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

What is the BCSE's competency, exactly?

We already know that the "British Centre for Science Education" don't have credentials that would allow them to speak with any kind of authority about science education (one, two, three). But just what is their specialist area of knowledge? Again, despite their large output on religious questions, it's certainly not this either (one, two).

In recent days I received an e-mail from a creationist scientist, who had some comments to make on what he had seen on the BCSE's website. I thought that the e-mail made so many telling points about the BCSE's lack of knowledge of the things it seeks to critique, and about the quality of the BCSE's research, that I asked him for permission to publish it.

My correspondent is a qualified scientist and a fellow of the relevant society, and has published a good deal of material. Or in other words, he knows what he is talking about.

Here it is:

Hi David,

I thought you might want to capture Roger Stanyard's latest post on the BCSE forum before it disappears - because it's just possible that it will be deleted once his friends realise how off-the-wall it is!

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=717

Roger's stated aim in his posted article is to describe "intelligent design theory" for the general public as they browse the BCSE website. As we've come to expect from the BCSE, the errors and misrepresentations are numerous - so much so that it's difficult to know where to begin putting it right - but Roger manages to make this contribution even more hilarious than usual. Here are just a few things that immediately spring out:

1) It's only a draft, I know, but Roger's English grammar and spelling are extremely poor - ironically something that the BCSE used to claim was a characteristic of those poorly-educated "fundies". This suggests that the article was written in a hurry with little attention to accuracy or detail - surprise!

(David comments: My correspondent is referring to some of Mr. Stanyard's mocking words on the BCSE's now hidden "Rough Guide To Fundamentalism" page, which I have covered in previous posts: one, two, three. I have not drawn attention to this myself as I have had it suggested to me by someone else who noticed Mr. Stanyard's consistently poor spelling that he has a mild form of dyslexia - but his hypocrisy in abusing others (as he does on the afore-mentioned page) for the same fault is blameworthy and justifies the mention of this).

2) Roger repeats the standard nonsense about creationists believing in the separate creation of individual species - but, as informed creationists point out ad nauseam in articles and talks, the diversification of species within the created kinds is an integral part of the creationist model of the history of life. A cursory browsing of any major creationist website (AiG, CMI, BCS, etc) would have revealed that inconvenient fact to Roger.

3) One claim (presented by Roger as a creationist belief) is truly bizarre: "existing species suddenly start producing offsprings of a completely different species and then, after a short while, revert to back breeding their own species. So hippos suddenly start giving birth to whales or tigers to lions or foxes to wolves. Or dinosaur eggs suddenly start hatching into mammals or birds." It's difficult to imagine where Roger could have picked up such an extraordinary notion - perhaps he's confusing creationist views with the evolutionary "hopeful monster" theory of Goldschmidt? It's certainly not from any creationist literature I've ever read.

4) He says of creationists: "The majority believe that all life was zapped into existence on a single day, within a few hours, 6,000 years ago." On a single day? You'd think the term "six-day creationist" would be a giveaway even to the BCSE!

5) Roger seems to think that God individually created species such as mammoths, tigers, lions, sabre-tooths, etc from the very beginning. In fact, creationists regard these species as having arisen by the diversification of the created kinds after the Flood. For example, lions and tigers are varieties of cat probably descended from an ancestral pair of cats taken on the ark.

6) And then Roger makes another bizarre claim that he attributes to creationists: "And all of these creatures would be sterile and incapable of breeding...They would never have any young. None of the birds would produce eggs, raise chicks or eat insects." Now why on earth would creationists believe such an odd thing? Roger has the answer: "That’s because, in the opinion of the proponents of Intelligent Design, the bible says so." I wonder, then, what he makes of Genesis 1:22?

7) After all this, Roger has the brass-neck to say that "intelligent design" is "a seriously bent scam", "an insult to religion", "devoid of even basic common-sense and honesty" and promoted by those who are "deliberately deceptive, evasive and completely dishonest. They lie, out of necessity, repeatedly and habitually to promote their beliefs." He concludes: "If you believe in Intelligent Design, you have been had and therefore a mug." Reading this extraordinary article, the words "pot", "kettle" and "black" come to mind.

Now, of course, Roger has only offered this as a "draft" for "feedback". But it's embarrassingly bad even for a first draft. As a piece of "research" or even a critical summary it's shambolic. If a creationist author had submitted an article of equivalent quality to our journal, (snip), I'd reject it immediately. Not that any of Roger's colleagues have so far managed to point out these failings to him. So far they've advised him to use a spell-checker, suggested that he's really describing creationism rather than ID, asked him to qualify his use of the word evangelical, and invited him to take into account the fact that there is a Muslim creationist movement - but the blindingly obvious mistakes, errors and misrepresentations have gone completely unremarked! It suggests that Roger and his friends in the BCSE actually know next-door to nothing about the very movement they are seeking to criticize - which hardly inspires confidence in their campaign!

