The BCSE and the National Secular Society

The few die-hards left in the "British Centre for Science Education" are still at it: seeking to scam anyone who will let them.

The BCSE's problem, though, is that its own agenda and motives have become so obvious, that the number of those who'll let them do that is pretty low. They've been exposed. The BCSE are basically a good litmus test - anyone who is disposed to refer to them as an authority is almost certainly abusing science to further their own anti-religious crusade, and is willing to get help from wherever they can - any standards of truth or honesty can go take a hike.

You don't have to take my word for that - just pop along to Google Blogsearch, and see who's talking about them. The top four posts, when sorted by date, are by:

1. Mark Edon, a BCSE member and campaigning disciple of Richard Dawkins, who we previously mentioned on this blog as having signed the infamous Dawkins-backed petition to make it illegal for parents to raise their children in any way except in atheism. OK!

2. The blog of the Dorset Humanists, "humanism - a positive alternative to religion".

3. I don't speak the language necessary to decode the third one!

4. An atheist called "Andrew Hawkins" (unknown to me) who introduces himself with the words "I'm an ex-christian atheist and I'm often filled with wonder about how I was deluded enough to be a Christian in the first place" and has set up a blog to chronicle his attempts to debate with a local Baptist minister to justify his position. Andrew sought to call in the BCSE to give him some help - he obviously knew where their sympathies lay!



And so, today we have another example of this phenomena, courtesy of the National Secular Society, which has printed a piece which I'm pretty convinced from the language in it is just a BCSE press release. Anyone without a religious agenda would be likely to just bin this kind of press release because the rhetoric is so loaded it's just too obvious what's going on. But of course if you are the National Secular Society, then the BCSE's output is going to be much more acceptable than to a more impartial publisher.

The piece is 3 paragraphs long and the BCSE is mentioned in both the first and third paragraphs. In the first paragraph, we read: "The British Centre for Science Education strongly supports this move and hopes that it will be effective in preventing children being misinformed about scientific ideas." This mention, without any qualification or explanation, of the BCSE, marks it out as a press release; as the BCSE are basically about up to a dozen (but more like 4 in terms of active ones) individuals with a website but without credentials in science or education, no authentic article could possibly mention them without saying just who the whatsit they are. The who?

Then in the last paragraph, we have this: "Mike Brass, Chairman of the British Centre for Science Education said", followed by a paragraph-long quote. Note: no mention of who Mike Brass is as a scientist, or his experience in the world of education. The authority on which we're meant to take his words seriously is that he's the chairman of the afore-mentioned "British Centre for Science Education". So you should listen to him!



No mention, then, of the facts that Brass has never been employed within science or education, and is in fact a 30-ish year-old IT worker whose degrees are in history and archaeology. No mention of the fact that Brass is a now-exposed academic fraud who used the BCSE website to advertise himself as a "published archaelogist" when in fact, as I revealed, his sole book was self-published (the BCSE have since deleted this description). No mention either of the fact that the organisation with the comprehensive-sounding name (they're experts on science education!) is in fact a single issue pressure group, with no activities except for promoting evolution and slandering those who point out the flaws. Nope - he's just introduced as if he were one of the country's leading authorities on science, now giving his distilled wisdom from examining this particular controversy. Ho hum indeed! Read more about Mike Brass's problems with his forked tongue here.

The Bogus Centre for Selling Evolution

So, the BCSE are still at it - putting out press releases which are written to make themselves sound authoritative, to scam the unwary - or the willing. It's full of the usual BCSE pork pies, too; saying that the group "Truth in Science" has been promoting explicitly creationist theories. Either Brass has never read the Truth in Science website, which explains criticisms of Darwinism and the theory of intelligent design, or he's too ill-equipped with the mental furniture necessary (or too prejudiced ahead of time) to understand the difference between promoting creationism and intelligent design. Take your pick! Whichever way, it doesn't end up looking good.

I'm not a secularist, and I don't mind the NSS relying on the BCSE to help their case - if that's the best they can do, things must be grim. That's why I say that the BCSE have become a litmus test - if you find someone who refers to them, that tells you all you need to know.

So, the remains of the BCSE haven't given up yet. Looks like I'll have to bring some more stuff out of the vaults for those who aren't yet convinced. Stay tuned!

David Anderson



Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Darwinism and Hitler: a look at the quality of the BCSE's "research"

Move along please...

I'm not saying much at the moment. My files are full of damning material on the BCSE that can be written up and published if necessary. However, as I look round the Internet I find that convinced Darwinists and atheists agree with me that the BCSE is not a credit to any cause and that those supporting it are shooting themselves in the foot. So, that material can remain in my files until the BCSE give some evidence that they're still worth opposing.

The BCSE's "Research"

Having said that, this one needed very little work to get it publishable, so here it is. It's an examination of some more of the BCSE's "research". In science, the quality of your research and the inferences you draw from it is crucial. However, in previous investigations, we've shown the BCSE's minds are made up long before that stage: the point of the evidence is not to draw us towards a rational conclusion, but to form the raw material for smearing and slandering anyone who questions materialist dogma in general or Darwinism in particular.

I've not generally wanted to document the errors of any of the BCSE's articles in detail, because that would normally involve dragging someone's reputation through the mud again by repeating the BCSE's innuendos. But there have still been good opportunities to document the appalling quality of the BCSE's research:

• In a now-hidden anti-Christian article that the BCSE hope people won't know about (from the days before the BCSE had decided that its official stance was religiously neutral), the BCSE revealed that its main source for its allegations about what Christians believe was not the books, sermons or websites they had written... but "a collection of angry adolescents". http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com/2007/01/were-not-anti-religion-but-part-3.html
  
  
• In one particularly egregious example, we saw that the BCSE entirely overlooked all the primary sources which pointed in one direction in favour of a single secondary source of another campaigner of their own ilk which said the opposite. http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-alien-activity-at-bcse.html
  
  
• Many times (we found 13) the BCSE has put out the line that the group Truth in Science have announced that anyone, especially a teacher or lecturer, who either agrees with Darwinism or fails to agree with a particular interpretation of the Christian faith must be a charlatan. When, however, we took the effort to research the source of this allegation, we found something quite different: its author was an adviser, not a spokesman or director, of Truth in Science, and what he actually said was that anyone who was deliberately subverting science in order to promote atheism as the only scientific position needed to be exposed as a charlatan. The quote didn't even mention Christianity! I can understand why the BCSE would not like anyone who seeks to expose fake scientists (the BCSE themselves being category one religiously-motivated charlatans); the fact that they took such offence is rather revealing! http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com/2006/12/anybody-here-speak-english.html
  
  
• In a rather amusing and very revealing incident, we showed how the BCSE had rewritten its biography of a particular individual. When they suspected him of not being a Darwinist, the biography sought to portray him as an adulterous buffoon; when they discovered that he did believe in evolution, the biography dropped all the innuendos and awarded him a doctorate! And when the BCSE realised they'd been caught... they changed it all back and hoped nobody would notice. Fair? Impartial? Scientific? Ha!
  http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com/2006/12/bits-and-pieces.html
  
  

What to make of this absymal incompetence? It isn't particularly surprising, because as we've documented many times, the BCSE is not a collection of experienced researchers who have credible publication records. They are simply a group of self-publicising con-men who have given themselves a grand sounding name and seek to use it to trick the public and the politicians. Essentially, it's a false appeal to authority - you receive a letter from them, and you're meant to think it's from the experts, because you wouldn't suspect that anyone would be so audacious as to pose as a national centre of expertise with hardly a relevant qualification to go round between them.

