The BCSE Guide To Silencing Criticism

The BCSE continue to be extremely worried by the threat to their credibility posed by the information revealed on the "BCSE Revealed" blog, and with good reason. Because, we keep highlighting the religious agenda, lack of scientific/educational credentials, and downright falsehoods which are part of their modus operandi. People who read "BCSE Revealed", will consider the BCSE as so silly that it's not even worth listening, let alone responding.

Just how worried the BCSE are can be seen in the steps they're willing to go to discredit me. If you flick through the archives, you'll soon find plenty of material - bogus legal threats, campaigns of insult both by private e-mail and in public, and downright fabrication.

Last week I pointed out that the BCSE had had one of its press releases picked up by the National Secular Society, and run as a news item. The same press release was also blogged by James Randerson, a Guardian columnist. Over the last year, Randerson's name is one that I've soon come to recognise: his own metaphysical naturalistic bias naturalism shines through very clearly (take a peek at his blog to see what I mean). So, it was no surprise at all to find that Randerson was the only mainstream reported of any kind who picked up the BCSE's press release and gave them some publicity from it (albeit in a blog rather than in the newspaper), here.

In the last line of Randerson's blog, he credited the BCSE, with these words:

"For more on TIS check out the British Centre for Science Education."

Those words blow away Randerson's hopes of credibility in the eyes of any neutral observer: the BCSE are the very definition of a bogus scientific institution, driven by their own metaphysics rather than science itself. As I've said before, they serve as a good litmus test: anyone who credits them has given the game away about their own prejudices. One commenter, whose identity I don't know, picked this up, remarking:

Ah, the British Centre for Science Education. So much less ironically named than "Truth in Science" - well worth an uncritical plug in this column, methinks.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/..._classroom.html#comment-713146

I then took the opportunity to add a link to my own blog, so that people could see what he meant. One commenter asked me if I was the "famous David Anderson", mentioned on the BCSE website, a creationist, and said that if I was then therefore "I would say that". I pointed out that the only reason why I was mentioned on the BCSE website was because I run this blog: it is what, in the BCSE's eyes, makes me famous So, somewhat of a circular argument. I "would say that", because I run a blog which does say "that"!

I do wish now that I'd saved a copy of my own comments so that I could re-post them here. I didn't though, because I didn't anticipate what would happen later... which was quite revealing.

What happened next was that Roger Stanyard and Brian Jordan of the BCSE complained to the Guardian that my comments were "malicious libel", and the Guardian dutifully removed them. (Whether that was Randerson himself or not, I don't know).

http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1379

My guess is that the Guardian probably routinely deletes comments on receiving such threats, just to cover their own backs. It's not worth the time to investigate when you get many such complaints, as a huge website like theirs may well do. The BCSE, however, know far better:

• As I've been making statements about the BCSE's bogus credentials in public, known to them, for over a year, very easily accessible (just Google for "British Centre for Science Education" and I'm right up there), linked from very popular blogs, the BCSE have lost any feasible opportunity to sue me for libel: they'd have to explain why they made no formal complaint to me about any specific statements or asked to have any such specific statements removed or corrected, during that time.
  
  
• To be "malicious", a statement has to be known to be false. But, seeing as I've documented all the allegations I've made so that anybody can check their accuracy, this obviously can't apply.
  
  
• And of course, the main point is that... truthful speech, no matter how damaging to your cause, cannot be libelous. Duh!
  
  

I cannot remember exactly what I put on the Guardian blog; my memory was that it was pretty general. But, I'll try my best again here to say all the things I can think of, just to show you that they have no intention of suing me for malicious libel because they know these things are all true:

• The British Centre for Science Education has nobody known in its leadership with any credentials in science education.
  
  
• The BCSE is so inept in its actual knowledge of education, that when it launched, it was easy to prove that its members didn't even know what the National Curriculum was, let alone having read it or implemented it as teachers.
  
  
• The BCSE has a proven and continuing track record in gross deception.
  
  
• The BCSE has run personal campaigns of the nastiest and most personal kinds against me based on utter falsehoods, which it knew in advance to be falsehoods. That's the kind of operators they are.
  
  
• They only have one PhD scientist in their leadership - now retired. (Dr. Jordan - he who signed the infamous Richard Dawkins-backed petition to make it illegal for any parent in the UK to instruct their children in any world view except atheism).
  

Obviously, then, in complaining that I have spoken "malicious libels" about the BCSE, the BCSE are indulging once more in bogus legal threats which have no chance of being carried out, and plain old fibbing once again. You'd think that if the BCSE did have credentialed science educators amongst their number, their website might want to tell you a little about them? Why the almost entire silence on the BCSE website about their true identities and credentials? Because the things I've been telling you are too true...

It is amusing to remember that when I first launched this blog, without a comment facility (because my aim has always been to journal, not to have yet another Internet debating forum), the BCSE complained that my running a blog without comments constituted outrageous "censorship". Here's James Rocks of the BCSE over at RichardDawkins.Net peddling this line:

Yes, he appears to have set up the blog "BCSE Revealed" as nothing more than a deliberate attempt to smear our friends over at BCSE. What's really interesting is the censorship he applies to bloggers (some of which gets revealed at BCSE). I'm also a member there BTW.

http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=75901#p75901

(If you search back through my archives, you will find a little material on Rocks. He's not a qualified scientist, but is a militant atheist, and like the BCSE (of which he is a member), he founded a campaign group which seeks to lobby the public representing itself as an authority on science. Notice too the tag-line in his post at Richard Dawkins' website: "Religion! Something to comfort those who live in a world torn apart by religion!").

Note the "censorship" complaint. How does this tally with the BCSE's own strategy of having links to critical material about them removed from websites on the grounds that it is libelous? How does it measure up with their own panic to prevent anyone from discovering the criticism of them that exists?

The BCSE know that my material isn't within a million miles of being libelous, and they know that they have no intention of taking any legal action over it, because they can't. (I expect they have a range of bogus excuses to cover that... too expensive (not heard of no win, no fee?), too time consuming (yet they have lots of time to run their own smear campaigns against me and write letters to the Guardian complaining about libel!)).

In other words, the BCSE are again caught acting in premeditated deception. So, again, note the hypocritical double standard: The BCSE seek to discredit "BCSE Revealed" by telling you that I censor and smear; the BCSE on the other hand seek to prevent anybody hearing about criticisms of themselves by censoring them based on bogus claims about libel. Ho hum!

The BCSE certainly ought to know what smears are, having had little else to say in response to me. However, Rocks and the rest of the BCSE are stilling failing to get over the reality hurdle: When facts are documented in triplicate, it is not a smear: it is a fact, documented in triplicate. By continuing to point out that the BCSE send press releases to national newspapers like the Guardian, etc., calling themselves a national body of scientific experts, and failing to point out their true identity as a group of atheists, management consultants and junior IT workers etc., I am not smearing them: I'm holding up the mirror of reality. That reality isn't kind to them or their agenda, but reality it still is. Deal with it!


David Anderson



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

Some Pertinent Questions...

The purpose of this blog is to investigate the new body calling itself the "British Centre for Science Education". We've come quite a long way so far - if you're new here, follow some of the label links down the side for the basic material.

What's Been The Reaction?