I hope this might spark some useful thoughts for your blog.

David's comments:

My correspondent is completely correct, but I think that his corrections will be lost on Roger Stanyard. Mr. Stanyard's standard response to the revelations from this blog has been to claim, in effect, that he knows better than his opponents do about their own beliefs. If you try to correct him by explaining what you really believe, he will tell you that you are lying! (This was Stanyard's response to the "Theocracy" series!).

My correspondent was, however, wrong in his suggestion that some member of the BCSE would eventually jump in to point out how embarassingly ignorant Stanyard's understanding of ID and/or creationism were...

David Anderson


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

We're Not Anti-Religion, But... (Part 3)

In the previous parts of this article (one, two), we began revealing a now-hidden page on the BCSE website which blows apart their present claim to be religiously neutral: the BCSE's own "Rough Guide To Fundamentalism". And then we briefly examined the BCSE's use of the term "fundamentalist".

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/RoughGuide - now passworded

And Now...

Today we will begin looking at this page in a bit more detail. Just what does it say about the BCSE's leaders. Will they prove their reasonableness? Or not?

In previous investigations, we have commented on where the BCSE source their "research" from. 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 source of another campaigner of their own ilk which said the opposite. Not a great way to prove your own adherence to the principles of science or rationalism.

"Fundamentalism" seems to be the BCSE's pejorative way of referring to Biblical Christianity. What would be the best sources to go for to investigate what Biblical Christians believe?

Well, I am in a different "theological camp" to the following men on some questions, but I have to recognise that they have been the major spokesman and authors in evangelical Christianity in the last fifty years. I would say that the primary sources for investigating what evangelicals in the United Kingdom believe today would be Dr. John Stott, Dr. Jim Packer and Dr. Martyn-Lloyd Jones. Between them these three have written over a hundred books and Bible commentaries, pastored some of the UK's largest evangelical churches, preached at the most popular conferences, and so on. They've even had published their own summaries of Christianity, including "Evangelical Truth" and "What is an Evangelical?", by Dr. Stott, "What is an Evangelical", by Dr. Lloyd-Jones and "Knowing God", by Dr. Packer. At a more academic level, the writings of Dr. David W. Bebbington are most widely recognised as carrying authority.



So, what kind of sources will the BCSE's author (Roger Stanyard) go to in order to inform his readers of the true nature of evangelical Christianity?

But First...

But before we get into that, I want to introduce a certain website.

Some of you may remember that many moons ago in Internet time (about three weeks), I published a parable concerning the arguments employed by Professor Richard Dawkins in his own anti-religious campaigning. (Incidentally, that parable now appears around 30th if you Google for "Dawkins" - if you'd like to see it rise even higher, please blog it or link it from whatever websites you have!).

This parable has been viewed around 1,200 times so far - and had all kinds of response over the Internet. There was one response, though, that made me laugh out loud.

That response came from a website called "Fundies Say The Darndest Things" (FSTDT). This was not a website I had visited before. The idea of this site seems to be that people submit silly quotations from "fundies", and then everybody else gets to post their own comments on them. I assume that the users of this kind of web-site have more spare time than I do!


Well, somebody picked up the first paragraph from my parable - and posted it to "FSTDT". And then the responses came in.

What kind of response did the parable get? This: The readers of "FSTDT" took it completely literally. What kind of idiot could really believe that Richard Dawkins doesn't exist, they wondered? Look, it's really easy to prove! And so some of the commenters started providing counter-arguments to refute me. Here are a few samples:

"A birth certificate and a number in the census is enough."

"Go to his website and see him in action."

"go see richard dawkins speak, or watch him on tv"

"What an idiotic comparison. For one, Richard Dawkins does not claim to be an invisible being in whom you have to have faith. There are ACTUAL pictures of him. There are recently published books written by him. There is no way of verifying that an ancient tome was written by someone nobody has ever seen or spoken to. Crazy people and people in myths don't count."

Most of the comments, though, are from people who are obviously seriously angry about any mention of God or religion - and presumably hang out at "FSTDT" in order to vent that anger at those darned "fundies". Most responses are simply rants. I don't recommend you visit the page, as it's full of foul or crude language - but if you want to verify my quotes, here it is: http://www.fstdt.com/comments.asp?id=19327

It wasn't until the twenty-second comment that somebody pointed out that FSTDT's readers weren't quite grasping how to interpret my piece:

He obviously isn't serious. His write up is a parable warning of hyper-sceptism.