And Today...

Today I have an article written by Mr. Andrew Sibley of the "Creation Science Movement" (CSM). The CSM is one of the world's longest running anti-Darwinism movements, and its first president was Sir Ambrose Fleming, the inventor of the thermionic valve and hence the pioneer of modern electronics. Another obvious clown who forgot to spot that Darwinism is the basis of all true scientific progress. ;-)

I'm grateful to Andrew for sending me this article. It deals with a particular piece of research on the BCSE's site entitled "Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler". This piece, written by BCSE chairman Mr. Michael Brass, seeks to deal with the question of whether the "science" (as it was then considered) of eugenics in general and Hitler's own plans for breeding a "Master Race" and eliminating the unfit (especially Jews in the "Final Solution" of the Holocaust) in particular were inspired by and/or a logical conclusion of Darwinian thought. This is a very legitimate and obvious question. If Darwinism teaches that the struggle up from bacteria to human beings was achieved through solely through genetic selection, then the question arises - "and may we not progress much further through giving help to this selective process?". Hitler sought to help the selective process along by sending the disabled, gypsy and Jews to a premature death, that the pure Aryan "race" might rise to greater heights unhindered by admixture with inferior genes. His implementation of this idea was horrific; but the question is, can the logic which leads to such actions be faulted? Whether it causes us to feel moral outrage or not, is it rational and reasonable? Is our moral outrage itself irrational? Why did eugenics become an accepted part of science in the early 20th century?

You won't, unfortunately, learn the answers to any of these questions from Mr. Brass's article. Mr. Brass's aim is solely to discredit opponents of Darwinism, whatever subject or evidence is under discussion. Brass restricts his investigation to cherry-picking four short quotes out of Mein Kampf, adds a couple of Internet links, and then concludes "It is clear then, once again, creationists ... have opted to flog a dead horse." Maybe that's clear to Mr. Brass, but...

There's no examination or even quotation of any contrary arguments; no discussion of the primary source material that tells a different story, and no indication that Brass even knows it exists. For sources, we get the distinct impression that Brass used Google to tag on a couple of links after he'd written the piece - none of them are primary sources at all. The reader of Brass's article could come away not even knowing that eugenics existed. Brass did, however, find space in his word limit to irrelevantly laud Darwinism as "the framework for all biological sciences". His conclusion on the "key roots" of the Holocaust? According to Brass, Hitler was seeking to implement a particular vision of Christianity.

Right! Not exactly a surprise to discover that conclusion given what we know about the BCSE. And Brass's reference for this claim? An anonymous, 1 page article on the Internet, collected by a Darwinist activist with no other discernible qualifications in the area. Great stuff!

I invite all readers to have a look at Brass's article for themselves. Anyone who's ever made the slightest effort to interact with primary sources and document claims will know pretty quickly how to evaluate this piece of output: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/DarwinAndHitler

Get On With It!

Ah yes! The article kindly sent me by Mr. Sibley. Here it is. The contrast in the areas I've pointed above with the BCSE's output hardly needs to be pointed out. The conclusions speak for themselves. All, from this point onwards, is Andrew Sibley.

* * *

Hitler’s link with Darwinism

Mike Brass of the British Centre for Science Education has produced a short piece entitled ‘Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler’, which attempts to show that Hitler was not influenced by Darwinism. But does this claim fit with what is known about Darwinism and Hitler?

Brass claims that Hitler was not influenced by Darwin and provides apparent religious quotes from Mein Kampf, [My Struggle] where Hitler asserts for instance that he is acting with the will of the ‘Almighty Creator’ (Hitler 1933:262). It is well known that Hitler used religious language in this way in his speeches and writing, and often appealed to German national sentiment that linked the established Lutheran church with his nationalistic agenda. However, it was Hitler’s skilful use of rhetoric that blinded so many to his very un-Christian cause, although a number of German Protestant scholars, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Karl Barth signed the Barmen Declaration, and reject Hitler’s fascism.

Was Hitler influenced by Darwin?

Sir Arthur Keith for one thought that Hitler was an evolutionist. He comments

‘The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national “front” of Europe is also the evolutionary “front”; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people.’ (Keith 1946:9)

In order to understand Hitler it is necessary to look beyond the simple rhetoric that has blinded Mike Brass. Hitler was in fact a pantheist believing that nature and god were one and the same with nature giving creative power over itself. This was a tradition in German philosophy stretching back to Spinoza, and Darwin’s German acquaintance Ernst Haeckel was for instance a pantheistic monist. This pantheism comes out in Hitler’s comments.

‘No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow…When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man.’ (Hitler 1933:260)

No, there is only one holiest human right, and this right is at the same time the holiest obligation, to wit, to see to it that the blood is preserved pure and, by preserving the best humanity, to create the possibility of a nobler development of these beings. …and finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give to the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created.’ (Hitler 1933:262)

In other words, for Hitler, the ‘iron logic of Nature,’ was the process of evolution, or ‘the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man.’ For Hitler, nature, through the process of evolution was one and the same as ‘Almighty God,’ because he believed Nature had creative power over itself. Hitler also hated Christianity, claiming that he wish to abolish it.

‘I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing’ (Hitler 1942:369).

Can we link Hitler directly to Darwin?

There are likely a number of links from Darwinism to Hitler’s fascism, but perhaps the most notable is through Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton. Darwin himself corresponded with Ernst Haeckel, but it was Galton who developed eugenics and was converted to atheism through Darwin’s Origins book. Galton wrote to Darwin shortly after publication of Origins that he felt.

‘…initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge…Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.’ (Galton: 1908:287)

Galton’s eugenics work written in Heredity Genius has come in for severe criticism with Brookes for instance commenting that ‘Galton’s central thesis’ was ‘deeply flawed’ and notable for ‘its lack of objectivity’ (Brookes 2004:142). But many were won over to eugenics. Galton wanted to improve the human race believing this is what nature (i.e. evolution) determined. He didn’t have much respect for democracy either.

‘It is the obvious course of intelligent men – and I venture to say it should be their religious duty – to advance in the direction whither Nature is determined they shall go, that is towards the improvement of the race….But it [Democracy] goes farther than this, for it asserts than men are of equal value as social units, equally capable of voting, and the rest. This feeling is undeniably wrong and cannot last.’ (Galton 1873:119,127)

It is interesting to note from the above how closely Hitler’s writing reflects the writing of Galton. One of Galton’s German supporters was Alfted Ploetz. Eugenics began to take off in Germany, and in 1904 Galton received a letter from Alfred Ploetz who founded a journal of eugenics in Germany entitled Archiv fǘr Rassen – und Gesellschaftesbiologie. Ploetz wrote to Galton that ‘We take the highest interest in your eminent and important Eugenics’ (Brookes 2004:275).

A year later Ploetz founded the German Society for Race Hygiene in Berlin. Heinrich Himmler also publicly embraced the eugenics of Alfred Ploetz, Galton’s German admirer (Brookes 2004:289). Whereas Brass comments from a preface to Mein Kampf that Hitler picked up many of his racist and fascist ideas from catholic Vienna, Weikart asserts that time spent in Munich played an important part in Hitler’s thinking (Weikart 2004:221).