Today I want to take this opportunity to take a step back and ask "How has the BCSE responded to the questions raised here?".

Firstly, we notice that the BCSE leadership and members have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort in responding to this blog. This has included:

1. Over 50 personal e-mails.
   
   
2. At least 3 brand new blogs or websites, and the promotion of these sites at many places across the Internet.
   
   
3. Plenty of material on 2 existing blogs.
   
   
4. Many and various edits to their own website, including whole new sections researching into my educational background and colleagues, and churches I have preached at.
   
   
5. Time spent researching such essential questions as "Which university did David's pastor obtain his doctorate from?", "Which web hosting company hosts David's wife's nappy business?".
   
   
6. Threats of legal action (still unfulfilled...) for alleged offences against the computer misuse act.
   
   
7. Communications to my colleagues in the Christian ministry to seek to persuade them to ask me to stop blogging.
   
   
8. Reconfiguring their own website to block any accesses which are referred from this blog.

I think that that constitutes quite a lot of effort.

The message which the BCSE want to put out from this effort is also fairly clear. Firstly, "BCSE Revealed" is not reliable; secondly, David Anderson is extremely wicked (which in general I'll grant - that's why I trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sins...)

The BCSE's leaders have, in private e-mails to me, in their forums, and on their website, described me or my blog variously as a child abuser, "clown", "liar", "fool", "stupid", "fundamentalist", "completely without standards or [conscience]", "cowardly", "gutless", "little weasel", "god boy", "extremist", "lowest of the low", "[worse than] the dirtiest little sewer rat chomping away on a turd", having "screamed and raged", "sanctimonious crapola", "windbag", "there is a possibility that he will report you to the police if he disagrees with what you say", "thoroughly immoral", "deeply offensive", "wholly inaccurate", "a pack of lies", "a sanctimonious blustering windbag", "comprehensive smear campaign", "dripping with sanctimonious and condescending self-righteousness", "consists of unmitigated drivel from start to finish", "unmitigated rubbish", "vicious", "particularly vile and smug". I am called a "fundamentalist", a movement which the BCSE website (on a now hidden page) describes as "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."

Well, that's fairly comprehensive.

And?

But, you didn't come here to listen to me wallowing in self-pity. So what's the point?

The point is to compare all the activity and abuse above, with what the BCSE haven't done by way of response.

Firstly, the BCSE haven't ever taken up the offer which comes at the end of each article - to e-mail me with details of any documentable factual errors. I suppose though, that if you're convinced of the chain of allegations above, then you probably figure it's not worth it. I have observed through the BCSE website and forums that Mr. Roger Stanyard plays a particularly active role in convincing people that any non-Darwinist is necessarily a wicked liar. The majority of the quotes above are his.

Secondly, no BCSE leader has ever tried to post a comment on this blog. The BCSE website carries a complaint that I was "censoring" them by not having comments on the blog (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/Links). However, I've had comments for some time now, and it looks to me like this complaint was empty rhetoric.

Thirdly, though is the most significant point. Though the BCSE have spent many hours on all the activities listed above... they haven't actually spent time addressing any of the serious questions which this blog has raised.

That is, there's been a whole barrel load of time spent in trying to convince the Internet that I'm one of the biggest toads in existence... but all the real questions I'm asking have just been brushed under the carpet. That's a slightly curious strategy, isn't it, if the BCSE have all the facts on their side? If you have the truth and can document it - then why would you do that?

What If It's True?

So let's play this out. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that all the personal allegations about me are true. Let us suppose, even, that the BCSE have been too kind to me, and that I am even worse than they have said.

Now... what difference does this make to all that I have documented about the BCSE? Suppose I am really exceptionally evil... does the BCSE then become automatically credible or qualified as a result?

It seems clear to me that the BCSE's strategy to refute my documentation is a straightforward "them versus us - which side are you on?" play. A simple battle, with two sides - you're either for us or against us. If the BCSE can make clear that their opponents are desperately depraved - then the BCSE win the debate by default. All the issues over the BCSE's trustworthiness, credibility and agenda must come down to a simple polarisation - who do you trust? Surely not those insane and evil creationists or Intelligent Design proponents? Surely you trust us instead?

I don't think that intelligent observers will find this a very satisfying response. Even supposing that they are persuaded that I really do suck... the option is still open to them of deciding that it's also true that the BCSE is not a credible organisation in the field of science education, and has in fact been misleading the public about itself. The "either / or" dichotomy is a false one - we can both suck!

In a future article, I am planning to continue the process of taking this step back - and raising again some of those awkward questions which the BCSE don't want to answer. I will contrast the effort put into alleging that I'm a real bad egg, with the lack of effort in actually documenting what I've got wrong.

The BCSE's activity, listed above, is because they want to focus all the attention concerning the issues I've raised on me, instead of themselves. But why?

I think I know... do you?

(Part two: follow this link).

David Anderson



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

Weekend Pot-Pourri

During this last week, we completed* two series:

• "Theocracy" - documenting the sheer vacuousness of the BCSE's anti-Christian propaganda about how critics of Darwinism are plotting to do away with democracy. Part one, part two, part three, part four. Moreover, we documented the hypocrisy of the author of the BCSE's "Theocracy" page, by showing the evidence of his own political activities aimed at suppressing others' freedom of religion.
  
  
• "We're Not Anti-Religion, But..." - a series of articles in which we further exposed the BCSE's "we have no religious agenda!" claim, by showing the damning contents hidden behind a now secret page on the BCSE's website. Part one, part two, part three.
  

(* Maybe I'll say a bit more, but most of what I wanted to show is there now).

Now for a few "bits and pieces" that don't deserve a whole post.

Not Giving Up : The BCSE Smear Campaign

Long-time readers may have thought that the BCSE had embarassed itself enough with its attempts to discredit me - remember the backfiring copyright saga (one, two, three), or the "computer misuse" debacle (one, two, three, four).

It is worth recalling the latter matter. In December 2006, the BCSE posted a permanent item on its forum, claiming that they had evidence that I had been hacking into their website, and that they had received legal advice that I ought to be reported to the police.

I called this stuff and nonsense, and asked them why they didn't go ahead and report me immediately? In the end, to call their bluff, I offered to report myself to the police in order to show how vacuous this claim was. Shortly afterwards, that forum item was no longer visible.

Roger Stanyard, though, is now trying to fabricate a new yarn - according to which I "screamed and raged" and threatened to report him to the police for libel. And he boasts that the fact that he hasn't been arrested is obvious proof that I'm a bag of hot air! (As well as being nasty for using such threats, and a bit dim for not knowing that libel is a civil, rather than police, matter in the UK).

What is Mr. Stanyard's proof of this? Answer: he posts the letter from my original blog post, in which I neither mention libel, nor threaten to report anyone other than myself to the police - for alleged computer misuse, not libel.

If any of my readers are not yet convinced that Mr. Stanyard - who has written almost all of the BCSE's research on its website - isn't the world's most reliable researcher, then I invite them to compare my original posts with the doggy's breakfast that Mr. Stanyard manages to make out of it: (If you want to see the response to the copyright claims, see the links above).

