In case you were wondering...

Sometimes, you have to spend several hours digging through different sources to piece things together. Sometimes, the BCSE just hand it to you on a plate.

Here is Roger Stanyard, the founder, de facto leader, and official spokesman, of the "British Centre for Science Education", posting over at RichardDawkins.Net and making a few things quite clear for us. Note that Stanyard is posting in his official capacity, beginning his post with "We at the British Centre for Science Education" and finishing with the tag-line, "Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education". Read it through for yourself:

We at the British Centre for Science Education have done some estimates of the proportion of Christians in the UK who are fundamentalist (extremist if you like). A rough definition of extremism is that the accept Sola Scriptura as extended into all public domains. In English that means into science - creationism if you like.

On a head count of churches it is somewhere between 5% and 10% of all churches. In terms of individual believers it seems to be around 400,000 out of a regular church going population of 3.5-4 million.

However, it ain't no good asking people if they are fundamentalists. No matter how much they foam at the mouth about creationism and hell fire and brimstone, most of them will deny it.

Sadly, in any society there are a lot of authoritarian extremists. Seems to me that you only have to scratch a fundamentalist slightly and underneath they are all the same as hardline fascists, BNPers, white supremicists, Abu Hamza fans, Marxists, racists, homophobes, Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Northern Ireland paramilitaries, KKKers - all birds of a feather.

They all have a 'worldview' that they want to impose on others without consent.

It is silly, though, to suggest all religious believers are of that ilk or that religion is the platform off of which extremism rides. It is like saying that communism is the natural outcome of the beliefs of people who are in the Labour Party or fascism of those in the Conservative Party. The overwhelming majority in both parties believe in liberal democracy, are pragmatic and not prone to authoritarian extremes. Same with religiou believers.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education

(http://richarddawkins.net/articleCom...insnet,page1#82332)

Some pertinent questions and observations, for anyone who hasn't yet worked out what the BCSE are really about:

1. How is it that a purported centre for "Science Education" which pretends to operate independently of religious questions, is taking surveys to work out what percentage of Christians are "extremist"? Which branch of science, exactly, is this part of?
   
   
2. Why is the spokesman for a body which presents itself to its lobbying targets as a bona fide scientific institution with expertise in biological origins doing offering us definitions of religious extremism? What branch of biology is this from, please? Or have I missed something - maybe Mr. Stanyard has had his work published in a scientific journal somewhere? Because it looks to me like Stanyard's "science" is nothing other than his atheistic philosophy in a not-very-cunning disguise. My point is not that science and philosophy are separable fields; my point is that Mr. Stanyard's purports to have a scientific viewpoint which is free of all philosophical bias, which is clearly not the case.
   
   
3. Notice too how extremely broad Stanyard's definition of an extremist is - it includes 100% of classical Protestants, being defined by acceptance of the defining Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura - i.e. the belief that the Bible is the highest, unrivaled, authority - the belief that God exercises his own authority through speaking to us in the Bible. The phrase "Sola Scriptura" was coined at the time of the "Protestant" Reformation, to "protest" against the teaching that church, or the Pope, had an equivalent or greater authority than the Bible. According to Stanyard, though, this doctrine is the sina qua non of religious extremism. Has it occurred to Stanyard that whether or not a viewpoint is "extreme" or not also depends on where you are viewing it from? i.e., why is Mr. Stanyard so blind to his own anti-supernatural extremism?
   
   
4. Does not the comment "They [i.e. all classical Protestants] all have a 'worldview' that they want to impose on others without consent." indicate a severe personal antagonism against Christianity, which is the real driving force behind Mr. Stanyard's quest to pass himself off as a legitimate spokesman on science education? (Mr. Stanyard is a life long business consultant who has never been involved in science education or research at any level).
   