According to Weikart, Ploetz was active in Munich and although there is no clear evidence that Hitler met Ploetz, both were close friends of Julius Lehmann, a publisher of medical, racist and eugenic material. Lehmann was a leading member of Ploetz’s organisation and publisher of the German nationalistic journal Deutschlands Erneuerung. Lehmann had been interested in eugenics from the 1890s and joined the German Society for Race Hygiene prior to 1914. During the 1920s Lehmann had regular contact with Hitler, and was at this time publishing racist and eugenic material (Weikart 2004:221).

Was Darwinism a purely scientific theory?

It is noteworthy that Darwin was influenced by social and political thought in writing, such as work by Malthus on population growth, Adam Smith on free economics and a general Victorian attitude to liassez-faire economics. Darwin’s theory also influenced the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ and justified exploitation of workers. As such the assertion that Darwin’s theory was a purely scientific theory is not entirely plausible. Himmelfarb for instance notes that.

‘The theory of natural selection, it is said, could only have originated in England, because only laissez-faire England provided atomistic, egotistic mentality necessary to its conception. Only there could Darwin have blandly assumed that the basic unit was the individual, the basic instinct self-interest, and the basic activity struggle. Spengler, described the Origin as “the application of economics to biology”, said that it reeked of the atmosphere of the English factory…natural selection arose…in England because it was a perfect expression of Victorian “greed-philosophy”, of the capitalist ethic and Manchester economics.’ (Himmelfarb 1962:418).

Summary

Despite the assertions of Mike Brass, it is quite clear that there is a link between Darwinism and Hitler’s fascism through for instance Francis Galton’s eugenics, although it is not established that this was Charles Darwin’s intention. However, Darwin took ideas from economics and applied them to biology, and did not object to Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton applying those biological ideas of evolution back to society. As such Darwinism cannot be seen as a purely scientific concept, but was a theory of its time embedded within Victorian economic, political and social thought.

It is also regrettable that the British Centre for Science Education has produced such a poor piece of research that overlooks the mountain of evidence that exists that shows the influence that Darwinism had on Hitler’s brand of fascism. Such poor quality research damages their claim to be representatives of good standards in British education.

References

Brookes, M. (2004) Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton, Bloomsbury Publ. Plc. London.

Galton, F. (1908) ‘Memoirs of my life: Chapter 20,’ Heredity, p.287 Methuen, London.

Galton, F. (1873) ‘Heredity Improvement,’ Frazer’s Magazine, Vol. 7, January.

Himmelfarb, G. (1962), Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, W.W. Norton, New York

Hitler, A. (1933) Mein Kampf, tr. [1969] R.Manheim, Hutchinson.

Hitler, A. (1942) Hitler’s Speeches, edited by Prof. N.H. Baynes, Oxford.

Keith, A. (1946) Evolution and Ethics, Putnam’s Sons, New York

Weikart, R. (2004) From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Plagrave Macmillan, New York

When caught...

Previous parts in this investigation: one, two, three, four, five, six. (Please also support my appeal for education in a very deprived part of Kenya in Africa).

The Story So Far...

The purpose of "BCSE Revealed" is to document the reality behind the fraudulent group presenting itself to the public and law-makers as a credible authority on science education.

In the last month, we've had a great opportunity to show how this group works, as it launched its latest attempt to discredit "BCSE Revealed". As in previous attempts (e.g. here), this attempt didn't consist of producing any evidence that you can examine to show that any of my reports have been false. As before (e.g. here), the attempt basically consisted in sending a whole load of un-documented accusations and abuse my way, and hoping that somehow some of it would stick.

This latest attempt consisted of: 1) asserting that my report that Roger Stanyard, the BCSE's de facto leader, had fallen out with the BCSE and walked out, was false and then 2) heaping on the insults about what an appalling liar I was.

The wheels fell off this attempt rather badly, though, when I revealed some of the conversations of the BCSE leaders which demonstrated that I was telling the truth, and that the same BCSE leaders were indulging in a cynical, planned attempt to smear me based on allegations they knew were absolutely false.

And that is primary evidence for the "BCSE Revealed"'s investigations.

When Caught... Run and Bluff!

How would a credible body of scientists or educators respond to being caught out so spectacularly? I think heads would have to roll and groveling apologies might have to be made. However, I showed that a majority of the BCSE leadership were complicit in this deception, making any kind of repentance particularly hard; if those heads rolled, the BCSE would end.

So, what happened? Did Ian Lowe, who wrote that those who were caught lying and didn't apologise showed themselves to be very small men indeed, when caught lying, apologise? Did Michael Brass, who had such fine words to say about how you should never listen to a proven liar, resign when he was proved to be a liar? Did Roger Stanyard, who after making up with the BCSE went along with its "he didn't walk away - he merely had Internet access problems" story, retract and apologise for misleading the BCSE's supporters?

Nope. Two things happened. Firstly, the BCSE silently removed the page that contained all of the various statements that I proved to be outright and known falsehoods, locking it with a password (http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1116):

Before: A page full of insults, innuendos and downright slanders.



After: Gone, gone, gone...

We've seen this before: when the BCSE are caught with their trousers down, they don't apologise, they don't explain; they simply delete the evidence, and pretend that nothing happened. See here for more of that. Not really the way to convince anyone of your credibility, and a real disaster if you want to take the moral high ground and issue allegations that everyone who questions Darwinism is a despicable rogue.

Secondly, the BCSE published a new policy, spoken through the lips of Ian Lowe, which they summarise in these words:

"Posts which contain links to, or material from, this blog will be removed by the forum admin team New Topics posted about Anderson, or his Blog will similarly be removed."

http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1184

Lowe was careful to lock the post; a previous response to "BCSE Revealed" went a bit wrong when the responders started calling the BCSE's bluff, the response to which drew out more demonstrable falsehoods from the BCSE in trying to defend their position - which were later silently deleted (see here).

We wonder if Mr. Lowe has any sense of irony after such a sequence of events as this:

• Lowe, Brass and their fellow BCSE committee members, unsolicited, launch a thread and e-mail campaign to refute "BCSE Revealed", and to slander me.
  
  
• I then document that Lowe, Brass, etc., telling falsehoods, but that they were of the most cynical kind.
  
  
• When caught in this way, the BCSE committee then silently delete the material...
  
  
• .. and post a statement to express their displeasure that BCSE forum participants were talking about me. Well, duh.
  

Maybe Mr. Lowe is suffering from an advanced form of schizophrenia. One of his personalities launches campaigns to discredit me, and the other issues policies that BCSE members shouldn't talk about me? We do wonder just who Lowe's request to not talk about me was aimed at...

Lowe then went on to direct his readers to a website run by a BCSE member, some kind of copy-cat blog whose purpose is ostensibly to "reveal" the appalling truths about me. The individual in question e-mailed me privately some months ago, posing as an observer wanting a conversation about Christianity, evolution and a whole manner of other topics; but when the conversation didn't go as he was hoping, he then revealed that he was a BCSE member, and would, without permission, be posting from my e-mails in public - and did so, rather dishonestly representing them as if they were the answer to the question "what would David like to see taught in state school science lessons?".

The page is a bit puzzling from two points of view. From one, it doesn't actually contain any revelations - beyond the fact that I'm a Christian who thinks that other people should become Christians too. Well, blow me down! If this would-be reported had bothered to examine the very first post on this blog and my Blogger profile, or the church website which distributes my sermons, leaflets, etc., he could have been spared the effort needed to make this sensational expose or the bizarre conclusion that I'm trying to hide my beliefs and am therefore a "hypocrite". Even readers of "BCSE Revealed" alone will find plenty of explicitly Christian material (e.g. here).