My other two favourite responses were these.

"If there is a Dawkins, why hasn't he shown himself to me?"

Because you failed the entrance requirements for the university where he lectures.

I did? Bother. I hate entrance exams! Still, they let me in anyway and I enjoyed my time there enormously. (I never met Professor Dawkins though).

And finally this one:

The fact that the book exists should be proof that Richard Dawkins exists as someone had to write it.

Brilliant! This one made me laugh out loud. Now, please complete the following sentence:

The fact that the universe exists should be proof that ... ?

My overall impression of "FSTDT", based upon the inability to understand the concepts of metaphor, parody or parable, and the level of abuse, was that it is basically populated by angry adolescents. Teenagers who had trouble parsing non-literal language, and with a lot of dislike of Christianity that they want to express.

Which Brings Me To...

But what's the point, David, you say? Here it is. Guess what Roger Stanyard writes at the bottom of page of "research"? Guess what his major source for showing us just what evangelical Christianity is, was? Oh yes...

Most of the information for this article has come from the web site Fundies Say the Darndest Things (http://www.fstdt.com). The site has a vast number of quotes from fundamentalists, nearly all of them in North America. It presents a picture of a movement of pig-ignorant inarticulate bigots, racists, xenophobes, anti-Semites, misogynists, homophobes, rape apologists, AIDS deniers, government haters, scientific illiterates, gun-lovers, murderous paramilitaries and others predisposed towards extreme violence, half-baked misfits and haters, all obsessed with their own religious and moral superiority.

Much of it reads like something out of Germany in the 1930s. A lot of the stuff in it I couldn’t reproduce on my own blog because it is so extreme and offensive. With this evidence it is impossible for me to conclude otherwise than that the protestant evangelical fundamentalist movement is not a benign movement at all. Much of it is dangerous, obnoxious and vile.

Yes, my good readers. Mr. Stanyard's main source for his quality research is... a collection of angry adolescents.

My own personal library has over a thousand books by evangelical authors. And not one of them bears the slightest resemblance to anything that Mr. Stanyard writes above. But I suppose that you knew that.

And I suppose that Mr. Stanyard knew that too... which is why he doesn't go anywhere near them, lest they spoil the yarn he's trying to spin.

Frankly, I take the fact that Mr. Stanyard has to stoop to this level as a pretty good sign. After all, if that's how far you have to go to make evangelicalism look bad, then ... ?

Bringing This To A Conclusion

This isn't credible research, is it?

Rather, it is the same picture we've seen many times before - the BCSE cherry-picking the most unlikely sources, then distorting them, and then presenting them to the public as solid facts.

This isn't the way to make yourself seem credible. Isn't it rather the way to make yourself seem ignorant, prejudiced and bigotted?

In my opinion, this kind of thing is why present Darwinists of the campaigning atheist variety are on the road to losing the origins debate in the public mind. In the short term, you can create a lot of smoke and gather a raging mob of supporters by shouting about how some alternative theories are all promoted by "movement[s] of pig-ignorant inarticulate bigots, racists, xenophobes, anti-Semites, misogynists, homophobes, rape apologists (etc., etc., etc.)". But in the long term, this kind of extreme ad hominem just makes you look silly. Certainly those who call others "pig-ignorant" or "bigots" need to check just what kind of glass their own houses are constructed from. As supporters of intelligent design and other theories pile up more and more compelling arguments, shrill ad hominem becomes a less and less credible response.

But in my opinion, because of the BCSE's leaders' lack of actual science/educational experience, it was inevitable that this would be what was on offer.

David Anderson


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

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

More Alien Activity at the BCSE

A few days ago I posted a report, here, looking at the quality of the BCSE's research. You ought to read that report to get the context. To summarise:

• The BCSE claimed that belief in aliens and UFOs was a "standard boiler-plate" belief of creationists, and that Answers in Genesis were "going round the UK telling all in [sic] sundry that UFOs, manned by aliens who believe in the theory of evolution, are busy abducting people."
  
  
• The facts were that just the briefest of visits to the AiG website, or the website of any other major creationist body, would show that they have published a considerable amount of material over a long period arguing that aliens do not exist.
  
  
• In fact, belief in aliens is prevalent amongst leading Darwinists, and organisations such as NASA on the basis of a belief in evolution are spending millions of US dollars on research into the area. AiG and others regularly draw attention to this.
  
  

Well, very quickly after I posted that article, the BCSE very hurriedly started cutting-and-pasting around its website. A new page was hurriedly put up entitled "UFOs", in order to provide some kind of whiff of plausibility for the BCSE to go on claiming that "even at the top there is a widespread belief in wackiness such as UFOs and flying saucers" (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/KeyIssues).