   This comment itself is self-contradictory; how can someone accept a view of the world without consenting to it? What does that mean? Or is Mr. Stanyard really saying that the Bible-based Christianity is really a brain-washing and mind-control program in a poor disguise? That Christian preachers are really would-be hypnotists? (Watch out - on this blog I'm not really trying to persuade you with rational arguments in these lines - my real aim is to reprogram your mind using pychadelic images which pop up when you're not expecting them! Wu-ha-ha!) It seems pretty clear that Mr. Stanyard has spent a long time drinking at the Dawkins fountain, because to him all efforts to persuade someone of a religious idea amount to brain-washing.
   
   
5. The BCSE's purported objectives are to prevent any criticism of Darwinism (which they believe is irrefutable truth) in 100% of public schools - even though the percentage of the public who pay for those schools and who share their certainty is very small. How, exactly, is this campaign of theirs different from "imposing a worldview without consent"? Is not the very raison d'etre of the BCSE to ensure that their own view is unchallenged, contrary to the beliefs of the public at large? Does the word "hypocrisy" figure in Mr. Stanyard's lexicon?
   
   
6. Does not the same comment also indicate a severe misunderstanding of Christianity? It is a "fundamental" belief with Christians that becoming a Christian is a supernatural event - the Holy Spirit applies truths to the mind and changes the heart. The method is through supernatural persuasion, as Christian truths are proclaimed. The idea of externally "imposing" on someone "without consent" is foreign to this way of thinking, and is effectively a denial of essential Christian truth claims - the claim that Christian conversion is a real, supernatural phenomena that involves all the immaterial faculties of the person - the rational mind included. That is why Christians like me blog, and author presentations - to persuade.
   
   
7. In other words, do not Mr. Stanyard's words provide more solid evidence for the case that "BCSE Revealed" has been making - that the BCSE is really a badly-disguised atheist/anti-supernaturalist crusade, run by people not with scientific or educational standing, but driven on by their own personal grudges? Mr. Stanyard has such a deep hatred of Biblical Christianity, that his prejudice prevents him from even describing it accurately - all he knows is that he hates it and wants you to do so too!
   
   
8. Notice, as we have continually pointed out on "BCSE Revealed", that Mr. Stanyard's chosen vocabulary is the standard vocabulary of campaigning anti-theists, such as Richard Dawkins. Stanyard poses some conspiracy or mystery as to why those who he calls "fundamentalists" do not themselves accept the label. The real reason is quite simple; the term "fundamentalist" has only two normal usages; in the religious world, it is used one to identify the sub-segment of American Baptists who hold to a number of particular beliefs who developed in the late 19th and early 20th century (distinctive beliefs which Mr. Stanyard's targets do not generally share), and the other is the usage by Dawkins et. al. to try to posit an equivalence between any consistent belief in supernaturalism and the maddest excesses of militant Islam.
   
   
9. Notice too, that Stanyard follows that second course - the Dawkins line. The "fundamentalists" are really "hardline fascists, BNPers, white supremicists, Abu Hamza fans, Marxists, racists, homophobes, Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Northern Ireland paramilitaries, KKKers" in a poor disguise. Mr. Stanyard has forgotten to index for us the scientific paper which has the proof for all this laid out... either that, or he's again confused about the difference between actual science and his own metaphysical prejudices.
   
   
10. Mr. Stanyard is firstly apparently stumped at why someone convinced that God has spoken in the Bible would not want to accept the label "fundamentalist", and then secondly explains that a "fundamentalist" is basically the same thing as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, etcetera. Does Mr. Stanyard not possess enough grey matter to work out the answer to his own question?
    
    
11. Is there any science at all in Mr. Stanyard's screed? Do not Mr. Stanyard's comments rather bear out the thesis of many of us on the Internet that one of the major problems in the science concerning human origins (Darwinism, origin of life, etcetera), today, is that there are just too many dogmatists like Mr. Stanyard who start with the assumption that their own philosophy is correct and then seek to drown out any other voices?
    