The second point is that the page then forwards the argument that as a Christian, my beliefs make my opinions on science and/or education invalid. Now, I know that the blogger, and the majority of the BCSE do believe that the point of science is to completely replace religion. However the BCSE's official position is meant to be that religion and science are perfectly compatible and that they have no anti-Christian prejudice. To promote a site which explicitly argues that unless you're a philosophical materialist then you don't understand the basis of science is a bit off-message! That's precisely the kind of revealing anti-religious statement that "BCSE Revealed" exists to unmask - so, a bit strange for the BCSE to actually commend such a page when it's so at odds when his purported purpose. Maybe Mr. Lowe was suffering from schizophrenia again, and forgot whether he was wearing his "I operate the Scottish Atheist Council - all religion is evil" hat, or his "I work for the BCSE - we have no religious bias" one...

Summing it up

The BCSE has embraced moral nihilism. Its homepage boldly proclaims that the "BCSE believes in ... Righteousness"; but the reality is that this statement is not there to describe the reality but to substitute for it. When caught in the most execrable acts, instead of apologising (whether to me or to the members of their forum who they willingly deceived), they simply delete the evidence, announce a new policy, and pretend that nothing happened. Talk about me; be proved to have completely lied; then announce a convenient new policy that the BCSE doesn't talk about me!

It's cynical, it's ugly, and it's the fast track to empty yourselves of any membership except those who are ready to embrace moral nihilism themselves - those who believe that "the cause" of Darwinism is so important, that it justifies whatever indulgence in lying, slander, deceit, etc., that you care to partake in. Clearly if Charlie's theory is in such a mess that it needs this kind of help from its supporters, things aren't looking too good.

The BCSE: all we can say is, "yuk".

David Anderson



Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Documenting the depths of BCSE cynicism (continued)

Previous parts in this investigation: one, two, three, four, five.

In the last post from Ian Lowe (containing the words "he resigned" in regard of Stanyard) which we covered in the last installment, Tim Hague then posted on a different subject, regarding plans for re-organising the BCSE. Hague began as follows. This was still on the 13th of June:

Tim Hague: As I'm not going to be there tomorrow I had a 'brain dump' of various things that could be discussed.

Roles and Responsibilities I like the idea of one (or two) people having 'overall responsibility' for a particular facet or area of BCSE. Some suggestions for areas we could be concentrating on:

Hague then proceeded to list ten areas: overall management, public relations, tech support, forum admin, research, liaison, events, publications, online publications, "SJS campaign".

A very revealing comment is then made by Hague:

Because we have more areas than people, some people will need to wear two hats (I suggest we limit it to a maximum of two each).

In other words, "BCSE Revealed" has been spot-on in its argument that the figures show the BCSE as having failed to recruit beyond the boundaries of its committee. Hague lists ten areas, and then says that there are "more areas than people". I can count more than ten people (but not too many more), so I think Hague means those who would be ready to put in serious hours of work for the BCSE's cause. Remember that when I posted that the BCSE was in serious decline, BCSE chairman Michael Brass posted a statement to the BCSE's public discussion group to say the following (emphasis mine):

Contrary to Anderson's latest crapola, Roger is a member of the BCSE committee. The only thing in freefall is Anderson's overactive tendency to leap in head first.

http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=10440#10440

Brass knew he was telling untruths in his various claims that Stanyard hadn't left the BCSE - we've documented that many times over. Now, from Hague's comments, we've also shown that the BCSE's public and private statements about the health of its membership are in conflict. According to Hague, ten areas of activity will outnumber the supply of people to work in them. If that's a healthy organisation....

Back to the point

The next comment in the discussion was a reply to Ian Lowe. It was from Paula Thomas, BCSE committee member:

Paula Thomas: I wouldn't really be concerned here Ian. How much audience does Anderson actually have other than committed creationists and a few people like you and me? As I've said before he's a distraction.

I think we can use Roger's removal of himself from the frontpage positively after all isn't he writing a book? Maybe he needs time to concentrate on that...

Paua [sic]

I think that Paula would be surprised by my visitor statistics, but my guess would be that she's probably right in that I also think they generally include people at the opposite polarities in the Darwinism discussion. I'd also tend to agree with Paula that there's no real reason for Lowe to have been so concerned about whether I knew that Stanyard had walked out or not. My concern has always been to document the BCSE's gross dishonesty and lack of credentials, rather than their falling out with each other. What Lowe has done, though, by deciding to try to cover up Stanyard's walk-out and use it as a base to slander me and offer no apology or retraction when caught, has been to turn it into exactly the kind of material that I am interested in documenting.

I wouldn't agree with Paula, though, that "BCSE Revealed" is just a distraction. The fact is, we live in a moral universe. Human beings are hard-wired with consciences, and cannot simply cynically disregard truth without it taking its toll and gaining a bad reputation amongst those who know them - a fact which Christians such as myself have always pointed to as a God-given evidence of an ultimate day of judgment: we have a witness inside ourselves already. The facts that "BCSE Revealed" have been showing have been immensely damaging to the BCSE, and will continue to be so. When you switch off your conscience and decide to simply ignore inconvenient truths, you go down the road of moral nihilism and disaster.

Notice, then, what Thomas suggests: more deception. She suggests that the BCSE, in order to cover up their fall-out with Stanyard, make the false claim that he had had left to be able to spend more time on a book that he is apparently writing: "I think we can use Roger's removal of himself from the frontpage positively after all isn't he writing a book? Maybe he needs time to concentrate on that...".

There is one significant further data-point in the discussion: Michael Brass added a comment. His comment wasn't related to the issue of the deception campaign, but was agreeing with something else said later on by Paula Thomas. The significance, though, is that it shows that Brass read and knew the contents of this discussion: further evidence, added to what we already have, to show Brass's dishonesty. Brass knew that Stanyard had resigned and that my story that he had done so was accurate.



Summing it up

We now know that the individuals listed below:

• Knew that Stanyard had resigned and deleted mentions of himself from the BCSE's website, and then
  
  
• Took part in discussions planning the BCSE's slander campaign to discredit me, when it believed that I wouldn't have the evidence to prove that Stanyard's departure had taken place. This included allegations about being a proven liar, that I abuse my wife, that I'm impossible to work with, lazy, with no sense of morality, unable to apologise for wrong-doing, a control freak, a fragile ego, etc. etc.

Some of these individuals took part in the public smear campaign; others merely were involved in discussion of it, and chose to keep silent when it went ahead despite knowing that it was a pack of lies:

• Michael Brass, BCSE chairman
  
  
• Roger Stanyard, BCSE founder, spokesman, researcher
  
  
• Ian Lowe, BCSE committee member
  
  
• Brian Jordan, BCSE committee member
  
  
• Chris Hyland, PhD candidate at Leeds University and BCSE member (and one of the leadership of "Science, Just Science", the group in the process of merging into the BCSE)
  
  
• Tim Hague, BCSE member (and one of the leadership of "Science, Just Science").
  
  
• Paula Thomas, BCSE committee member
  
  
• James Rocks, BCSE member (and leader of "Science, Just Science").
  

I believe that that number, eight, accounts for a majority of those actively involved in the BCSE. It includes five of the seven BCSE committee.

What we've documented here is simply this: the BCSE is rotten to the core. It carries out planned campaigns of lies and slander of the nastiest kind, simply hoping that those who listen to it won't know enough to know what it's doing. This rottenness pervades the whole organisation. The chances of reform or apology are slim, because it's not just the odd renegade doing it: it's from top to bottom.