I responded to this development in a new footnote to my original article, which you can read here.

Where We're Going Today

I want to use this opportunity arising from the publication of this new page on the BCSE website to make some further observations on the BCSE's "research". This was inspired by the following comment in my mailbox:

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 about creationist scientists 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?

Today I want to tease out the truth behind what my correspondent is saying. Good science depends upon accurate, fair and balanced evaluation of the data. When it comes to aliens and UFOs, how does the BCSE's use of the data in its attempts to discredit its non-Darwinian opponents match up? It has put up a new page to respond to me - what does this new page show? And what does this say about the BCSE in general? Let's take a look.

1. Taking All The Facts Into Account

Any decent scientist or researcher of any kind has to make sure that he uses all the facts at his fingertips. Selectivity reveals bias.

In our previous article, we collected a vast array of facts:

• Many articles on the Answers in Genesis' (AiG) website.
  
  
• A printed booklet published by AiG.
  
  
• A DVD published by AiG.
  
  
• An article from AiG's printed magazine.
  
  
• The website of Creation Ministries International (CMI) (a group comprised of four former branches of AiG).
  
  
• A special website set up by CMI devoted exclusively to the issue of alien life.
  
  

All of these facts pointed in the same direction - creationists argue that aliens don't exist, and that belief in them is due to people inferring them from the doctrine of evolution. (i.e. Life began by chance on earth, so therefore is likely to have done so somewhere else too in our vast universe).

How is it, then, that the only statements made on the BCSE website about the alien/UFO issue would lead you to believe precisely the opposite to the above? The above facts appear to have had no effect on the BCSE's reporting whatsoever. They are never mentioned on the BCSE's page which refers to UFOs - apart from to note that a single creationist who doesn't work for AiG doesn't believe in aliens.

2. Using The Best Sources (Primary Sources)

To build up an accurate picture, you have to not only use all the available sources, but make sure that you use the best ones. And if you want to get a reliable picture of what creationists generally believe, then obviously you ought to go to those creationists' themselves. If you want to allege, as the BCSE still do, that Answers in Genesis are "going round the UK telling all in [sic] sundry" that aliens are manning UFOs (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/TruthInScience), then Answers in Genesis would obviously be the primary source.

Do the BCSE carry any quotes from AiG's website, then? Any of their books? Magazines? DVDs? Leaflets? No, no, no, no and no again. The BCSE utterly fail to use any of the readily available primary sources - the primary sources which give a completely different picture from the BCSE's allegations.

What, then, do the BCSE claim as their source for their conclusions? That's our next point...

3. Use of Reliable Sources

It is not enough to have sources - for your conclusions to carry weight, they must be credible sources. The BCSE give two sources for their allegations:

• A single quote of a synopsis of an anonymous review at Amazon of a book being promoted by CMI. (This source is not the major one that the BCSE use - that is the next one).
  
  
• A section picked out of the write-up of the notes of a single anti-creationist campaigner who attended one event at which an employee of AiG spoke.
  

Now, if you happen to believe that all anonymous Amazon reviewers can be relied upon, or that the written-up notes of the said campaigner are infallible, then the BCSE is indeed using good sources... but if you live in the real world, then you'll have to concede that those sources look some-what "cherry-picked" in order to support the BCSE's desired conclusions.

A source must of course also be assessed for its bias. For the BCSE cite the memory of a member of a fellow anti-creationist campaigning group as a reliable authority ought to make them blush. However, the BCSE merely introduce this fellow campaigning group as "Science Just Science". Like the BCSE, this group have chosen a name which wouldn't alert you to the fact that they are a one-issue campaigning group, and hence are hardly an impartial authority. Hiding the true identity and motives of your sources is another indicator of bias.

4. The Use of Verifiable Sources

For a source to carry weight, it must be subject to verification. Can anyone go and check that the thing said really is so? Or do you have to be specially privileged?

The BCSE's major source for its allegations comes from a single memory of an anti-creationist activist. He was writing up his notes of something that ex-AiG employee Philip Bell once said. On the basis of this one piece of evidence, the BCSE seek to present an entirely different picture of AiG's beliefs than would be gathered from, say, reading the AiG website.

Now, to any objective evaluator of the data, that's a major problem. In a court of law, hearsay evidence isn't admissable. "My friend once heard this fellow say that" isn't acceptable evidence under any normal scheme. But that's the BCSE's basis for its claims.

On the other hand, published websites, magazines, leaflets and DVDs can be checked by anyone. Yet the BCSE entirely overlooks these. Not very confidence-inspiring, is it?