Mr. Stanyard pretends on the BCSE's website that his organisation is religiously neutral. When he's doing something other than authoring that website, he tells us what he really things - that people who believe that God has spoken are all murdering mullahs at heart, and that the goal of scientific organisations it to oppose them. That's what the BCSE's there for - and that's what I'm here to reveal.

David Anderson

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail (bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk). Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Who are the BCSE? (2)

When the "British Centre for Slandering Evangelicals Science Education" launched last year, there was one thing that any interested individual would notice pretty quickly. They were almost entirely anonymous. This didn't prevent some more gullible MPs and newspapers from printing their letters, or taking them at face value in some other way - but it's something that I pointed out as a huge question mark over their credibility pretty quickly.

In only my second article, I asked the question, "Who are the BCSE?", and then in the next article on the theme, I concluded as follows:

So, observation number one is that whilst the BCSE are very keen to give you their opinion on a number of other people (including individuals with apparently more qualifications than the entire BCSE membership combined, they're very reluctant to tell you anything about themselves. I look forward to them beginning to read my website, and addressing these criticisms; however, from my research so far I am confident that the more details about themselves they expose, the lower their plausibility as a group of "Science Educators" will sink.

Who They Really Were

After that, I started naming and describing the true identities and their (lack of) credentials to be masquerading as experts on either science or education. The BCSE responded to this pressure by beginning to publish a little information about themselves.

In general, this information only confirmed the accuracy of my research, as even with the best spin that the BCSE could put on it, its descriptions of its committee only confirmed their lack of standing. Some of this "spin", though, we later provided documented proof as being little different to outright fabrication (e.g. see here).

Screenshot from BCSE homepage, December 19th 2006

The More That Changes...

One year on, though, the situation is again that the BCSE have become basically anonymous. A large part of this is certainly due to "BCSE Revealed"; it became a regular occurrence that after I posted a new article, the BCSE would scramble to edit its website to cover up whatever embarrassing revelation had just been made. (e.g. See here). A large part of it is certainly because the internal rumbles that "BCSE Revealed" has caused and other factors have meant that over the course of that year, four of the original seven committee named have resigned (one returned); and the BCSE are rather nervous about us knowing just how bad their internal squabbles have been - so apparently, they decided it was just simpler to delete the list of committee members so that we couldn't know. (See here for more of that).

So basically, one year on, we find that the BCSE have become anonymous again. That's very bad for their attempts to appear credible. If you receive a communication from an organisation you've never heard of, and then seek to find more by checking out their website, and find that their website tells you basically nothing about their identities - what would you conclude? Why ever would a bona fide organisation need to take such measure to not let you know who they were?

So, that's good news for "BCSE Revealed". The BCSE have been forced back into a semi-secret mode of operation. If you visit the BCSE website today, then you will find, in a situation almost identical to a year ago:

• The section "What is the BCSE", on its front page, contains lots of spin, but no actual names or their credentials.
  
  
• If you then follow the link to the "More about the BCSE page" (here), then you will find approximately 1800 words - approaching 3 pages of A4 - which, amongst all the spin there, still manages not to find any room to give more than two names: informing us that in the BCSE's past, Alan Bellis handed over the reins to Roger Stanyard - whoever they might be - and then telling us that Ian Lowe (whoever he is!) brought them some IT help; and omitting to mention that Lowe resigned some months ago...
  
  
• Go to the "Contacts" page (here) and there are no names, no postal address, no information on any credentials... just an e-mail address, admin@bcseweb.org.uk. They offer to help the media with any help they need... but no information on just why the BCSE might have any credibility that the media should rely on.
  
  
• In terms of identifying any serving officers of the BCSE, there's just what you can find on the front page: "... phone our press officer, Roger Stanyard, on 07724938890." As we've seen before, this description is itself bogus; Stanyard basically is the BCSE, or at least half of it in terms of foundation, direction setting, putting in the hours of work, and so on. But notice, no mention again of what Stanyard's credentials might be to talk about this or any other subject.