• My original posts:one, two, three, four
  
  
• Roger Stanyard's blog post with his own interpretation: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-679QwMkib6enGIsUE2Z09ARZQczZ?p=95
  

I am curious as to why this piece appeared on Mr. Stanyard's blog as opposed to the BCSE website. I wonder if it was run past the other BCSE members beforehand, and was too much even for some of them to stomach - and they vetoed it.

I don't normally pay much attention to this kind of crude ad-hominem as in general I think it speaks for itself (and so I won't bother to catalogue all the factual errors in the blog post - you can always e-mail me if you're curious), but as one of "BCSE Revealed"'s purposes is to draw attention to the quality of the BCSE's research, this seemed like another revealing piece of evidence.

One final thing to say on that. Stanyard says that the BCSE have seen "no further attempts at hacking" and that this is the reason why they haven't called the police. Well, for the record, I haven't modified my behaviour at all. If I was "hacking" before, then I'm still doing it, and I confess to it. Please, just call the police - if I have committed a crime, then I do not wish to remain free. Just get on with it! All that time writing blog articles when you could be removing criminals from the streets - hurry up with it!

Next Item Please!

OK. Here's just a tiny thing that made me chuckle. (Which probably indicates I've been doing this for too long). For the context to this, see my previous "alien" articles (one, two).

Here's what it said on the page for Philip Bell before 21st January:



And afterwards:



Unfortunately this BCSE page doesn't supply its sources... so we are not able to know just which doctor has now returned Mr. Bell's certificate of sanity to him. Still, I'm sure that he'll be glad about it.

And Finally...

A few interesting links from around the web.

• http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/02/darwinian_meltd.php
  An old link (11 months), but relevant. It says what I was saying earlier this week - that the BCSE / Dawkins style of campaigning is a fast road to intellectual defeat.
  
  
• http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=10570 - "Why Intelligent Design Will Win"
  Even older, and with some American political stuff which I don't care for, but makes some good points.
  
  
• http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2007/01/25/title_17
  From this week! A very well written piece. "Irreducible Complicity: Disappointing Darwin". Pointing out one of the glaring inconsistency of Darwinists who pump millions of pounds into the search for aliens, using the very same philosophical premise which they deny the legitimacy of when it comes to the examination of cell biology.
  
  
• http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4758/
  "The Christian foundations of the rule of law in the West: a legacy of liberty and resistance against tyranny". Militant secularists are, and for a long time, have been pushing fantasy ideas which are thoroughly disproved by the actual events of history. Historical ignorance is the number one friend of militant secularism. This article makes a good complement to some of the information in our "theocracy" series, providing a lot more background on the Christian approach to law and state, and how this has worked out over human history.
  

God bless your weekend. All being well, I will be continuing with the series found here.

David Anderson


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

"Wolf! Wolf!" (II)

Readers may remember that in December, the BCSE twice tried to intimidate and/or discredit me by inventing bogus legal threats against me:

1. At one time, the BCSE website carried paragraphs including allegations such as: "We also advise readers of this wiki that Anderson is in serious breach of UK and international copyright laws in information he is offering to the public." (one, two, three).
   
   
2. After the above allegation seriously back-fired (when the BCSE discovered that a) it was false and b) their private e-mails demonstrated that they knew it was false and c) I was documenting their own multiple and actual breaches of copyright law), the BCSE came up with a new one: that I was attempting to break into their website contrary to the "computer misuse act" and that they had received legal advice to report me to the police (one, two, three).
   
   

I called the BCSE a bunch of bluffing bullies, challenging them to take their evidence to the law if it existed. In fact, I promised to do it myself just to prove the point of how empty their threats were.

And lo and behold... few days later, the BCSE silently deleted the second allegation from their website too.

Before (notice that it's a "sticky" topic, meaning that it was permanently locked to the top of the forum so that all visitors would see it):

(http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=1)

And now, it's gone...


How The BCSE Operate

You will be unsurprised to learn that after carrying this post with its allegations of serious criminality, the BCSE have not troubled themselves to:

1. Send me any kind of apology for any damage done to my reputation.
   
   
2. Put up any kind of statement on their website correcting their errors so that anyone who read the original post can now understand that the BCSE are no longer backing their own allegations.
   

Nope - it's just been silently deleted. Let's just pretend they never said it! Remember that the front page of the BCSE website says:

BCSE believes in ... Righteousness.

I have to say that I find BCSE-style righteousness not very palatable.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf...

The trouble with making bogus legal threats which you have no intention of standing behind should it come to the crunch, is that it damages your credibility. Once you've done it a few times, people no longer see any reason to take you seriously. (For a third case in point, see the footnote of this article). All that the BCSE have accomplished through this saga is:

1. Far from damaging my integrity, they have established it. My words about the BCSE still stand - theirs about me have had to be deleted.
   
   
2. They have proved my own thesis that the "research" on their website will have to be deleted once it comes under scrutiny. Or in other words, their own credibility has been damaged.
   
   
3. They have shown themselves up as bullies - using threats with no substance behind them.
   
   
4. They have shown themselves as too small-minded to publish any kind of apology once their smears are exposed as false.

Or in other words, the BCSE are showing the world all the features which led me to start this blog in the first place so that others could see what was going on...

David Anderson

Calling the BCSE's Bluff

Roger Stanyard has until midnight tomorrow (the 20th of December 2006), to make up his mind about whether he's standing by his allegations of criminality. If he is, then he can look forward to explaining them to the proper authorities. He knows and I know that he doesn't have a shred of evidence - which is why, of course, like most bullies, he just makes spurious threats about calling the police instead of actually doing it.

To:

North Walls Police Station
North Walls
Winchester
SO23 8DW

(Which is a police station under 2 miles from Roger Stanyard's home).

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you about allegations of criminality being publicly made against me by Mr. Roger Stanyard, of number XX, Langton Close, Winchester, SO 22 6RJ. I have written to Mr. Stanyard, asking him to withdraw these allegations - but he has refused to do so.

Therefore, I would like to ask you to investigate these allegations speedily. They are false, Mr. Stanyard refuses to give me any evidence for them, and I desire the public slur on my character to be cleared up as quickly as possible.

The background to Mr. Stanyard's allegations are that he is the spokesman for an activist group (the "British Centre for Science Education") whose dubious credentials and fraudulent methods of operation I have repeatedly exposed on my website. As such, Mr. Stanyard is very keen to discredit me.

Mr. Stanyard alleges that:

• I have been making attempts to "hack or hijack" his organisation's website.
  
  
• In connect with such attempts, I have made "hundreds of failed password attempts". This, he says, is proved by the logs on his website, which identify my computer (by its "IP address").
  
  
• I have consumed "a massive amount of bandwidth" on his website.
  
  
• That he has "received legal counsel" to "contact the police" (which he has not yet done), as I am breaking the "computer misuse act".
  

Mr. Stanyard knows that these allegations are false; I have made no efforts at all to "hack" his organisation's website. Furthermore, Mr. Stanyard knows that my computer accesses his website using the same IP address as many thousands of other Internet users - it is not even technically possible for Mr. Stanyard to pick me out from these users.

I enclose a copy of Mr. Stanyard's allegations from his website, plus some other relevant materials.

I gave Mr. Stanyard a deadline by which to withdraw his allegations. The fact that you are now receiving this letter indicates that he chose not to do so.