5. Using Those Sources Properly

But wait a moment. Have those sources been used fairly and properly? A scientist who wants his conclusions to be taken seriously must be able to not only show verifiable sources for his data, but demonstrate that he is interpreting the data in an even-handed and fair manner. Do the conclusions drawn agree with the data?

The source who the BCSE rely on, in his report, also states two things which have a bearing on our question:

• Speaking of Philip Bell, the reporter writes that he "doesn't believe in aliens".
  

Now, I'm glad that the BCSE didn't so selectively quote that they missed that bit out... but just how does this tally with the BCSE's conclusion that Answers in Genesis are "going round the UK telling all in sundry that UFOs, manned by aliens who believe in the theory of evolution, are busy abducting people." ? If the (now ex-)AiG speaker whose presentation the BCSE rely on as their sole source stated that aliens don't exist, then how can it be inferred that he believes that UFOs are being manned by aliens? Obviously the author of the BCSE's write-up was in something of a hurry to jump to his conclusions, and used the data extremely selectively.

• So where does the stuff about UFOs come from? Here it is:
  
  "A question for the audience: 'Do you believe in UFOs?' Philip does - lots of flying objects are unidentified, and he cited stealth bombers, lenticular clouds, the planet Venus and the photographs of the White House taken in 1952 (see http://www.rense.com/general27/Ufosflew.htm) - he just doesn't believe in aliens."

In other words, Philip Bell appears to believe in UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) in the sense that some flying objects have not been identified. Unless you believe that every flying object ever has been successfully identified, then I think we'd have to say that we all believe in UFOs in that sense. I do! An example given is of stealth bombers - a flying object identified by people who know when and where they're flying, just not by the person who experienced them going past. UFOs, then, in the "not yet identified flying objects" sense, not in the "flying saucers manned by aliens" sense - because he doesn't believe that aliens exist.

But from this quote, the BCSE start talking about not only UFOs but "flying saucers" too, such as here:

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

Note that the BCSE say "UFOs and flying saucers" - something that Philip Bell never said. The flying saucers seem to be the BCSE's own extrapolation.

So, even if we allowed that the BCSE's source was perfectly accurate - is that a fair usage of the source?

Conclusion

This piece of "research" from the BCSE has allowed us to highlight a number of things:

1. The BCSE overlooked the primary sources - and continutes to do so even after being alerted to them.
   
   
2. The BCSE instead chose two quotes from unverifiable, secondary sources, and then placed upon them a spin which they could not bear.
   
   
3. In fact, the BCSE's own conclusions directly contradicted other parts of those quotes - whereas the quotes make plain in what sense UFOs were thought to exist, and that aliens don't, the BCSE come up with conclusions about "flying saucers" and UFOs "manned by aliens".
   
   
4. The BCSE chose to extrapolate from the single alleged (but now shown to be false) view of a single individual to the whole of an organisation and the whole of a movement, and defined this as a "Key Issue".
   
   
5. The BCSE continue to entirely overlook the real issue that NASA and other bodies, on the basis of evolution, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars based on the belief that aliens could exist. Here is a real, verifiable case of a shed-load of money being spent on hunting for aliens because of Darwinism - but the BCSE are entirely silent about it. The BCSE are clearly not willing to come to an impartial view of aliens - their sole interest is to find something to discredit non-Darwinists.
   

Now, with all this evidence of clear bias, hypocrisy and impartiality, let's take a step back and think about this "Centre for Science Education".

The BCSE purport that neutral and objective scientists have calmly, fairly and carefully evaluated all the data available in the Darwinism debate, and proved 100 times over that Darwinism is a fact, and that intelligent design and/or creationism are only for clowns and not worth your looking into. The BCSE want to represent themselves to you as a legitimate scientific and educational body, who certify to you that this view is correct.

Now, we've seen the utterly biased and hypocritical manner in which the BCSE handle evidence. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I hope that you're thinking that the BCSE have utterly falsified their own claim that scientists handle data objectively and without bias. If we will allow the BCSE's description of themselves as being scientists, then we've shown that scientists too are human beings - who handle data according to their own pre-conceptions, and are liable to ignore, or distort whatever doesn't fit in with the conclusion they hoped to get out. Is it any coincidence that Britain's most well-known Darwinist, Richard Dawkins, is also Britain's most well-known atheist? Could it be that he promotes the one because he wants to promote the other?

If you are thinking that way, then I'd urge you to look into the Darwinism debate again. Militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, Steve Jones, the general leadership of the BCSE, and so on, are not handling the data fairly. If you look into creationism and intelligent design fairly, then I think you'll see this demonstrated many times over. Here are some resources to get you going:

• Truth in Science's review of commonly-claimed evidence for Darwinism: http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/category/18/52/65/. I remember being taught at school that various of these things are evidence for Darwinism - they're not.
  