Dotted throughout the website, you can find a few individuals named in the odd place, described with the adjective "BCSE Member": but many of these are out of date, as the individuals in question have resigned once they'd perceived that the BCSE was spouting bigoted nonsense, was doomed, or they fell out, etcetera.

Looks a bit odd, doesn't it? They want you to believe them - but they're unwilling to tell you anything at all about themselves. Why would that be? "BCSE Revealed" readers will know: because the facts about themselves are damning.

As I write this today, though, I do find that Roger Stanyard recognises that this is an unsatisfactory situation to be in, because I find him complaining that some other organisation hasn't published a list of its committee members.

"How convenient that the Causeway Creation Committee just doesn't happen to name who are its members and doesn't have a web site.

...

I suspect that if they did disclose who is involved we would have a field day in pulling it apart."


http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=13284#13284

Well, you might think from that that irony isn't Stanyard's strong point. He certainly ought to know a thing or two about trying to hide the identities of your committee, because of being ripped apart, by now...

David Anderson




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

When caught...

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

The Story So Far...

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

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

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

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

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

When Caught... Run and Bluff!

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

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

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

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



After: Gone, gone, gone...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summing it up

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

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

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

David Anderson



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

Documenting the depths of BCSE cynicism (continued)

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

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

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

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

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

A very revealing comment is then made by Hague:

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the point

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

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

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

Paua [sic]

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

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

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

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



Summing it up

We now know that the individuals listed below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Anderson



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

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

Documenting the depths of BCSE cynicism

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Hague then put forward a different option:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

A Closer Look

Let's examine those words again:

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

David Anderson


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

... and then they lied some more.

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

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

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

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

Here's More Of The Evidence

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

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

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

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

What was Hague's reply?

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

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

Chris Hyland: When last week?

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Anderson



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

Roger Stanyard: Update

(If you've read this story before, there are three updates down the bottom).

It seems that Roger Stanyard and the BCSE have made up; at least according to this thread on the BCSE forum:

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1116

The thread claims that Stanyard never left, and that I made up the entire story; then proceeds into a discussion of my honesty... and then tries to recycle some of the allegations that the BCSE made in the past against me. As in the past, they (again!) forget to produce the evidence... as in the past, whilst saying that this blog is full of untruths, they (again!) forget to say where, or what the contrary truths are... see here for more of that.

In fact, though, I have much more evidence than I revealed in the first post: evidence which reveals Brian Jordan, Michael Brass and Ian Lowe - the BCSE committee members in that thread who seek to claim that there Stanyard hadn't left - as brazen liars. Brass, Lowe and Jordan are obviously making a cynical bet on me not having such evidence, and hoping that they'll be able to bluff their way out of what happened. They hope that those on the BCSE forum who aren't in the inner circle will be convinced, and they hope that by blowing enough smoke and changing the subject to a discussion of the wickedness of the "BCSE Revealed" blogger, they'll be able to get away with it.

The others contributing to the thread above do in fact take Jordan, Brass and Lowe's words for it - which they will regret doing once the evidence is brought out into the open. I'm going to wait and see the BCSE's response to the above before I do that, but for now, here are a couple of discrepancies to note in Lowe's story. Lowe claims that Stanyard's e-mail address was removed from the BCSE's contact page because "Roger had a problem with his ISP for a week or so, and we changed the email address to make sure that people could still contact us. " What Lowe doesn't explain, though, is how this could account for the facts that:

• For a time, Stanyard's name was also removed from the list of committee members on the BCSE front page. (Some time later, the BCSE then removed the whole list of committee members - presumably because they didn't want anyone to notice that just one member had left). Why was Stanyard's - and only Stanyard's - name removed from the list of committee members? Why don't the BCSE put back the full list of committee members, so we can see just who is on it?
  