I ask you to let me know the outcome of your investigations as promptly as possible.

Kind regards,
David Anderson esq.

(The above article was also copied to roger@dttconsulting.fsnet.co.uk, roger@bcseweb.org.uk, stanyardroger@yahoo.com and committee@bcseweb.org.uk. Or in other words, you can be sure that Mr. Stanyard has seen it. And for the record, in posting part of Mr. Stanyard's address, I am not doing or intending him any harm because he has himself published it in full on another website).

Update 20th December (10 p.m.)
Roger Stanyard is known to be aware of this challenge, as he has posted in a thread on the BCSE forums in which it is mentioned. Another poster in those forums says that I am "obviously" carrying out a "smear campaign" against Roger Stanyard. One more example of the reality blindness that exists over in those forums... hello? Who is the one publishing allegations and making threats about criminality and calling the police, please?

"Wolf! Wolf!"

To follow this post you'll need to be familiar with the fairly short one that sets the context - "BCSE Attempt More Spurious Legal Threats And Intimidation (Updated)". If, however, you want the big picture on the BCSE then you should skip over this post to see some of the previous research.

In the previous post, you'll remember that we saw two things:

• The BCSE's disastrous attempt to discredit me by inventing a new theory of copyright law hasn't put them off from trying again.
  
  
• The BCSE's new attempt is turning out to be equally disastrous. Without producing any evidence, they have accused me of "hacking" their web-site, making "hundreds" of attempts to crack passwords, and consuming "massive amounts of bandwidth". And they do some big talking about calling the police - to which I say, "bring it on!".
  

I think you'll want to read this new response down to the bottom - some of the more damning evidence of the BCSE's incompetence in how it was led to this new allegation is in the second part.

After I blogged my response and asked the BCSE to reproduce it on the forum, something interesting happened. You may remember that the BCSE's page on their website which seeks to discredit me says a couple of relevant things:

• I am "free to reply to our comments through [their] public forum". And they say I'm "scared" to do so.
  
  
• They throw in a bit of irrelevant stuff about other people (presumably because the material available to rebut BCSE-Revealed was a bit thin...). One of these criticisms is of William Dembski's blog over at www.uncommondescent.com. According to the BCSE, this is a "notoriously censored" blog - by which they presumably mean that comments are sometimes deleted.
  

Well, if you were to look at the BCSE's forum now, you'll see this:

In case you can't make that out, it says that there are no (0) replies to what Stanyard posted.

If, however, you were to have looked at the same page on Saturday evening, you'd see this...

Hmmm! Four replies! Where did they go?

Here's what happened:

• I asked the BCSE to publish my reply on their forum.
  
  
• They completely ignored this request. So much for all the waffle about being "free to reply", and too "scared" to do so. I sent them a reply, they refuse to publish it! Big words - but when challenged... (for more of which, see the footnote here).
  
  
• One poster suggested calling the police immediately. Though the intention was obstensibly malicious, I'm all for this. Big-talkers need their bluff to be called!
  
  
• However, Ian Lowe did instead post a reply, in which he stated: "he claims that he was "only" taking a complete copy of our website, including the forums, once a day, every day - as if that makes it okay!!!)"
  Anybody who has read my e-mail, though, will know that Lowe was entirely fabricating - it says no such thing.
  
  
  
  
• A little later, an apparently sympathetic poster, noting my desire to have my reply added to the forum, did so.
  
  
• And just minutes after that... Lowe deleted it. Moreover, he e-mailed the poster to scold him for doing so. That poster apparently decided that enough BCSE hypocrisy was enough, and forwarded Lowe's comments to me. Here is what he said:
  
  David,
  
  Just 13 minutes after I posted my message, I recived this message [Forum time 10.17pm, 16 Dec] from Ian Lowe, accompanied by a terse note: "Your post has been deleted":
  
  "You clearly posted David Anderson's Blog post as an act of mischief. Please do not post this material to our forum again. If anyone wants to read David Anderson's lies, they can do it at his own damn website. Ian."
  
  Remember, that though the BCSE has put all this effort into seeking to discredit me (including a series of private abusive e-mails from Lowe himself), they haven't yet documented any of my "lies". So much effort... still no substance.
  
  
• And at some point after that, all the replies were removed - including the one which effectively called the BCSE's bluff in urging them to call the police.
  

Where does this leave all that fine sounding talk about the BCSE's desire to see me reply to their forum, I wonder? And how about that grand talk about "censorship"? And all that complaining about being "smeared" with no right of reply?

Ho hum. It leaves it where we've left an awful lot of other subjects - with the BCSE's hypocrisy, bias and true agenda once again exposed for us all to see.

More Tricky Problems for the BCSE...

If the BCSE want to make the "Anderson is hacking our website and consuming all our bandwidth - we're thinking of calling the police!" line stick, then I've got a few more problems for them - some of which are pretty major.

• I'm only on a £9.99 per month bandwidth-limited account... please do tell, how have I managed to consume such massive amounts of bandwidth from your site? I must be a genius - especially with all the bandwidth I've used up this month downloading highlights of the Ashes... (sorry to mention the A-word.)
  
  
• Visiting http://www.whatismyip.co.uk/ shows that my IP address is 62.254.128.4 (oxfd-cache-1.server.ntli.net):
  
  My ISP is on the NTL backbone (the "NTL" in "ntli.net"), and as such, all of my web accesses come through the nearest NTL proxy - which is in Oxford (a 113 mile journey, according to Google). NTL appear to funnel all web traffic through their regional proxies.
  
  NTL are one of the biggest backbones; I don't have the figures, but I'd guess that, say, a third of all domestic Internet traffic is routed through them. (A source from May 2005 states that they claimed to be the UK's largest consumer ISP).
  
  It seems that the BCSE identified my IP address, and then jumped to the conclusion that every access from that address must be me. Or in other words, they attributed all visits to their website from NTL's Oxford cache to me. Obviously NTL's Oxford cache covers a huge area (it's a good 2 and a half hours in the car from here to Oxford).
  
  ... and so it's pretty obvious that whoever in the BCSE identified the whole of this traffic as being from me blundered pretty big. Just who is the BCSE's IT Manager, I wonder? It's Ian Lowe...
  
  
  http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/
  
  
  
  I wonder if now the other BCSE members are feeling pretty stupid that they took Ian's word for it. And that upon that word have made themselves look silly again?
  
  Stanyard, wrote, in order to provide the damning evidence of my guilt: "In his blog this week he admitted that it was him - the same IP address which accessed our "AllRecentChanges" page attempted to log into the private areas of our website more than two hundred times in four days." (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3795#3795) Stanyard, though, appears not to have been informed by Lowe that the very "same IP address" is shared by hundreds of thousands of households over an area of hundreds of square miles.... ooops. I wonder what he'll be saying to Lowe now.
  
  
• Whilst I have downloaded a complete copy of the BCSE's website and forum, I'd love to see how the BCSE argue that this is illegal. If it's illegal to read to the pages on their website... then just why did they put them there anyway?
  (By the way, a complete copy of the website takes up only 5.7Mb on disk - hardly "massive"... it's about the same size as a single MP3 download of one of my sermons).
  
