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