  
• If the problem was with Stanyard's e-mail address, then why was Stanyard's mobile phone number also removed? How would problems with Stanyard's ISP affect his mobile phone, exactly? You might have thought that the difficulty contacting Stanyard by e-mail would make it more necessary to have the mobile phone number up to contact him with, not less...
  

So, I'm now calling the BCSE's bluff on the following scores:

• Are they going to stick with their story that I have made the whole thing up, or will they admit that Stanyard left and that they're now making up with him? (How far that making-up has gone, I don't know - presuming that this isn't itself a fabrication).
  
  
• Are they going to wait for me to produce the further evidence I have, hoping that they can explain it away - or are they going to face the possibility that my further evidence is damning and will reveal Brass, Lowe and Jordan as telling whopping lies?
  
  
• How can they explain the above discrepancies?
  
  
• Are they ever going to explain what the other supposed errors on this blog are, or going to continue to trade in completely general descriptions? Comments are still open for corrections...
  

Let's wait and see...

I've taken a full record of the thread above; particularly Lowe's bold words. Lowe has been exposed on numerous occasions in the past as willing to tell outright lies "for the cause" in the hope that nobody will know better - see here for one example. He's going to have some more explaining to do shortly...

Update 11:32 a.m. I presently have Michael Brass in my inbox. He e-mailed me after the first story, to tell me that my story had no basis in fact. In response, I told him that Stanyard had in fact left, and now apparently returned, and asked him to confirm or deny it. Brass now appears to be back-tracking; he refuses to answer this question, but is now apparently arguing that the story constituted a "lie" and a breach of the "Ten Commandments" (Brass's words), not because I was wrong about Stanyard having left, but because I failed to mention that Stanyard had returned. I have asked Brass to explain how the apparent fact that Stanyard has left and returned makes the statement Stanyard has left into a lie.

Brass's spin machine is going into overload, because he has now both publicly accused me of lying, but also can no longer deny that Stanyard left since I know otherwise. This leaves him in a bit of a spot, so he's now trying to change the basis of accusing me for lying to the claim that Stanyard's leaving and returning means that we can't say he left. Michael Brass has major problems telling the straightforward truth. I challenge him to allow me to publish our correspondence on this topic in full so that my readers can judge for themselves which one of us has a forked tongue. What have you got to hide, Michael?

Update 12:26. Brass refuses me permission to publish the e-mails he sent me trying to spin his way out of this situation. Note that, readers - Brass doesn't want you to be able to judge for yourselves whether he is a liar or not; he wants to keep the evidence secret. I, however, want to publish it. What does that tell you? I will be examining my options....

Update 12:39. Brass is digging himself further into a hole. When he refused me permission to publish his e-mails which document his lying, I told him that he should not e-mail me in future (as it was him who e-mailed to initiate contact), unless he was willing to have those e-mails published. Here are my precise words (the words "have you" should have appeared before "send"):

For future reference, I put you on notice that I will consider all e-mails you send me about the BCSE or my blog as with full permission to publish. I'm not prepared to [sic] send me spin of this kind in future and then have you refuse to let the public see it so that they can see what you've tried to do. Please don't e-mail me unless you find these terms acceptable (unless I specifically say otherwise).

Brass's response was to go to the BCSE forum, and add this:

For everyone's amusement: Anderson is now stating that he has the right to publish in full any e-mails sent to him, regardless of whether the originator (and copyright holder) agrees.

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10479#10479

Can anybody spot any similarities between my statement and Brass's version of it? No, neither can I.

I'm happy to assure anyone who wishes to contact me that I will not publish their e-mails without permission, and that my statement meant what it said - that it applies only to future unsolicited e-mails from Brass. Again, I invite my readers to note the incredible difficulty that Brass, BCSE chairman, has in handling himself with integrity. If the truth is on his side, why does he have to do this kind of thing? I wonder!

It's worth noting that the BCSE are promoting, on their website, a site in which one of their own members publishes private e-mails which I declined to give him permission to publish... do you think that bothers Michael Brass? Is Michael Brass a hypocrite? The answer's not hard to work out.