  
• I also have a complete copy of Truth in Science's website, and of my own blog too. In fact, the backups of TiS which I have take up more space on my computer than those of the BCSE... so am I hacking TiS too? (And if I'm consuming massive amounts of BCSE bandwidth, then I must be consuming more from TiS - all on that £9.99 a month limited-download package!).
  
  
• More on the reliability of Lowe's testimony in general... let's bring out this quote again, in which Lowe explains what he aims to do in his campaigning with the BCSE:
  
  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. - see here.
  

That's right, folks. For it's new attempt to discredit me, the BCSE is producing no evidence on its website that anyone independent can verify, but merely asking you to take the word of an incompetent IT manager who has already been exposed as stating that he deliberately intends to lie in order to help the BCSE's campaign....

... which is of course why I look forward to the BCSE calling the police so that we can see just how seriously they're taken. Come on guys! I'm calling your bluff!

The aim of "BCSE Revealed" is to show how the BCSE operate, and assess their level of competency and credibility. And that's what we've just done.

David Anderson

BCSE Attempt More Spurious Legal Threats And Intimidation (Updated)

Readers may remember that the BCSE previously tried to discredit me and intimidate me into silence by inventing a new legal theory of copyright.

This claim rather badly backfired, because:

1. I wasn't so silly as to take their word for it,
   
   
2. I had already checked my facts on what copyright law permitted, and
   
   
3. It was rather easy to demonstrate that the BCSE were and are flouting actual copyright laws on a significant scale.
   

You can read about that here: one, two, three.

Let's Try Something Else...

Well, the BCSE are today trying a new one. On their forum, they have put up a "sticky" (i.e. permanently visible) post claiming that I have been attempting to "hack" or "hijack" their website. Roger Stanyard goes on to write:

An examination of our server logs shows clear evidence that he has been using software to search every single section of our website, and have made numerous attempts to access the restricted areas of both our website and forums - the logs show him are responsible for hundreds of failed password attempts and consumption of a massive amount of our bandwidth. - http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3795#3795

And accordingly, Mr. Stanyard goes on to explain, he has taken advice from "legal counsel", who have told him to inform my ISP, block my access, and tell the police. Ouch! Of course, those "server logs" are not put up for you or anyone else to verify...

Now, given the BCSE's previous pronounciations on copyright law, I'm inclined to believe that Stanyard's "legal counsel" is probably Stanyard himself, or failing that, his budgie. Certainly it's hard to believe that it's somebody with legal training! My budgie, though, tells me that Stanyard would probably end up having to answer questions about wasting police time.

Anyway, the BCSE sent the same to me in an e-mail. Here is the reply I sent them:

Dear Mr. Lowe / BCSE Committee,

This e-mail contains misdirection and misinformation.


The fact:
* I employ a program which downloads a full copy of your website.


Your misdirection and misinformation:

* Said program makes no attempt to guess any passwords. ("failed password attempts").

* Said program makes no attempt to "hack". In fact, it doesn't even include such a facility - it is merely a program for downloading web pages.

* Said program makes no attempt "to log into the private areas". (Of course the program gets served up with a number of password forms when it tries to view protected content, but it makes no attempt to actually guess a password or perform a log in).

As such, your claim to have found "clear evidence" "literally hundreds of failed password attempts" is false.

My ISP has not troubled itself to be in touch and so I assume that it takes your attempt to intimidate me with further spurious legal threats about as seriously as I do.

I will be grateful if you would add this response to your forum.

Kind regards,
David Anderson

I do not know whether the BCSE actually know that they are misdirecting, or if their IT manager (which according to their website is Ian Lowe) is simply incompetent at reading log files.

Either way, though, it's clear that they rushed to publish something on their website to discredit and/or threaten me (and report me to my ISP) without troubling themselves to check out the facts.

And that's one more piece of evidence about the way the BCSE do business. Each time this happens to me, I'm going to ask my readers: "And do you think they've done any less of a hatchet job on any of the other non-Darwinists they give you their 'research' on in their website?"

Maybe one day some of the BCSE's core will wake-up and say: "Hmmm. We were wrong about that one too. I wonder how much else we could be wrong about?" Until then though, "BCSE Revealed" presses on...

Update: Instead of publishing the above e-mail as requested, Ian Lowe added some new falsehoods to Roger Stanyard's original claim. Amazing. (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3814#3814) Notice what Ian says: "he claims that he was 'only' taking a complete copy of our website, including the forums, once a day, every day - as if that makes it okay!!!" Now, you've read the e-mail above. Can you find anything resembling what Ian says in it? (I don't take a copy daily, by the way - or even close. I'm on a limited package with my Internet Service Provider, and if I downloaded anything like as much data as Ian suggests, I would use up my monthly allowance within days). Can you find the word which Ian puts in quotes? ("only"). Can you find any word connected with "day", "daily" or "every"? Is Ian being even remotely truthful?


I'm glad again to demonstrate again what's going on here - the BCSE continues to invent words, meanings and slurs out of thing air (for more of which, see here)... which is of course, precisely what "BCSE Revealed" exists to document. And to that sort of thing, I blow (blog) one big fat raspberry.

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

Michael Brass and Copyright

In the past few days I've had a few e-mails from "Mikey" Brass, the newly appointed BCSE interim chairman. You may remember that Mikey e-mailed me to request a correction to my previous article on copyright.

That previous article arose from the fact that the BCSE has attempted to discredit me, by claiming that I am breaking the law. Or in their own words, "he has never approached us for copyright permission on any material lifted from any sites of BCSE or its forum participants or members." Of course, I don't need any permission merely to make small quotations from any of their sites.

Oops...

But this claim quickly back-fired on the BCSE rather spectacularly. With just a cursory sweep of their website, I was able to uncover over 10 places where they have lifted entire articles from copyrighted sources (including those with prominent copyright notices) onto their site.
Among those who have been plagiarised are the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent and several creationists.

However, one of my "exhibits" ("Exhibit A") was not a whole article, but 3 A4 pages, of which less than 1 page was from an unpublished work. Mikey Brass, BCSE chairman, e-mailed me to let me know that he personally had permission to publish this short extract. I took his word for it - you can read the correction I made in the original article.

Further Comments

However, Mikey didn't stop there - he also had something to say about the 2 A4 pages of the other work. Mikey said,

"I also love your ignorance of fair usage: the quoted pieces constitute less than ten percent of either work."

I found this interesting for two reasons:

1) Mikey appears to be asserting that "fair use" defines the right to re-publish up to ten percent of a published work without needing permission. Apparently, to not know that is to be "ignorant".

2) Mikey also clearly shows that he does know that "fair use" rights exist - and therefore he knows that his organisation's website contains clear falsehoods about me allegedly acting "illegally" in making short quotes. Or in the BCSE's own words, "As a trainee man of religion, we are surprised that Anderson is willing to break the law".

Ten Percent?

I wanted to make sure that I had really understood Mikey right on both points. It wouldn't be fair to blog this without checking that I wasn't misinterpreting him, so I e-mailed him to ask.

Mikey confirmed that this was indeed his understanding.

To me, this just shows again the huge gap between reality and the BCSE's public announcements and representation of itself as a credible authority. I've touched on this before when covering the BCSE's (and Mikey's) off-the-wall pronouncements on home education.

