Inflating Your Credentials - Part 2

(This article does not add add new material to that contained in other articles, but summarises the contents gleaned from separate investigations concerning Mr. Michael Brass).

So far

In part one of this series, I introduced the subject. Being caught inflating your credentials is fatal if you want to be taken seriously. As such, the BCSE are very keen to look into the credentials of anyone questioning Darwinism. So far, though, the BCSE have generally only succeeded in making themselves look silly by over-reaching themselves in their zeal to say nasty things about those who they don't agree with.

Of course, the very name of the "British Centre for Science Education" is an exercise in claiming unwarranted credentials. If you're going to criticise others over their credentials, then you might want to not claim to be a national centre of expertise in any area unless some of your leadership actually have some experience in that field ...

... but that's where we were last time. Read part one to catch up if you haven't already.

Who's In The BCSE

Today I want to begin looking at the credentials claimed for BCSE chairman, Mr. Michael Brass. I've published a little bit on Mr. Brass before, so before launching into new material I will just remind you of what we already know:

• We firstly found him implicitly conceding the allegation that the BCSE had begun lobbying in public against Truth in Science's materials before it had seen then: follow this link.
• In the days when the BCSE were refusing to name themselves, I named Mr. Brass as one of the top 10 most active members: link.
• When I investigated the BCSE's educational competence and discovered that not one of them was a teacher, that none of them had ever seen the national curriculum, and that they even made mistakes in deciding what the national curriculum was, Mr. Brass was fully involved. (It was Mr. Brass who, after the BCSE had launched, was caught confessing that they still hadn't read the national curriculum yet): link.
• Mr. Brass was at the heart of my documentation of the BCSE's statist, co-ercive and incompetent views of the laws regarding state and other forms of education in the UK. I concluded: "Anybody who has a basic knowledge of UK education laws will recognise that Michael is about as wrong as wrong can be." Link.
• Mr. Brass became involved in the BCSE's attempts to discredit me with spurious legal threats and allegations. Through correspondence with Mr. Brass, I demonstrated his gross hypocrisy in allowing the BCSE to run allegations regarding me on its website which he knew couldn't stand up, and which applied a standard which he knew would condemn the BCSE many more times over if applied to them. Link.
• Mr. Brass was caught out editing the description on the BCSE's website of a certain individual. The description was originally written to make him look like a complete fool; but when the BCSE discovered that the individual in question wasn't in fact an anti-Darwinist, they re-wrote it to make him sound respectable and credible! Link.
• In early February, we discovered Mr. Brass bragging about a further act of deceit - the BCSE representing themselves to the National Science Learning Centre as if they really were credentialled in science education, and taking part in a consultation which the NSLC were holding on that basis. Link.

As such, then, a consistent picture is coming over. Mr. Brass has a track record of over-reaching himself. The behaviour above isn't the kind of thing you expect to find when someone feels confident in his position. If Mr. Brass really feels so sure about Darwinism, one wonders why you'd need to go to such lengths. Cannot naturalism's creation story survive without efforts like this being made on its behalf? If it is not in dire straits, then just why do its proponents do this kind of thing?

Having now introduced the subject, and introduced Mr. Brass, next time we'll turn to Brass's claims about himself and the BCSE's claims on his behalf. What will we learn about the BCSE's honesty? What will we learn about how secure feel about their own claims? Wait and see...

David Anderson