  
• Creationism: Index of articles from the AiG website: http://answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp
  
  
• And from CMI's: http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/21/65/
  
  
• CMI's online store for ordering books and DVDs: https://store.creationontheweb.com/uk/?
  
  
• Online copies of some of AiG's most published books:
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/cec/online_resources.asp
  

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

N.B. 12^th December update : A couple of sentences in the above article were re-worded or removed to remove inaccuracies pointed out to me by Dr. Roy Thearle, the author of the account that the BCSE cite. 5^th January: missed one.

The Quality of the BCSE "Research" : An Investigation

On various occasions I have had cause to remark on the "research" on the BCSE's website. The consistent hall-marks of this research are:

• Mere assertion: No sources, or only secondary ones, are given. Anybody wanting to "check the facts"independently can't.
  
  
• Straight-forward inaccuracies, presented as facts. A BCSE article I was reading the other day stated that a man who has been in the US for some years was presently working in the UK. This is typical.
  
  
• Contain 2+2=5 type deductions. Indeed, the whole basis on which the BCSE operates is an illogical deduction. Firstly, they notice that non-Darwinists want the scientific criticisms against and not only the positive arguments for Darwinism to be discussed in science education. Second, they observe that a number of non-Darwinists in the UK are Christians. The conclusion, and the whole basis of their resulting campaigning, is that "These fundamentalists want a theocracy!". Apparently, the real aim of those who dissent from Darwin is to do away with science, and teach religion in biology classes instead. The dissenters never openly say that of course - which, in the BCSE's eyes, just makes their dishonesty all the more reprehensible!
  
  

My Problem

My difficulty in documenting some of these facts, though, is that I don't want to draw peoples' good names through the mud. I'm quite happy to mention the BCSE's allegations that my real motivations for countering them are child-abuse, or whatever, but I don't want to have to bring anyone else into it.


But, happily, the BCSE do manage to find some space to discuss other things than their opponents' religions, or secret masterplans. So, let's go for a test case. And let's not pick something obscure, either - let's pick something that they say is a "key issue". Let's see how the BCSE's research measures up.

Aliens and UFOs

The BCSE's website has a number of claims about aliens and UFOs. In a nutshell, apparently, creationists believe in them and are spreading wacky nonsense about them. In the BCSE's own words:

1. They twice claim that the "Answers in Genesis" organisation are:
   
   "going round the UK telling all in [sic] sundry that UFOs, manned by aliens who believe in the theory of evolution, are busy abducting people."
   
   (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/TruthInScience and http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/RichardPorter)
   
   
2. In listing the "key issues" at stake in the whole debate, they list, under "Key Issue 2 : They Are Weak On Understanding", the following:
   
   "Much of the movement is deeply anti-intellectual. Moreover, even at the top there is a widespread belief in wackiness such as UFOs and flying saucers".
   
   (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/KeyIssues)
   
   3) In its article on creationist Philip Bell, the claim is repeated:
   
   "Bell is noted for his wacky opinions on UFOs" and "Apparently Bell believes that UFOs are manned by fallen angels who abduct members of the public". Just why this is "apparent" is not stated. The same page also states "Still, belief in .. UFOs ... are standard boilerplate beliefs of Answers in Genesis."
   
   (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/PhilipBell)
   

Summing Up The Claim

So, notice what the BCSE are claiming:

• Belief in "wackiness such as UFOs and flying saucers" is "widespread" - an evidence of a "deeply anti-intellectual" approach "even at the top".
  
  
• In particular, Answers in Genesis has spread such ideas "round the UK" to "all in [sic] sundry".
  
  
• This is a "Key Issue" in the Darwinism debate.
  

Evaluating The BCSE's Claims

The first thing to note, as you read those claims on the the pages referenced, is that there is no documentation for them. You merely have to take the BCSE's word for it. Now that in itself is a problem - the BCSE's track record for reliable pronouncements is, as we have seen, hardly solid. Or, in the words of one of their leaders, Ian Lowe (emphasis mine):

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. Caricature ...

Still, the claims should be easy enough to check. Answers in Genesis have a huge website and catalogue of publications. Let's have a look.

Answers in Genesis

Creationists believe that man is a special creation - made uniquely in the image of God. Creationists reject the idea that life or intelligence are natural phenomena, that can arise by chance - rather, they assert they only exist by divine intervention. Just because human life exists, it is no reason to deduce that aliens exist - unless, of course, you believe that life does occur naturally and without divine intervention. Creationists regularly and consistently refute speculation about alien life.

Good science supports the creationist position. Whereas the conditions on earth when life arose by itself are supposed (by Darwinists) to be extremely simple, and whereas no intelligent input is supposed to have been necessary, all the combined intelligence of Darwinists with all their access to conditions as complex as they please has not managed to produce anything even remotely resembling life - let alone self-replicating, highly complex life.

Here are a just a small selection of easy-to-locate resources from the Answers in Genesis website and bookstore which spell out this position in detail:

• http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/alien.asp
  AiG's index to their list of resources on alien life and UFOs. 25 articles are listed, each of which in clear terms rejects the idea of extra-terrestial life as being un-Christian.
  
  
• http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/mars.asp
  An article from AiG's magazine, separating fact from fiction in evolutionists' claims about life on Mars, for which there is no proof.
  
  
• http://shop.gospelcom.net/epages/...30&2D9&2D071
  A DVD from AiG's store on the topic.
  
  
• http://shop.gospelcom.net/epages/...iew/00-1-019
  A leaflet from AiG's store answering the question "Is There Intelligent Life in Outer Space?"
  

Not only do Answers in Genesis regularly refute superstitious beliefs about the existence of alien life, but they also regularly draw attention to the fact that such beliefs are a natural consequence of the Darwinist world-view. If life arose on earth by chance (as Darwinists say) - then why not elsewhere? It is easy to show that belief in aliens, far from being a staple of creationist thought, is actually strongly endorsed by leading Darwinists:

• http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i1/green_men.asp
  An article showing that NASA explains its own spending of hundreds of millions of dollars searching for ETs on the premise of evolution.
  
  
• http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i4/space.asp
  An article rebutting the suggestion from some prominent evolutionists that life on earth is possibly the result of alien visitations.
  
  
• http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/aliens.asp
  An example of a prominent evolutionist making just such a suggestion.
  

(http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/399.asp#79)

There's the evidence. Compare it with the BCSE's claim that belief in UFOs is a "standard boiler-plate belief" of Answers in Genesis. Compare it with their dogmatic assertion that Answers in Genesis have been touring the country, spreading this belief to anyone who'll listen. Hmmm. Do you spot any discrepancies?

Creation Ministries International

Maybe we're just looking in the wrong place? After all, 4 of the 6 Answers in Genesis branches from previous years are now grouped under the name "Creation Ministries International" (CMI). Maybe the BCSE obtained this material from their website?

No, again. The CMI website, on the very front page, contains a link advertising the website http://www.alienintrusion.com. CMI see the arguments against aliens and UFOs as so important to get across to our society that they actually sponsored an entirely separate website just to do this. This website presents precisely the same point of view as Answers in Genesis: Christians, who believe in an all-powerful, over-ruling, creating God, have no need for such superstitions - those superstitutions should be left to those credulous enough to believe that life can create itself out of inanimate matter.

Plenty more resources from CMI along these lines can be found at http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/creationontheweb?q=aliens

The Reality: Aliens and Darwinism

Many of my readers will have heard of "SETI" - the Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence, and particularly "SETI@home", which allows anyone with a computer to join in. This project scans the radio waves, looking for coded patterns. Their hope is that they might find coded patterns which could only be explained as the result of intelligence. Such coded patterns would prove, once and for all, the existence of alien intelligence.

It is interesting to compare the premise of SETI@home with the Intelligent Design movement. Intelligent Design seeks to examine structures in nature (such as DNA), and identify the marks of intelligence. They seek to develop the scientific tools to help them ascertain what the marks of intelligence are - and to identify them in nature. In other words, the premise is basically the same - complex codes reveal intelligence, whether those codes are found in DNA or in radio signals.

But, the difference between militant Darwinists' response to these two programs could not be more marked - and revealing. SETI is welcomed, or not thought objectionable; but Intelligent Design, apparently, is pseudo-science. Why? Many champions of Darwinism are also militant atheists (anyone for Dawkins?). If their is a designer, then most people would conclude that it would be God (though strictly, this conclusion cannot be made from the basis of intelligent design, which is only an investigation of natural phenomena). But the atheist's religious bias requires them to resist any such possibility. On the other hand, SETI poses no threat to their atheism. If aliens are found to exist, then it would rather support it - another example of life arising by itself from nothing!

Curious, isn't it, that there's no criticism of SETI on the BCSE website. You'd have thought that people so adverse to the existence of aliens and so concerned about pseudo-science would have spotted this rather high-profile project! Most peculiar...

Conclusions

Let's now draw our conclusions.