UK copyright laws do not mention any definite percentage. Each case is judged on its merits, should it be litigated. The "ten percent" theory would lead to obvious absurdities. For example, under this theory, I could serialise a couple of volumes of the Encyclopedia
Britannica without any worries. And if I could persuade 9 friends to publish another 10% each, we could reproduce any work in the world. Copyright law might as well not exist!

This leaves me wondering why Mikey was so dogmatic about this theory - so dogmatic that he was willing to say he "loved my ignorance"! (The irony...) Was this another attempt to intimidate me into silence with bluster? Or does he actually (ignorantly!) believe it? Only he knows, and further e-mails to him about it have not provided an answer.

Hypocrisy?

The other point I think is more telling. Seeing as now not only the BCSE's original de facto leader (Roger Stanyard) but also its new chairman have both acknowledged that fair usage rights exist, why do they continue to proclaim on the page about me that they don't? Why do
they continue to claim that I have acted illegally?

I asked Mikey as follows:

Mikey, I was interested in two things.

1) You acknowledge the existence of fair use rights. As such, the BCSE's
web-page which alleges that I am breaking the law in not having asked you permission to make quotes from your website, is obviously something you know to be false. ...

2) Your understanding of fair use rights seems to be an allowance to reproduce anything up to 10%. I find that an interesting theory... it doesn't explain, of course, why your organisation's website reproduces 100% of so many copyrighted works - rather, it seems to suggest that you know you're outside the law?

...

David

Mikey gave me no reply to this question, but instead sent a one-line reply to an irrelevant aside I'd made in the same e-mail.

I wanted to be sure that Mikey had had a fair chance to answer me, so I e-mailed him again, as follows:

Mikey,

I'm going to blog the facts that your e-mails to me (in whatever capacity) clearly show that you, the BCSE's chairman, know that fair use rights exist.

Do you have any comment for me on the fact that the BCSE's website continues to claim that I am acting illegally by not approaching the BCSE for the right to quote it? Obviously, I will be suggesting that the BCSE's stance is somewhat dishonest and hypocritical. Anything to say to that before I blog?

Kind regards,
David

Mikey's response?

"I really couldn't care less what nonsense you continue to peddle on your private site."

I think that these facts speak for themselves. The BCSE wishes to maintain a hypocritical stance, smear me, and hope that nobody notices. Moreover, it can't answer fair and honest questions from those that it smears, but just ignores us instead and hopes we'll go away. This gives us a pretty good clue as to what kind of organisation they are. I can now say that I've received the same kind of treatment that the various scientists, educators and others have received who are smeared on the BCSE's website. That's what this blog's here for - so that anyone else who is open-minded can see what's really going on.

A footnote

Mikey stressed more than once that he was e-mailing me in a "private" capacity, and not in his capacity as BCSE chairman. I have no problem pointing this out, but find it rather puzzling. Is he suggesting that there are two Mikey Brass's? One who acknowledges fair use rights (the private one) and one who doesn't (the public one)? Is he schizophrenic? I don't understand this way of thinking too well. Either Mikey Brass knows that the BCSE is deliberately and hypocritically trying to smear me with lies, or he doesn't - whatever capacity he's acting in. Whatever capacity he's acting in, the fact is, his organisation looks to have extreme problems with handling the simple truth.

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

The BCSE Versus Copyright Law

In an earlier post, I examined the BCSE's attempts to respond to this blog. Over the weeks, I have brought forward a number of what I'd say are fairly damning quotes made by the BCSE's leaders, about their purpose. Who could look at the BCSE's campaigning in the same light again after they'd read Ian Lowe, the convenor of the Scottish Atheist Council, saying this?

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. [1029]

Or Michael Brass, explaining why he would like campaigning against the right of parents to criticise Darwinism in front of their own children to be made a fundamental principle of the BCSE's operations?

... a lot of problems come in because some parents believe they know better than educators on how their children should be educated.

Or atheists Timothy Chase and Lenny Flank, explaining their motivations?

I agree that we should avoid turning this into what appears to be a science debate. [1506]

This fight really isn't about science -- it's about political power. [1498]

The BCSE's Response

Well, the BCSE read my blog. But they haven't attempted to claim that these quotes are inaccurate - as I have a copy of the archive, that would be too easy to refute. Neither have they attempted to argue that these are the views of crazies who they are distancing themselves from - it has already been demonstrated that these people are the BCSE's core and leadership.

Instead, the BCSE (in particular, its leader - Roger Stanyard) have put up some paragraphs designed either to intimidate me into stopping, or to discredit my person so that hopefully nobody will notice my arguments (a.k.a. ad hominem).

As we've seen, the BCSE invents a whole new theory of copyright law, in order either to fool me into taking this journal down, or to blacken my name in general.

The New Copyright Law

Under the BCSE's new theory of copyright, "fair use" rights - the right to quote brief portions of previously published works (such as the BCSE's public Yahoo group, or website, or forums), no longer exist. Instead, I am meant to have "approached [the BCSE] for copyright permission on any material lifted from any sites of BCSE or its forum participants or
members." (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/Links#anderson).

A second innovation under the BCSE's new copyright laws is that the rights surrounding private copies for research purposes are also revoked. Apparently, I am "in serious breach of UK and international copyright laws" for offering researchers a copy of the archive for the purpose of verifying my accuracy.

Now, given that several BCSE leaders are known to read this blog, the fact that they haven't withdrawn those claims even though they know that I'm not fooled, points to the other alternative. It's an attempt to discredit me, hoping that those who read it will both be ignorant of copyright rights, and won't bother to come here to check my rebuttal. Given that the BCSE have characterised this blog as an attempt to "smear" them, the irony is fairly rich.

Today's Data

My point today is to now look at how the BCSE themselves handle copyright issues. They've raised the issue - so how do they do?

Given that Stanyard, in the paragraphs mentioned above, both claims to know about copyright laws, and to be very zealous for obedience to them, it will be interesting to look at Stanyard's own practice. Remember that Stanyard claims that fair usage rights don't exist, and that permission must be obtained for mere quotations. Does Stanyard hold himself to his own standard? If he doesn't, does he hold himself to the actual law itself instead?

Let's take a look at the BCSE's website. For exhibits A-C, I'll be a bit wordier - then we'll rattle through a few more just to give an indication of how much evidence exists. Then we'll conclude.

Exhibit A : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/WhatIsCreationism

On the page "What is Creationism?" (after the main article), there are reproduced 3 A4 pages titled as being "from Associate-Professor Andrew Smith's 'Africa and World Prehistory' (1996, unpublished) in Part I, and Professor Arthur Strahler's 'Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy' (1999, second edition, Prometheus) in Part II."

What new theory of copyright law do the BCSE invent in order to allow themselves to do this? Answer: They add a single sentence to the top: "All copyright is hereby acknowledged." Pardon? Are they really saying that as long as you acknowledge what you're up to, then it's fine - seriously?

I wish I'd known this theory. Instead of offering researchers a copy of the BCSE's archive for a limited purpose, I could have just plonked it entire on the web for the general public. If only I'd thought of adding a line "All copyright is hereby acknowledged"!