There is one more interesting comment in the thread I've been documenting above; it's from James Rocks. He says that it might be a good idea to delete some of the content of the "Science, Just Science" forums, and gives the following as one of his reasons:

James Rocks: Of course some material here should be deleted and never referred to again (such as the behind the scenes stuff we did on line and discussions arising from it) ... no one mentioned it last night as far as I know (well done) but if Roger and Brian knew about it they might just be a wee bit annoyed.

David Anderson



SJS/the BCSE have moved to delete some of the above material from the web - a copy is available from me for you to verify the accuracy of the quotations - just e-mail.

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Documenting the depths of BCSE cynicism

In the last two posts, I have been providing some evidence of the depths to which the BCSE's leadership have been willing to go in the last month to forward their propaganda ends.

Go here to read the unfolding story: one, two, three, four. In short: lying and slander, on a big and deeply cynical scale, with the involvement of a very significant number of the BCSE's core leaders.

Today I carry on with providing that documentation. In previous installments I have showed extracts of various BCSE members, including Ian Lowe, Chris Hyland and Tim Hague, discussing how to manage the fall-out from Stanyard's resignation. Here, I continue on that theme. We pick up just after the point we left off in the post "Red-handed: They lied and lied and lied". This is just after Ian Lowe had written a paragraph which contained clear statements that Stanyard had walked out, removed himself from a BCSE mailing list and various web pages - all contrary to Lowe's public claims that no such walk-out had happened and that I was a dreadful liar for saying any such thing. Here's what comes next. This is on the 13th of June.

Tim Hague: I think someone - probably not you Ian! - should send Roger an email and ask him what he's up to. I'm thinking that his wiki priveliges [sic] should be revoked as well.

I think it's worth putting him back there as well, at least until we've got past Thursday and are ready to annouce [sic] this merger...

Hague is referring in the last sentence to the combination of the BCSE with a second similar group, "Science Just Science", which as yet we've said little about. Notice that Hague suggests contacting Stanyard to see what's going on, and suggests revoking his (BCSE) website editing privileges in the mean-time - presumably in case Stanyard makes any more changes that will reveal what's been going on. (Remember that it is the website changes that I first highlighted as evidence of Stanyard's departure - and which Michael Brass, BCSE chairman, was particularly hasty to e-mail me about to tell me that I was making it all up, in one e-mail telling me the following: "Unfortunately for you, looking at the history of modifications of any page on the wiki will not give you a true reflection of anything.")


Notice that Hague suggested putting Stanyard's name back on the web-page in the meantime - presumably so that the outside world would not be able to detect what was going on.

Hague then put forward a different option:

Tim Hague: Another option is to remove everyone and leave a message that 'big changes are on the way'!

This suggestion of Hague's is close to what happened; they removed the names of the whole committee. This has left the BCSE in the strange position of having a website proclaiming themselves as authorities on science education but not even supplying a single name of those alleged authorities so that anyone can verify (or not!). It's put them back to where they were before "BCSE Revealed" exposed their identities and lack of credentials and forced them to put statements on the website about themselves: being virtually anonymous. (one, two - and then see some of the rampant exaggeration of credentials we exposed in one of those descriptions: one, two, three, four).

Chris Hyland then chipped in with a comment, responding to Hague's first suggestion:

Chris Hyland: Please nothing like that until after tomorrow. We really need to start with a clean slate as it were.

What was to happen "tomorrow" was apparently a meeting of some of the BCSE / SJS members to discuss the way forward.

The next post is much more significant; from Ian Lowe, as follows:

Ian Lowe: Actually, I misread the logs.. damn time zones :| It was actually edited on Monday night, 10 O'clock, so pretty much when he resigned. Which pretty much guarantees that nappy boy has seen it. Probably a good idea to change the page to remove all of us though. I'll do that just now.

For some reason, the BCSE's website is run a few hours out from BST. Lowe says that Stanyard edited the website on Monday evening, which would be Monday the 11th of June. Notice what Lowe says in that connection: "pretty much when he [i.e. Stanyard] resigned".

"Nappy boy" is apparently me; when the BCSE was trying to "dig dirt" on me, it discovered that my wife has a small business selling washable nappies; my guess is that "nappy boy" refers to that. That the BCSE is the kind of organisation which takes part in this kind of operation against those who dare to question its credentials speaks volumes...

Lowe then goes on to agree with Hague's latter suggestion: that the whole committee be deleted from the page, to hide the fact that only Stanyard's name was missing. If the BCSE later tries to claim that this step was taken as a precursor to a re-organisation, or relaunch, etc., you'll know better. It was taken to hide the fact of Stanyard's resignation.

At this point, let me remind you of Lowe's words after I first began publishing, without the proofs yet (as I was waiting to see the BCSE's response), that Stanyard had resigned:

"Watch him now - he has stated that Roger has left, simply on the basis of a change to the website, when it is simply not true. Roger had a problem with his ISP for a week or so, and we changed the email address to make sure that people could still contact us. Roger remains part of the BCSE committee. Anderson will blow and huff and puff, but he won't apologise and correct his mistake. That's the measure of the man."


http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=10461#10461

For the record, Lowe hasn't been in touch to apologise in any way; comment from me is needless, as Lowe had already in the above paragraph given us the verdict he wishes us to pass against him.

A Closer Look

Let's examine those words again:

Lowe's words: "Watch him now - he has stated that Roger has left, simply on the basis of a change to the website, when it is simply not true."

The facts "BCSE Revealed" has now exhibited, from Lowe's own words:

1. Stanyard had in fact resigned.
2. Stanyard himself changed the website because of his resignation.
3. Lowe himself then made further alterations to the website to try to cover this up.
   

Lowe's words: "Roger had a problem with his ISP for a week or so, and we changed the email address to make sure that people could still contact us."

The truth: Stanyard had walked away, and removed his own e-mail address (not Lowe) and telephone number. The "ISP problem" story was brought forward to cover up the truth.

Lowe's words: "Roger remains part of the BCSE committee. Anderson will blow and huff and puff, but he won't apologise and correct his mistake. That's the measure of the man."


The truth, from Lowe's own words: Stanyard had resigned. I was neither blowing nor huffing and don't need to apologise or correct any mistake, because I made none. My measure is that I've stood up to the BCSE's bluffing liars and bullies; none of them have apologised or made any public comment on the scandalous slander campaign they've conducted against me.

In the above report, we have also exhibited more data showing Hyland and Hague's deep involvement in the campaign of slander and deception. They knew exactly what was going on, and took part in the planning of it. This will be worth noting for if and when the BCSE do announce a new committee: "BCSE Revealed" will be watching closely to see just how many on it have been proven to be part of this particularly depraved episode in their history. If the BCSE wants its spokesmen and representatives to be taken seriously, these are another two individuals who have a big job in front of them to explain just why anyone should do so. Another two individuals for whom "BCSE Revealed" is racking up a documented record of public deception.

The material above was available at this link: http://www.justscience.org.uk/wiki/..._parentId=2129 - the BCSE moved swiftly to delete it. As ever, I have a copy available for anyone who wishes to verify the accuracy of the material - just e-mail.

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

... and then they lied some more.

My plan in the next few posts is to start demonstrating just how badly the BCSE has lied in its recent campaign against "BCSE Revealed". If you're just picking this story up, the earlier parts are here: one, two, three.