David Anderson



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

The BCSE: Decline And Fall: It's Well Underway Now

Here's some news: Roger Stanyard, until now the de facto BCSE leader, has left. (Read stories involving Mr. Stanyard here). He has removed his name from the front page of the site, deleted his e-mail address "roger@bcseweb.org.uk" from the "contacts" page, and deleted his mobile phone number as the BCSE's main contact number.

Before (e-mail address "roger@bcseweb.org.uk"):
After (the e-mail address is now "committee@bcseweb.org.uk", and Stanyard's invitation to call his mobile phone gone):

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

As yet, the BCSE have not made any official comment on this departure. I suppose that they are hoping that nobody will notice, and that it won't need commenting on. They have tried this strategy before, and I invite my readers to review the articles on Leeds University to see what the BCSE are still hoping not too many people know about. The BCSE are still doing their best to avoid explaining the legal action that the University threatened them with for the appalling dross that the BCSE presented as "research" on their website: see here. As yet, the BCSE have refused to provide any explanation.

As predicted, the BCSE is falling apart. What other predictions will come true? Let's wait and see. But the fact is, that Stanyard has done the great majority of work in the BCSE until now. The BCSE is now going to have to relaunch itself, because more than half of it has just left! The BCSE is in disarray...

(See also an addition to my post "The Future").

See the continuation of this matter here: It seems that Stanyard has returned (or is in the process of returning). A further twist, though, is that the BCSE have tried to spin this incident by throwing the spotlight onto me, alleging that I have made the whole story up. I, though, will show the BCSE are deliberately lying in the hope that I won't have the evidence to prove it:
http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com/2007/06/roger-stanyard-update.html

David Anderson



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

Not even trying to pretend any more...

When the BCSE first launched, it presented itself to the world as a body of scientific educators, taking pains to tell us all that its interest was all to do with science, and not religious at all.

However, I had been tracking the BCSE before its launch, and this was about as convincing as a man with no legs announcing that he was going to be next the Olympic high-jump champion.

We have already many times displayed the evidence that, far from being a religiously neutral bunch of science educators, the BCSE:

• Didn't even have one science educator within its membership.
  
  
• Was led and run by a management consultant who had never worked in the world of science at all.
  
  
• Was dominated by hard-line atheists of Richard Dawkins variety.

Any remaining pretence of being unmotivated by religion was blown away when "BCSE Revealed" exposed a hidden page on the BCSE's website, in which BCSE leader Roger Stanyard laid bare his ignorance and prejudice in all its none-too-attractive glory:

• Part one
• Part two
• Part three
  

Well, nowadays the BCSE hardly bother with the pretence any more. Maybe this is because of what I've blogged a couple of times already: the statistics show that nowadays the BCSE are just a subset of their original founders who talking to themselves, having failed in their attempt to gain a larger membership by covering up their true nature: one, two. So, might as well stop pretending.

Exhibit One

Here's Ian Lowe, BCSE committee member and membership secretary (note too the "Forum Admin" under his name). He'd like to hire a graphic designer, to help him with some atheist activism. Ian doesn't even try to pretend that this is separate from his interest and involvement in the BCSE (which would be hard for him to do, as Ian has never been involved in scientific research), and so asks you to e-mail him at his BCSE e-mail address, ian@bcseweb.org.uk, if you're interested. Possibly Ian wants some help with the "Scottish Atheist Council" (www.scottishatheistcouncil.org.uk), another organisation with a grand sounding name, but for which Lowe himself appears to be the only active member.

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8644#8644

Exhibit Two

The BCSE's "More about the BCSE" page (http://bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/MoreAboutTheBCSE) page contains various bits of blurb about how the BCSE are a single-issue organisation, with no interest beyond defending Darwinism within schools. e.g.:

"Our strategy is to raise public awareness of the fraudulent science (and lack of science) behind both creationism and intelligent design and the attempts to get both taught as science or in science lessons in publicly funded schools.

