do decide to reply, then I'd ask them to reply from an official bcseweb.org.uk address. Some of the BCSE's members or supporters have taken to sending me abusive e-mails in the past, and I've blocked them. So if the BCSE want the message to get through, they need to send it from bcseweb.org.uk.

David Anderson
bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk