An Endorsement ...

Here's another blogger who "gets it". Emphases mine:

To counter Intelligent Design in [Britain], a copy of the NCSE (American version) was established. [Not] as official and as grandiose as this name may sound, there is only one PhD. in the entire organization, and none of them have experience in Science Education.

The purpose of the Centre is described very well at IanB's blog here. The BCSE is essentially an organization founded to dig up dirt on Christians and Creationists in an attempt to discredit them and keep evolution an unquestioned dogma.

This organization is pretty much as new as it can be, and already they have become full of [blatant] lies and distortions in an attempt to fool the public into believing inane things about anyone who disagrees with evolution. An example would be the BCSE's claim that Answers in Genesis was

"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."

This one is one of my favorites:
"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, dinosaurs roaming the British countryside in Tudor times and fire breathing dragons."

Wow... Just wow.
Source

After reading the above link I feel dirty from all the political agenda driven propaganda.

There is in the Blogosphere a fellow named David Anderson who has a blog called The British Centre for Science Education: Revealed and up to this point he has been trashing the Centre all over the place. Way to go David for Sticking it to the man!!!

http://cremnant.blogspot.com/2007/02/british-centre-for-science-education.html

Thanks guys - whoever you are!


David Anderson



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

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.