I wonder if I can apply this theory in other areas of life? Say, I rob a bank, but leave behind a little note: "All legal owners of this cash are hereby acknowledged"? Can I carry out an assult, just as long as I also tell the victim: "Your personal rights to not be beaten up are hereby acknowledged?" Do you think? How far can we take this new theory?

Update 5^th December: I have received an e-mail from Michael Brass of the BCSE, telling me that he received permission to post the material from Professor Andrew Smith. Michael was this week announced as the BCSE's interim chairman. For the record, this is the first time I have received a request for a factual correction from the BCSE. (I point that out so that my readers can know that the reason the BCSE haven't challenged any of the facts I've documented isn't because they're not aware of them).

The material from Andrew Smith covers less than one of the three A4 pages referred to above, so I am happy to make the correction - but the "exhibit" as a whole still stands, unless Michael has some more information. Though, Michael, it's not necessary to call me "boy" or "arse" in order to get a correction made - I'll do them quite happily without any of that. See, I even made this one without even asking you to show me any proof at all!

Exhibit B : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/NigelMcQuoid

The BCSE has a page on the director of schools at the Emmanuel Schools Foundation, Nigel McQuoid. Now, Mr. McQuoid is obviously an extremely competent man, as the flagship school of his foundation has just gained the highest possible commendation in an Ofsted inspection - one of only 20 schools in the entire country to be graded as "excellent" by Ofsted three times (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6173204.stm). However, as the schools have a Christian ethos, this piece of reality doesn't stop campaigning atheists such as those at the BCSE from targetting them - as though they were some of the worst schools on the planet.

In its piece on Mr. McQuoid, about half way down, Stanyard takes it upon himself to insert the entire transcript of an interview between Rod Liddle (who I previously mistakenly described as a humanist) and McQuoid, from a Channel 4 program from March 2006. Not just a quote. Nothing that could be described as "fair use" - the whole interview.

Exhibit C : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/PressCoverage

It's not just Channel 4 who have had their copyright rights ignored by the BCSE. BBC Radio Manchester, the Observer and the Independent newspapers have had the same treatment.

On this page, the BCSE reproduce the entirety of an interview involving Terry Christian, Roger Stanyard and Andy McIntosh. (This is the already-celebrated occasion where management consultant Stanyard, a man with no qualifications in physics since leaving school, accuses Professor McIntosh, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, of believing that "physics is wrong"). Not only that, but they also provide a pirate audio recording for you to listen to it!

Further down the page, there's an entire article from the "Observer" newspaper, copied and pasted in for us. Scroll down again, and there's the whole of a (two A4-page) article from the Independent. Not just a few words - the whole lot. The Observer and Independent websites contain clear copyright statements forbidding such actions.

Exhibit D : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/RandallHardy

Let's rattle through them now. I'll be as brief as possible. I think we've established the princple - now let's see the extent to which this is going on. This page features the whole of two separate press releases put out by "Creation Research UK" copied-and-pasted in. The website contains a copyright statement as follows (emphasis mine): "All the material is subject to copyright restrictions.You may make complete copies for yourself, but you may not alter the material or publish it in whole or in part without our written permission."

Exhibit E : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/FaridAbouRahme

Reproduces the whole of a lengthy article that appeared in the Northhampton Chronicle & Echo, apparently in April 2005.

Exhibit F : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/CecilAndrews

Reproduces an entire article from the Examiner newspaper (1997). (It is not made clear precisely which newspaper this is).

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/CreationScienceMovement

Reproduces an entire article from the "Freethinker", April 2003.

Exhibit H : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/Infiltration

Reproduces an entire paper from Stephen Layfield from a 1998 conference. Again, the website that it is taken from has a statement: "All the material is subject to copyright restrictions.You may make complete copies for yourself, but you may not alter the material or publish it in whole or in part without our written permission.

Exhibit I : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/CreationistScientists

Reproduces a long list of creationist scientists copied and pasted from Answers in Genesis' website, in violation of the site's copyright statement.

Exhibit J : http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/AnswersInGenesisUK

Reproduces in full a long article from the Leicester Mercury from the 17^th of October.

Summing Up

Well, there are plenty more. But 13 examples of copying pages at once, or entire articles, ought to make the point pretty clearly.

What, then, have we seen? We've seen that Stanyard and the BCSE routinely and flagrantly ignore copyright law, and over-ride copyright statements on the articles, lifting them wholesale.Going far beyond any "fair use" rights to reproduce small extracts, they routinely copy-and-paste whole articles without permission and in direct violation of the copyright statements on the sources they list from.

And yes, this the is same Stanyard/BCSE who have tried to intimidate me into silence by suggesting that I have no right to quote the tiniest amount from them without their permission. The same Stanyard/BCSE who claim to know a great deal about copyright law, and have great respect for it.

All I can say is, Stanyard/BCSE certainly ought to know a copyright violation when they see one!

The Verdict

There's some data then. It helps us to easily resolve three questions:

• Are the BCSE abiding by the law (the law that they have drawn attention to), or breaking it wholesale? Are they legal?
  
  
• Do the BCSE have consistent standards in regards of copyright and "fair use", or are they obvious hypocrites?
  
  
• Are the BCSE trying to silence me with valid reasons, or with falsehoods, intimidation and bullying tactics?

The BCSE need to be revealed for what they are - in case anyone takes them seriously. That's why we're here.David Anderson
bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk - Non-anonymous factual corrections welcome.

Numbered quotes above are the the BlackShadow Yahoo group post with the same number. The BCSE have now removed the public archive from the Internet, but a copy is available from me to any researcher who wishes to verify the accuracy of the quotes above.

Responding to the BCSE

Gandhi once famously said "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you; then you win!". Somewhat melodramatic of me to mention it, yes. But there's a good point in there.

At first, the BCSE followed an official policy of ignoring this blog. But that's been changing. Now, Roger Stanyard (the BCSE's leader - see here, here, here) has posted an official article about me. This is something I am positive about - it is now clear to the BCSE that there is a powerful case to answer. Whilst few of the BCSE's targets have thought that the BCSE are credible enough to deserve more than a sentence or two in response, the BCSE are now seriously worried about me.

Of course, I anticipated some kind of response at some point. For that reason, I have been careful to document my facts carefully. It's all there for anyone to see. This takes away the need to make counter-responses; if I have an obvious bias which involves taking the facts and twisting them beyond all recognition, then anyone will be able to see it. This is in stark contrast to the "research" articles on the BCSE's own website. Lacking references to primary sources, you're just going to have to take their word for it that they're fairly handling whatever facts they have. Where those "facts" come from is something that they are generally keeping secret.

In my opinion, I seem to have done pretty well. Instead of e-mailing me to point out factual errors, BCSE members have e-mailed me to dole out abuse. That's not normally necessary if you're in control of the facts. However, it has been brought to my attention that the BCSE have now amended their public response to me to accuse me of deliberate illegality. This is a serious accusation, and demands a serious response.

My Response

Firstly, I'm not too troubled by the material about me or my church. It is of a similar standard to the rest of the BCSE's site - contains some simple mistakes here and there, contains a few 2+2=5 deductions, contains no way that anybody wanting to check the BCSE's accuracy or fairness to the facts could do so... and so on. To spend time refuting this kind of thing would be to give it more credibility than it's worth.