Basically, the story is this: "BCSE Revealed" began running a story that Roger Stanyard had fallen out with the rest of the BCSE committee, and walked out. The BCSE then made attempts at reconciliation - which, after a fortnight or so, were successful. As I posted this story, the BCSE committee, in particular Ian Lowe, Michael Brass, Stanyard him and Brian Jordan, decided that they didn't think I'd have the evidence to prove it: so they used the opportunity to rubbish me and the accuracy of "BCSE Revealed" in some particularly insulting ways. However, it turned out that I did have the evidence. As I've begun showing this evidence, the above named BCSE leaders have been exposed as telling the most astonishingly bare-faced lies.

Before I showed the evidence, the BCSE leaders were running away with a theme of "this set of lies from Anderson is so appalling - let us pyschoanalyze just how he could do this". Lowe started offering the BCSE forum readers his diagnosis - apparently I'm lazy, abuse my wife, and have a pathological inability to work with others - and then he condemned me in advance for not apologising.

So, Lowe appears to know that heinous misdeeds ought to, when exposed, be followed by an apology. The lack of any such apology (whether from Lowe or any others of the BCSE leaders who jumped in with the premature insults) simply gives us more data to go on when we're trying to evaluate if the BCSE are bona fide science educators, or liars and hypocrites. As yet Lowe has been strangely silent in offering us a pyschoanalysis of just why he has such problems in handling truth...

Here's More Of The Evidence

In fact, the fact that Stanyard had walked out on the BCSE was not only known by the BCSE committee. The below quotations are part of a discussion by Chris Hyland and Tim Hague, two BCSE members. They're discussing it over on the website of "Science, Just Science", which is presently in the process of merging into the BCSE. (As the two groups are very similar and have a considerable overlap in membership, I've considered this something of a non-event, so am not saying much about it at the present). I don't believe Mr. Hague's name has come up on "BCSE Revealed" before; you may remember Hyland from his involvement in the events when the BCSE began telling MPs that "Truth in Science" were distributing material "full of scientific errors" before the BCSE knew the contents of the material... (see here).

On the 19th of June, Hyland asked the following question:

Chris Hyland: "Roger no longer appears to be a user on this site, can we find out when he deleted himself. I've had a quick look through the admin pages with no luck. Any idea Tim?"

Notice that Hyland appears to know that Roger had been responsible for removing himself from the SJS forum - back in mid June. This contradicts the story spun by the BCSE that Lowe temporarily removed Roger because Roger was having problems with his ISP.

What was Hague's reply?

Tim Hague (2oth June): I deleted him at his request last week.

Note that - the reason why Stanyard wasn't posting on the SJS forum wasn't because he had Internet problems - it was actually because he asked the forum administrator to delete his account. He was leaving permanently. What happened?

Chris Hyland: When last week?

Tim Hague: Ian appears to have removed Roger's 'I quit' messages from the forum. It was just after Roger announced that he was going to quit, I've no idea exactly which day or time that was.

Notice that: Stanyard quit, and told everyone so. Hague doesn't know exactly when it was, because Ian (Lowe) removed the dated "I quit" messages which Stanyard had posted. This is presumably from the BCSE forum rather than the SJS one, as that is the form that Lowe is the administrator of (Hague is the administrator of the SJS one). So here we have the following facts:

• Roger quit, and posted "I quit" messages to announce it. Stanyard's endorsement of Lowe's "Roger hasn't been around for a while because he had ISP problems" upon his reconciliation and return was a massive lie.
  
  
  http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=10517#10517
  
  http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=10480#10480
  
  
  
• Lowe actually removed Stanyard's "I quit" messages. From the beginning, Lowe went into panic mode and tried to cover up what had happened. (I don't know why... the fall-out is evidence of childishness, but hardly more than that; "BCSE Revealed" cares about the BCSE's deceptions; its childishness is small beer). His campaign of lies and insults against "BCSE Revealed" is the continuation of a policy he decided on immediately. Remember again Lowe's words when he thought he would be able to get away with this:
  
  "Watch him now - he has stated that Roger has left, simply on the basis of a change to the website, when it is simply not true. Roger had a problem with his ISP for a week or so, and we changed the email address to make sure that people could still contact us. Roger remains part of the BCSE committee. Anderson will blow and huff and puff, but he won't apologise and correct his mistake. That's the measure of the man."
  http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=10461#10461
  
  How many lies and slanders is that? Not just one or two. Well, rather than making our own comment, we'll leave Lowe facing his own verdict; does he agree with himself? Apparently, someone who behaves like this and then fails to apologise is a very small person indeed. Apparently, we should "watch him now" to see what his measure is.
  
  
  
• Stanyard's quitting was well-known. It was announced publicly by Stanyard, seen by members of the forum, and known by those outside of the committee. None of those individuals, though, stepped in when the BCSE began its campaign of lies and slanders against "BCSE Revealed"; some of them kept silent, some joined in. Hyland and Hague were complicit. If they have evidence otherwise of e-mails and forum posts in which they tried to persuade Lowe/Brass/Jordan/Stanyard not to go down the path they did, then I'd be more than willing to reproduce them in order to clear their reputations.
  
  

This is a disaster for the BCSE: its public representatives have been caught telling the most cynical and bare-faced of untruths and running a nasty slander campaign based on statements it knew were baseless. Who, knowing this, is going to believe any of their future pronouncements? The only people who are going to accord credibility to the BCSE in future are those who have made their minds up, evidence or not. The BCSE has the choice either to get rid of its committee and start over - which will be very hard to do because it is now such a small organisation that its committee are almost a majority of active members - or to cynically bet that it will be able to carry on with nobody noticing, hoping people aren't going to find out what kind of individuals those behind it are.

The BCSE's website alleges that one of the major issues in the Darwinism debate is that those who opposed Darwinism are systematic and cynical liars. Well, on this one I can't make the common criticism I've been making over the months... this time, the BCSE really do appear to be talking within their field of expertise.

You can find the web page with the posts extracted above at: http://www.justscience.org.uk/...omments_parentId=2159
You'll have to rush, though: the BCSE's response to these revelations so far has been to remove such evidence within minutes... whilst leaving all the lies and slanders against me up for you to read. Go figure what that tells you about how they operate! As ever, I have copies to supply to researchers - just e-mail me.

David Anderson



Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Red-handed: They lied and lied and lied

Earlier this week, I revealed that Roger Stanyard had had a fall-out with the BCSE, and walked out. What I didn't know at the time, was that the efforts made by the BCSE to effect a reconciliation were on the brink of success - and that Stanyard was almost back. (The walk-out was about a fortnight before).

Now, that's unremarkable enough in itself. The BCSE could have simply said "Yes - so what?" or chosen to ignore the story entirely.

What they did instead, though, has turned this story into a major event. The BCSE leaders Michael Brass and Ian Lowe decided that they were in a strong position to absolutely rubbish my story, and me - and they went ahead and did right that. Brass began personally e-mailing me, and Brass and Lowe together put together some extremely strong words on the BCSE forum. In short, they called me an utter liar who had made up a story with absolutely no basis in reality - and they kindly offered their readers some pyschoanalysis of me to boot to explain how I could do such a thing. According to Lowe, the only reason that Stanyard hasn't been on the BCSE forum lately and why his contact details were removed, was simply because he had Internet connection problems for a bit. A little later, Stanyard himself turned up, to confirm this alleged fact. According to Lowe, I owe them an apology.

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10480#10480

The problem for the BCSE though, is that I actually had far more evidence for Stanyard's walk-out than I showed in my original post. What this does is to turn this story from something of a non-event (Stanyard falling out, then making up) into something else entirely: prima facie evidence of an utterly cynical willingness to lie and slander openly and repeatedly - evidence of the sheer nastiness and deceitfulness of the BCSE's mode of operation.

