A recommendation, and a few odds and ends

Here are some words of encouragement for me from "Intelligent Design and Evolution Behind the Scenes" - a new blog which describes itself like so: "This blog is about Intelligent Design, and deals with the ID-Evolution Controversy seeking to expose and correct misrepresentations that exist in the increasingly politicized discipline of science."

BCSE REVEALED

The BCSE is a very interesting lobby group. Unlike the NCSE, the BCSE is rather forward about its intentions, copying off of the American NCSE, or national center of science education (aka national center for selling evolution). The NCSE and BCSE do not really live up to their names. From the title, one would expect something more substantial than simply a group which argues against creationists. Some have even gone as far as to accuse them of false advertising as this self-proclaimed "National Center" for "Science Education" has nothing at all to do with science except writing apologetics articles for the theory of Evolution and seeks political action against people who question the theory... nothing more.

The BCSE is pretty much the same, although they have been much less successful. A renagade weblog called the BCSE REVEALED has done irrevocable damage to this lobby group, and torn through the BCSE like a shredder shreds paper. My favorite part of his site, where the BCSE members are caught in blatent dishonesty.

Most of the real contributors have now left the BCSE, and Dave has pointed out a sharp decline in posting among other things that point to its end. I was going to go over there and stirr up some mischief myself, but then I realized I would probably do best to simply ignore them. There are enough battles to fight, so that's all for them.

http://ownzor-pwnzor.blogspot.com/2007/05/bcse-revealed.html

I agree with my anonymous encourager's conclusion. From my observations, I'd say that going into the BCSE forum for a debate is probably slightly less productive than throwing opening your local's door at closing time and shouting "Who wants some?"... with the difference that the BCSE's output is apparently all vomited forth whilst perfectly sober.

Moving Swiftly On...

Secondly, here's a website with some good resources: http://atheistdelusion.net/. If you're looking for a treasury of articles, books and audio refuting the distortions perpetrated against science by Professor Richard Dawkins in the cause of his atheist religion, and his many schoolboy errors in philosophy and religion, then this is a solid resource.

Finally, I've recently joined the gang blog at http://intelligent-sequences.blogspot.com/. The guys over there have forgotten more biology than I ever learned, but I hope I'm adding something to the mix; I've begun with some analysis of the arguments commonly used on the Internet in the "Intelligent Design" debate:

• Introduction
• Is "God of the gaps" always a fallacious argument?...
• What is the "Fine Tuning" argument?

Until Next Time!

This Sunday, all being well, I'll be carrying on preaching the series in the book of Acts, the recordings of which you can find here. Or from an atheist point of view, I'll be carrying on doing whatever the chemical reactions inside my brain require me to do, as all our molecules continue to bounce aimlessly and meaninglessly together down the corridor of time. Have a good new week!


David Anderson

See You Next Week...

I have some more original research ready, but I'm still applying the finishing touches. I hope to show it to you next week...

... in the mean-time, a couple of footnotes ...

Richard Dawkins - The Investigation Goes On

I am pleased to say that my Richard Dawkins parable has now passed 5,000 readers. It's 11th if you Google for "Dawkins" - are you sure you don't have web-sites and blogs to link it from so that it can climb that extra place onto the front page? ;-)

However, 5,000 is nothing compared to the radio spin-off. YouTube, one month on, is showing over 32,000 viewers - that's 1,000 every day since it was launched. Anonymous genius, we salute you!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QERyh9YYEis

Four and a half months of the human race's time have been spent listening to this audio clip. Frightening! To put that in perspective, it appears that in a month the You Tube clip had about 5 or 6 times as many visitors as the BCSE's entire website! (Roger Stanyard reported that the BCSE had 5,204 visitors in January - see link below. Given that some particularly egregious examples of BCSE bigotry were given a link in January from Uncommon Descent which gets nearly 6,000 daily visits... that's a pretty depressing picture for the BCSE if they're doing the maths).

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=737

From The Mailbag

This one just in:

Hi!

More power to your elbow, Sir!

BCSE I like to think of as "Three Men and a Website".

(Named removed)

Thank you! I appreciate these encouragements and agree with my correspondent's verdict. The core of campaigners since start-up has not grown; if anything, it has shrunk. I don't know how much the exposures from "BCSE Revealed" have played a part in this. I will probably never know. I hope it's been eye-opening to someone. But whatever's been responsible, the failure of the BCSE is becoming increasingly clear.

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.