Those with a sense of irony will not fail to be amused by the fact that almost in the same breath as complaining about being "smeared", Stanyard then proceeds to deliver up as many "Anderson has been spotted in the same room as X, who is thought to be involved with Y, who is rumoured to be into Z"-type allegations as he can manage. In the space of four short paragraphs, we're taken on a whistle-stop tour of not necessarily relevant (!!) speculation about sizes of churches, "notorious censorship", "diploma mills", who my blog has provided hyperlinks to, what unspecified "affiliations" I have, some of which possibly involve "anti-" this, that and the other... and none of these about me - all about other people. Well, at least we can say that Stanyard ought to know a smear when he sees one! May he come to gain the same keen acumen when it comes to spotting a double-standard!

The irony-meter is also rather tickled by this one:

"Anderson has never approached BCSE to check his facts"

Maybe you are thinking that this would imply that Stanyard was careful to make sure he approached me before publishing his allegations about me? Just so that nobody could accuse him of acting hypocritically? Well, as it happens, he didn't.

Here's another:

"and his blog denies us the opportunity to post replies to his claims."

I scrolled down to the bottom of the page on which Stanyard posted that, to see if there was a comments section where I could add a reply. But there isn't. Seems I have to head off to some forum which most people reading the article would likely never trouble themselves with. Ah well. We've seen before that consistency isn't the BCSE's strongest point.

Well, as I say, I think that such material is self-refuting. So I'll leave that there.

Illegality?

Here are the paragraphs which I am really responding to:

As a trainee man of religion, we are surprised that Anderson is willing to break the law

This mock surprise, of course, is pure guff. The BCSE's leaders have, in abusive private e-mails to me, in their forums, and on their website, described me variously as a child abuser, "clown", "liar", "fool", "stupid", "fundamentalist", "completely without standards or [conscience]", "cowardly", "gutless", "little weasel", "god boy", "extremist", "lowest of the low", worse than the "dirtiest little sewer rat chomping away on a turd". As such, I expect they won't be too surprised if I turn out to be responsible for at least 60% of the evil ever committed.

Still, how have I allegedly been breaking the law? Read on:

- he has never approached us for copyright permission on any material lifted from any sites of BCSE or its forum participants or members.

Now, I can only take it that either the BCSE are ignorant about "fair use" rights, or that they are attempting a deliberate deception. My articles have contained short extracts and quotes from the BCSE's public website, public forum, and public Yahoo mailing list. As such, no permission is needed to quote it, and I don't need to approach anyone.

If the BCSE are ignorant about the existence of "fair use" rights, then it's another data point for the case being built that they neither competent nor qualified.

I find it hard to believe, though, that the BCSE are ignorant. Their own website contains numerous similar length quotes from other third parties who they haven't approached. If Stanyard believes that this is illegal, why is he doing it himself?

It seems to me more likely that the BCSE know that this claim won't wash. That's why they haven't even tried to contact me officially about it, but have gone public instead. They know that if they contact me privately, I'll laugh. But, they think there's some mileage in making a public allegation, and hoping that readers of their website either will be ignorant of fair use rights, or that they won't come over here to check my response.

Continued

We also advise readers of this wiki that Anderson is in serious breach of UK and international copyright laws in information he is offering to the public.

That certainly sounds serious. Whatever do they mean?

He is offering to all complete copies of the postings to our former Blackshadow Yahoo group. Under copyright law, all those postings remain copyright of the posters. In some cases the posters have explicitly claimed their copyright ownership using the © sign. As Anderson has extensively drawn on material from the Blackshadow forum he is fully aware that he is in breach of copyright laws.

Well, actually I'm "fully aware" of no such thing. Since the BCSE pulled the public archive from the Internet containing all the incriminating postings which they don't want us to see, I've been making an offer. Go back through a few of my posts. I don't use the same words each time, but the meaning is clear. I offer to supply to any researcher who wants to verify the accuracy of my quotations, a copy of the archive.

That's a limited offer, to limited people, for a limited purpose - research. And that's again protected by UK copyright law. I haven't put up a public copy for anyone to download - and I'm not making a general offer to the public (contrary to Stanyard's paragraph above). I'm not "fully aware" of anything, apart from the fact that the BCSE are running scared of me, but don't have the facts to support their case - and have to resort to spurious legal threats instead to try to silence me.

As for the copyright signs, the BCSE's claims about that appear to be bogus too. Now, my search facility may not be working correctly (and I might be missing archive messages) so I'm not going to make too much of this, but I found:

• Just one poster, not "some posters", added (c) to some of their own messages. And in that case, it wasn't to his posts in general (i.e. not to anything I've quoted), but to old articles he'd copied and pasted in.
  


• Other times (c) is added to something written by someone else. One other (c) was added by a BCSE member to a link to an article that had been copied from a third party, without permission - it seemed that the BCSE member who posted it imagined that as long as he added "(c) Christian Institute", then copies of the whole article could be made without permission. Now, reproducing a whole article isn't fair use. That really is illegal.

Conclusion

I'm pretty glad that the BCSE have now put up something about me.

There are some people in their database who I know enough about to know that the allegations on the BCSE's site are stuff and nonsense. However, I don't want to put up an article rebutting any of those allegations - because it would just give them more publicity than they're worth, and drag someone's name through the mud again. Instead, my approach has been to expose the lack of credibility of the BCSE in general. Then it becomes clear that anyone actually believing any other articles is doing so only because they really want to - rather than because they have any good reasons for doing so.

Now, though, that the BCSE have put up something relating to me, that danger is gone. I can point out the weakness of what the BCSE say without drawing attention to anyone but myself. I can point out twisted facts, lack of evidence, obvious smears and plain incompetent or malicious mistakes without anybody else's name being damaged. And I'm glad for the opportunity.

I expect that the BCSE might decide to try some alternative and similarly bogus allegations in future. (I presume that this one they've tried is their best shot). I'm not going to have a general policy of replying to such things. I'm happy to point out to people that if the best arguments the BCSE have against "BCSE Revealed" is to argue that I'm an idiot, then they must feel that their case is pretty weak. Just why are the BCSE so concerned about trying to stop me quoting their previously-published public conversations anyway? Isn't it because they're rather damning? Isn't it because if people get to read about what the BCSE really think, then the BCSE's not going to get the public influence it craves? What are they trying to hide?

Finally... some more irony.

Well, within a day of Roger Stanyard putting up the above paragraphs, he also put up another (unrelated) article, on another page. In that article, he reproduced a complete, long letter from a third party, to a third party - neither of whom had given the BCSE permission to reproduce it. Not just a fair-use quote mind you - the whole letter. (And in fact, in this case, the letter was not intended for publication in the first place - so even a quote would not be covered by fair use. Again, I don't want to publicise it - if you want verification, e-mail me privately). A bit of an odd action for someone who's only just finished writing such fine-sounding words about copyright law, don't you think? Especially if he wants us to take him seriously?

We can only wonder if in fact there are two Roger Stanyards. One of them is very concerned about upholding copyright law and morality - and one of them isn't. There is one who is concerned about truth, and one who just does whatever helps his side of an argument.

If, though, there's only one Roger Stanyard, then that Roger Stanyard is looking a bit like a hypocrite - don't you think?

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