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).