I invite my readers to tour the thread on the BCSE forum on which this all plays out. Here are some things to look at (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1116):

• Does this look like the response of an organisation which pretends that "BCSE Revealed" hasn't touched it? Or does it look like the response of individuals who are severely rattled?
  
  
• If the BCSE have nothing to worry about from "BCSE Revealed", why are they so angry? If on the other hand, I've shredded their credibility and they know it, then this response from them makes a lot of sense...
  
  
• Notice Brass and Lowe in particular rubbishing my claims particularly severely, and committee member Brian Jordan also describing them as "imaginary" - and Stanyard confirming that they had no truth in them ("It is wildly out, as, indeed, is nearly all what he says").
  
  
• Notice the various accusations against me - proven liar (Brass), wife-abuser (Lowe), impossible to work with (Lowe), dishonest, nasty (Stanyard), computer hacker (Brass), amoral (Jordan), "fragile ego ... control freak" (Lowe), litigous (Stanyard), lazy (Lowe), "spectacularly wrong" (Stanyard) etc. etc. Then compare those accusations with the verifiable evidence that the various people making them offer to back them up...
  
  One thing's clear: the BCSE haven't changed their basic approach to "BCSE Revealed": throw ten tonnes of mud, in the hope that some of it will stick. If they repeat the same things over and over again, then hopefully you'll end up believing some of it, however little evidence they trouble themselves to offer for it. Michael Brass calls me a "proven liar"; but forgets (again!) to tell us where to find the proof for this... the BCSE has tried really really hard over the last months to smear me in some of the nastiest ways possible... but until it actually troubles itself to accompany its allegations with some attempt at proof, there's simply nothing to respond to.
  
  
• Notice that Ian Lowe goes so far as to condemn me in advance for not apologising for my alleged crime. He's right that I won't be apologising... because I'm about to reveal the enormity of the deceit that he's tried to perpetrate.
  

So... have you got the picture here? At least four BCSE committee members have strongly affirmed that my story that they fell out with Roger Stanyard and that he, for a time, walked out, is absolute rubbish, and evidence of my wickedness. If I can prove the contrary - then the BCSE are about to look very bad.

And, I can... and they are.

So, here it is. Here is what really happened, which Ian Lowe strongly affirms is nothing more than Stanyard losing his Internet connection (and Stanyard confirms), and which Michael Brass calls "crapola":

Lowe said, in the forum post referred to above, "And what I will say is that it's blindlingly apparent that he doesn't have all of the information at his disposal... and he's not going to either". Really? Let's see...

Here's Ian Lowe talking to BCSE member Chris Hylands, writing in a website discussion on the 13th of June - a website discussion that he didn't realise was being indexed by Google. Compare the above with what Lowe said below, when he thought I wouldn't be listening, and really hoped I wasn't. The level of concern over "BCSE Revealed" is encouraging to me too: it shows that my revelations have really hurt them. This is worth reading twice to let it sink in. (Emphasis mine).

Chris Hyland: I wonder if Anderson is going to notice that the BCSE main page has been changed and no longer includes Roger as a comitee member.

Ian Lowe: Damn.

I wish he had not done that.

I got an email earlier in the day about Roger removing himself from an old committee mailing list that we have - it looks like about 5 minutes later, Roger edited the Homepage and Contacts page to remove all mention of himself.

I removed Roger's admin rights on the BCSE forum, but didn't change his access to the website - largely out of respect for Louis's desire for reconciliation.

This does however bring up the possibility fo scrutiny, which means that rather than BCSE announcing the merger and being fully positive about it, Roger's departure can easily be seen to pre-date the merger.

DAMN.

This is the same situation as we had with leeds - thinkfully, not legal this time, where Roger went off and edited every mention of "Leeds Uni" to say "Name witheld for legal reasons".

If we are *very* lucky, Anderson will not notice (not much chance, as the little weasel indexes our site every other day) and we can keep control of this.

a general question - if Roger is coming along with a thought of reconciliation, why is he removing all mention of himself today?

I'm concerned by this, and would really welcome some other (probably more rational and level headed) input!!

Ian.

http://www.justscience.org.uk/...rentId=2129. [Get it whilst you can - I'm sure they'll delete it from the web asap. As ever, I have copies available for verification for your research purposes. Update a few hours later: Yup, it's gone].

Did you get that? Lowe, Brass, etc., in public strongly affirmed that nothing happened with Stanyard, and that I made it all up as a wicked liar. This page from Google, though, records that two weeks ago Lowe was talking with his fellow BCSE members about Stanyard's departure, possibilities of reconciliation, and talked about how to "keep control of this". In public, Lowe and Brass pretend that my story was total nonsense and that they don't care what I write; in private, they are petrified about what I might know about what they're really up to.

They lied, and lied, and lied

According to Michael Brass, you shouldn't listen to a proven liar. Michael Brass is a proven liar.

According to Ian Lowe, I owe the BCSE an apology for making up a story about Roger Stanyard, which is evidence of my psychological flaws. Lowe is someone who nobody involved with the BCSE who in any way cares about truth will ever work with again.

According to Stanyard, he was away for those two weeks because he had a problem with his ISP. Stanyard lied through his teeth and has destroyed his own credibility.

According to Brian Jordan, my story was "imaginary" and evidence that I have no moral standards. Jordan, being on the committee, must have known that this was a deliberate deception and attempt to smear me; but he joined in anyway.

The BCSE could have just ignored my story, or said "yes - we fell out; so what?". Instead, they allowed Brass and Lowe to persuade them that I wouldn't be able to prove my allegation, and that it was a good chance to rubbish me. Brass and Lowe persuaded their fellow committee members that for the price of a few whopping lies, they could make some capital. Those fellow members bought into the strategy. That strategy is in tatters now, and so are the reputations of Michael Brass, Ian Lowe, Roger Stanyard, Brian Jordan and various other members of the BCSE.

David Anderson



Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Michael Brass, BCSE Chairman: "Published Archaeologist"? (Inflating Your Credentials - Part 6)

Introduction

Previous parts in this series:

Part one: Introduction
Part two: The BCSE's chairman, Mr. Michael Brass
Part three: Mr. Brass/the BCSE's misrepresentation of Mr. Brass's vocation
Part four: Mr. Brass/the BCSE's misleading description of Brass as "published"
Part five: Who "published" Michael Brass? Answer: Michael Brass did!

In our last article, we looked at Michael Brass (the BCSE's chairman)'s, book "The Antiquity of Man". This is the cornerstone of the description of Brass as "a published archaeologist". We revealed that in fact this book is self-published, through PublishAmerica, a notorious vanity publisher.

Since that time, the BCSE has altered its description of Brass... by making the word "published" a hyperlink to Brass's own website. I'm not sure what this is meant to achieve... possibly it's meant to rebut the idea that they're pulling the wool over your eyes by hiding from you just what "published" means.

And now...

As promised last time, the results of my investigation into the question: "How many copies of his book has 'published archaelogist' Michael Brass sold?"

PublishAmerica, as a print-on-demand self-publisher, doesn't have its books available in bookshops - unless the author personally persuades a bookshop to take them. Otherwise, you have to order them specially.

