(First published: May 2007)
As we've progressed in this investigation, we've seen that the BCSE's front page claims that its chairman, Mr. Michael Brass, is a "published archaeologist", whilst failing to mention that in fact he is an IT worker who pursues an interest in archaeology outside of his working hours. Put alongside the description of other BCSE committee members ("IT consultant... entrepreneur... retired.... management consultant"), the impression given is that Brass (who, we are told, lives in Cambridge), is probably a professional academic with a high standing in his field - rather than a young man of about 30 who is about to start working towards his doctorate (his Yahoo profile page, last updated 2 years ago today, states he is 28 and is slightly more honest than the BCSE's website, giving his occupation as "Archaeologist/IT" - http://profiles.yahoo.com/mikearchaeology).
And anyone who's had the briefest of tours of the BCSE website knows that if they got the opportunity to find a non-Darwinist indulging in this kind of double-speak, they'd have a party that went on for weeks.
As I mentioned last time, the misleading description of Mr. Brass's vocation is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the dishonesty in the description of the BCSE's chairman goes.
The basic statement on it is "Michael Brass is a published archaeologist". Interested in this, I began researching Mr. Brass's publications record. We've seen already (in part two) that Brass is not shy when it comes to self-publicity. Here's how Brass signs himself off on the BCSE forum:
"Chairman, British Centre for Science Education. MA in Archaeology, University College London".
Given this, it shouldn't be too tricky to track down Mr. Brass's publications record. I went to his web-site to have a browse.
My research led me to believe as follows: that once you drop self-published material (whether by Mr. Brass on his own website, or self-published by print-on-demand), you have (at the time of writing - May 2007) the following: One article in an electronic journal, freely available. "Tracing the Origins of the Ancient Egyptian Cattle Cult", freely available from http://www.antiquityofman.com/brass_EEF2002.pdf. This article appears to be based on Brass's Honours dissertation in 1998, when Brass would have been around 20.
... and that's it. (Brass's own book, "The Antiquity of Man", is something we will examine in a later article. Suffice to say for now that it is self-published, and hence not something that "counts" in the world of academic publications.)
I scratched my head. I googled. The BCSE have appointed this guy as their best candidate to be chairman. He is "a published archaeologist". This is the sum of their description of him. What was I missing? I googled some more. One article that is the write-up of his Bachelor's thesis... and that was all I could find.
Well, I thought that if this was all that it was, then this was a staggering deception even for the BCSE. So, I dropped Mr. Brass an e-mail:
Brass's reply was to tell me that the description was his own words and that it was "completely and utterly factual". But what about the meat of it? What about those publications? In Brass's own words:
So it is indeed the case: in Brass's own words, there only exists his (self-published) book, and the paper based on his Honours dissertation which you can obtain for free over the Internet. There is, however, one journal paper forthcoming later this year.
Now, I don't doubt Brass's hard work and deep interest in the study of archaeology. But I do doubt his integrity in using this as the basis to describe himself as a "published archaeologist". I wrote to Brass again as follows (note that the topic of Brass's self-published book is something I intend to examine in a later instalment):
In reply, Brass told me:
I noted the twist in Brass's words; I described his "publications record" as "minimal"; he replied to talk about his "research". I wonder why he did that? Brass dodged the question about his objective publications record and appealed instead to the subjective opinion of his friends.
What would the BCSE be saying if it could find opponents of Darwinist who were indulging in this kind of thing? If the BCSE's leader/researcher/spokesman Roger Stanyard found out that, say, a creationist or ID supporter had set up an organisation called "The United Kingdom Science Forum" and that it was advertising its own chairman as a "published chemist"... and if Stanyard found out that in fact the fellow was a 30-year old with one self-published book and Internet article from his honours' dissertation... what do you think he'd say?
Having read the BCSE's output over the last year, I think I know what they'd say. It wouldn't be complementary. They'd be having a field day.
So... what about if we apply the same standard to the BCSE itself?
What can we make of that? Is this not gross hypocrisy? Why are the BCSE they pretending to be something they're not? Again, the evidence is piling up - that their existence is one long campaign of deceit.
David Anderson