...

BSCE has no other agenda that the single issue stated above. ... We are not here to back any one political movement or any one view on religion. ... We do not object to or support religion or atheism. We do not object to the teaching of creationism or intelligent design outside of the science lesson or as non-scientific subjects.

We do not promote any religious or atheistic viewpoint."

Well, anyone who's been following "BCSE Revealed" for any length of time will know just how much that assurance is worth.

Roger Stanyard himself wrote those words; but even he doesn't even try to pretend that he believes them any more. One long-time poster on the BCSE forums opined that too many in his denomination doubted the Darwinian story, and that he would like to do something to combat it:

"A friend who's an elder in a neighbouring Presbyterian church (not a YEC one), has told me that I should raise the issue for debate at the general assembly. Apparently I need only two signatures to do this (1) the clerk of session and (2) another elder."

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9045#9045

Stanyard's reply?

If you care to contact me off-site I can give you a senior name in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland who should be able to help you.

Roger

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9046#9046

That's a bit off-message, isn't it, for someone who pretends that his organisation has no interest in what goes on outside of schools?

Unfortunately for the inquirer, though, as "BCSE Revealed" has been reading his posts over the months, we've noticed that he has rather uncritically swallowed Stanyard's alternative version of Christian history. Stanyard has a habit of taking American atheist/Buddhist activist Lenny Flank's words as if they were unimpeachable truth, and as a result spreads a rather bizarre version of Christian history, according to which the historic doctrines taught by Christ and the apostles, recorded in the Bible, affirmed in the historic church creeds and confessions and so on, in fact only sprung somewhere out of a particularly darkened corner of America in the 19th century. Stanyard refers to all Biblical and apostolic Christianity as "fundamentalism", and tells his followers that a kind of easy-going theological liberalism was the norm.

I've chuckled at this many times, but as the intention of "BCSE Revealed" is simply to document the BCSE's incompetence as science educators rather than to correct their bizarre views on theology and history, I haven't said much about this. But if Mr. Henderson wants to ask his church to affirm the infallibility of evolutionary teaching, he's going to have a bit of an obstacle. The official doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland say this:

"It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good." (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 4, Paragraph 1).

"Question 15: What is the work of creation?

Answer: The work of creation is that wherein God did in the beginning, by the word of his power, make of nothing the world, and all things therein, for himself, within the space of six days, and all very good." (Westminster Longer Catechism, question 15)

SECTION III - THE STANDARDS OF THE CHURCH
10. The Word of God as set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and the supreme standard of the Church.

...

12. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, as a witness for Christ, has adopted subordinate standards in which is set forth what she understands the Word of God to teach on certain important points of doctrine and worship. These subordinate standards are a testimony for truth and against error, and serve as a bond of union for members of the Church.

13. The Confession of Faith (as approved by the Church of Scotland in her Act of 1647), and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, prepared by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, are the subordinate standards of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

http://www.presbyterianireland.org/pdfs/The_Code_070124.pdf

These quotations highlight something significant. Christians in past ages were not unfamliar with the teaching that the universe and life within it was a result of purely natural, unguided processes which tooks place over vast periods of time. Before Darwin attempted a biological explanation of how such a thing could be, atheists had spent plenty of time trying to explain away the order, design and magnificence of the universe. And before Darwin, Christians had asserted that the origin of the world and life were supernatural (not natural), the result of divine activity, through definite and distinct divine acts spread over a short period of time. And so, the historic Christian confessions which mention the beginning, all do it in supernatural terms, often mentioning six days, as the doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, above, do.

The lesson from this is that anyone lurking in the BCSE forums ought to take Stanyard's words with a large barrel-full of salt.

Summing Up

The BCSE's claim to be only interested in what goes on in schools, and to have no interest in what goes on elsewhere, and especially not to be interested in campaigning against Christian churches... not very convincing, is it?

David Anderson



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