As such, the only places where you can get such books is either to ask for them by title, or to order them sellers which have a policy of trying to make available every book in existence, such as Amazon or equivalent. Brass's own website lists four sources:

1. Amazon.com
2. Amazon.co.uk
3. BarnesAndNoble.com
4. PublishAmerica (i.e., direct from the publisher)
   

(http://antiquityofman.com/book_overview.html)


Amazon and Barnes and Noble publish sales ranks for their titles So let's take a look at the page for Brass's book

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591293855/ancientegyptandw

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,285,419

OK - so with a sales rank past 1 million it's not a best-seller. But just how many copies sold does that number translate to? How do we turn rank into copies? Well, it turns out that a number of researches have already done the hard work for us...

1. Witness 1 : Rampant Techpress

The gloriously named "Rampant Techpress" have authored an article titled "Inside the Amazon Sales Rank", available at http://www.rampant-books.com/mgt_amazon_sales_rank.htm. They tell us that a major publisher kept tabs on its Amazon ranking for 25 titles over a 6 month period, and came up with this table translating sales rank into weekly sales:

Amazon        Actual
Sale Rank     Books Sold per week
---------     -----------------
75-100         250-275/wk
100-200        225-249/wk
200-300        150-200/wk
450-750         75-100/wk
750-3,000        40-75/wk
3,000-9,000      15-20/wk
10,000+            1-5/wk

Well, that table doesn't go beyond "10,000+" - we need another couple of zeroes on the end! But it does tell us that we're not talking about the "sales every week" category. The article then points us to another source, researcher Morris Rosenthal...

2. Witness 2 : Morris Rosenthal

Rosenthal's article is online at http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm. Rosenthal tells us that a book that has sold a lifetime total of one copy will likely get a rank in the three-millions, and that Amazon probably has four million titles it can obtain in all. He then gives us a graph of sales rank against copies sold per week - going up to ranks of 1 million.

Some of the quotes from Rampant Techpress don't appear in Rosenthal's article, and appear to be based on an older version of that article, from 2001. The Rampant article goes on to say that a sales rank of 1,000,000 translates to about 3 copies every 500 days, whilst 2,000,000 means about 1 copy every 1,000 days. Another tit-bit from Rosenthal is that if your sales rank is in the 1,000,000 region, you only really need to check it twice a year to compute an average position.

3. Witness 3: fluff.info

I was pleased to come across this third witness, because it contains a clear, recent date at the top: August 2006. He gives us this useful tongue-in-cheek table which he compiled:

1-10          Oprah's latest picks
10-100        The NYT's picks
100-1,000     Books by editors of Wired Magazine, topical rants by pundits/journalists, `classics'
1,000-500,000 Everything else (still selling)
500,000-2mil  Everything else (technically in stock)

http://fluff.info/blog/arch/00000188.htm

This puts Brass firmly in the "we can get it, but nobody at all is actually buying it" category.

4. Witness 4: Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has a freely available article, at http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117...21.html.
This article is low on data as far as sales ranks below 50,000 go - but supplies this tit-bit: "Outside the top 1% or so of books, few sell multiple copies a day, so little separates books with rankings tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, apart. Morris Rosenthal, an author and publisher based in Springfield, Mass., who has studied the Amazon charts, says a day without a sale can send a book ranked 10,000 to as low as 50,000."

So, with a sales rank of 1.2 million, it seems fairly certain that Brass's book is in the category of "not selling any copies at all". And in recent days, I came across one blogger whose mention of his own book seemed to confirm this analysis:

The WSJ article also gives us this significant fact:

"One major quirk: Used and new book sales are counted equally. So an author anxious about his sales ranking could put a few dozen of his books for sale for a penny apiece and ask a friend to buy them all."

5. Witness 5: David Field

This blogger has authored a book on a particular English Puritan, John Howe, who lived from 1630 to 1705. To mark his "birthday", Field wrote this short post:

There's far more about him than you'd ever want to know HERE and at Amazon sales ranking 700,787 (!) this is a book which could do with another couple of people looking at it - thereby doubling its readership.

http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/2007/05/happy-birthday-john-howe.html

Note what Field says:

• His own book's sales rank was 700,787
• It could do with another couple of readers
• Another couple of readers would double its readership

I then kept an eye on the Amazon page linked, and saw the sales rank jump to around 50,000 before starting to drop down again - today it is at 271,214. It take this to mean that Field did indeed find another couple of readers!

Summing it up

Taking all the witnesses above together, we come up with the following: the book upon the back of which the BCSE present its chairman as a "published archaelogist" has likely sold 1 or 2 copies through Amazon.com in the past 2 years. We cannot be sure that this means new copies, though; according to the Wall Street Journal, this includes the trading of second hand copies too. So we may be talking about 2 copies; or about 1 copy, bought and then sold second hand... I guess it's probably not really worth investigating that one...

What About The Other Sites?

Amazon.com is the world's biggest book-seller; a sales figure there gives a pretty clear idea of how many copies a book is selling - especially when that book is only otherwise available by special order. But for completeness, I also consulted the sales ranks at amazon.co.uk and the Barnes and Noble website:

Amazon.co.uk : 840,288 (here)
BarnesAndNoble.com : 713,156 (here)

As the Amazon UK and Barnes and Noble sites sell less than the main Amazon.com site, those sales rankings will translate into even worse sales figures.

This now is all three sellers with a public listing for this book: the only other place to obtain it is to order it direct from the publisher (or get a book shop to do it for you).

Conclusion

The only debate over Brass's book's sales appears to be this: More than 1 copy in the last year, or not? As many as 5 copies in the last 2 years, or less than that?

The BCSE chose Brass to represent it as its chairman, because he was the most qualified guy they could find. And in order to describe his credentials, they name him as a "published archaelogist", and bring forward his book "The Antiquity of Man" as his main literary achievement. A little research from "BCSE Revealed" has shown this:

• Brass's profession is that of an IT worker, not a full-time archaeologist
  
  
• Brass, when questioned by me, confirmed that his publications record basically consists of his book, and one article - an article which is a version of his honours' dissertation and is freely downloadable.
  
  
• Brass's book is published by... Brass himself, using a rather notorious vanity publisher who various investigators have established do not even check manuscripts before publishing them.
  
  
• And now... we have revealed that Brass's sales figures are single digit.
  
  

The revelation of these sales figures reveals why, as we discussed in our last article, when accepting a book PublishAmerica strongly encourage its authors to buy 50 or 100 copies for his own friends and family - the authors that PA are getting it seems typically aren't going to sell any to anyone else.

As I toured the net, I found a few mentions of Michael's book by fellow campaigners against the allowing of criticisms of Darwinism - some of them had bought it and read it. In the light of the above research, it seems likely that these are the only people who have bought it and read it.

We are left, then, with the unavoidable conclusion: the book on the back of which Brass promotes himself, and the BCSE promote him, as a "published archaelogist", is a book whose only readers are - these people themselves.

And that's one more set of facts published for future researchers into the BCSE to know exactly what kind of group we're talking about. That's one more set of facts for readers of the BCSE's website to evaluate how honestly the BCSE can be trusted to present material, just how much fact-twisting they have to do in order to make themselves seem credible.

David Anderson


Update: Mr. Brass has been in touch to dispute the facts of this last post in the series; he wishes to inform me that since 2002 he has sold between 140 and 150 copies, currently at a rate of 19-25 a year. Brass's explanation for the discrepancy between these figures and those in the article above appears to be that bulk purchases only have a small effect on the sales rank; this appears to imply that many of those purchases were bulk, but Brass did not actually say so to me. As the major thrust of this series is about Brass's reasons for calling himself a "published archaeologist" and as the main point in this examination of Brass's book is that it is self-published, I won't be pursuing this point as it has very little relevance to the wider picture.

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.