Firstly, we have seen that the accuracy of the claim investigated on the BCSE website is an absolute zero. Not only do the creationists who the BCSE alleges believe in aliens and teach the whole country about them not do so, but they actually go out of their way to do the exact
opposite.

What does this say about the quality of the BCSE's research? It certainly tells us why the BCSE's claims contain no references. Had the BCSE troubled themselves to read an article - any article - from those who they wished to smear, then they would have discovered the truth. It seems to me that what happened is that the BCSE's researchers spotted mention of the word "aliens" or "UFOs" on the Answers in Genesis website, jumped to their own conclusions, and went off to write up the results. The only alternative I can think of is that the BCSE are knowingly lying. Are there any other options? Incompetent or lying - take your pick.


Think about that again. Just how did the BCSE come to this conclusion? We can't know just what went on - but whichever way, what does it tell you about the quality of their research? How much confidence will it give you that any of the other allegations - matters you can't check - that they make on their website are true?

What does all this say about the quality of the BCSE's checking of its own research, and its general competence to speak in debates about Darwinism or science? These claims about aliens and UFOs have been on the BCSE's website since its launch - many months ago. And not just in obscure places - they're even embedded in its list of "Key Issues". Is there not one single person in the BCSE who has read enough creationist literature to spot the obvious error? Is every last one of them speaking about things they don't know about? Where does the evidence point?

And now, consider the "pièce de résistance". Not only do creationists emphatically not believe in aliens, but, as we have seen, it is actually the belief of eminent Darwinists in the highest places (such as NASA, for example). Let us grant the BCSE's premise that this belief is "wacky", evidence of "deep anti-intellectualism", and a good sign that those espousing it shouldn't have their views about life's origins taught in schools. Where does that leave the BCSE's campaign? Let the BCSE's logic be their own judge!

What do you think will happen now? Do you think that the BCSE will now launch a new campaign, against Darwinism, because of its links with belief in aliens? Will they admit they were wrong, and apologise to those whom they have smeared? Or will they just silently drop the subject, and come up with something else?

My main point, though, is not to do with aliens. It is to do with the BCSE's research. Once again we've shown - it's hopeless. There might not, as in this case, be even the slightest grain of truth in it - the total opposite might be the truth. The BCSE's concern again does not seem to be for truth or accuracy - it is rather to forward their own goals at any cost. We're seeing once again what's really going on - that's why we're here.

David Anderson
bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk - Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed.

Postscript - 8th December

The BCSE are pretty avid readers of this blog, as shown by the fact that whenever I post something, within hours they start tinkering with their website. A new page has been added, apparently to substantiate the BCSE's claims. However, it doesn't take much to spot the holes in the argument:

• Whereas the BCSE's claims are about Answers in Genesis' official position, the new page only deals with a single seminar by a single individual who is no longer an AiG employee - a fact that the BCSE omit to mention.
  
  
• Again, of course, there are no sources that you can verify yourself (as compared, say, to the myriads of articles on the AiG website clearly stating their position). The whole report is based on a write-up of the memory of a single hostile individual. And as we've seen with the BCSE, that's not a great basis for a trustworthy report.
  
  
• Even the BCSE themselves, in this page, are forced to concede, over half-way down the page, that said ex-employee (Philip Bell) "doesn't believe in aliens". Oops - that's the major claim gone.
  
  
• However, the BCSE themselves do attempt to make a play on Bell apparently saying that he does believe that people have seen flying objects that they could not identify - a.k.a. UFOs - and that there are people who really believe themselves to have experienced alien abductions (though remember that Bell says that aliens don't exist). The BCSE attempt, using suggestive but inconclusive statements, to drive a bus through this loophole. Presumably the mentions of slides of "'alien manifestations' - a UFO, a crop circle, an alien head" are meant to suggest that Bell believed those things were real - even though, as even the BCSE in the small-print admit, he didn't.
  
  
• The BCSE's case appears to rest entirely upon the apparent (if we accept the accuracy of the report) suggestion by Bell that people who believe themselves to have experienced alien abductions have been fooled by evil spirits. Of course, as the BCSE are generally hardline atheists, they believe that evil spirits don't exist, and therefore scoff at any such suggestion. Scoffing, though, does not make an argument.
  
  
• This appears to be the whole basis for the BCSE's claims that "UFOs ... are standard boilerplate beliefs of Answers in Genesis." and that AiG are "going round the UK telling all in [sic] sundry that UFOs, manned by aliens who believe in the theory of evolution, are busy abducting people." I think that this further page from the BCSE, which you can view at http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/UFOs provides a pretty good case study for the BCSE's reliability, accuracy and fairness in dealing with its (unverifiable, hostile) sources, which is why I've added this footnote.