It’s always odd how people fixate on the wierdest of things…
One of my side projects over the past year or so has been the British Centre for Science Education. It’s an attempt to slow down the tide of creationist and ID nonsense pouring into UK schools from (where else) the good ole US of A.
Alongside the research work, digging into the backgrounds and interconnectedness of the players in the UK creationist movement, we run a discussion forum – it was the original focal point for discussions, and served to help pound out the hows and whys of what the organisation stands for.
Enter one David Anderson, or “Nappy Boy” as we affectionately call him, with an attack blog that I have delighted in showing to my friends for the last six months or so. Despite his original self stated “mission” being to convince anyone who would listen that we were not worth listening to, this guy spent days and weeks producing stats on our website, poring over our every update, capturing screenshots like crazy and generally trying to make a nuisance of himself (including being a very naughty boy, and trying to gain access where he wasn’t supposed to!).
Undeterred, we have pressed on, figuring out the good old fashioned way (trial and error!) which projects were worth pursuing and which were not. We got our membership off the ground (quite healthy now!) and started making formal approaches to the various decision making bodies that make and shape education policy here in the UK.
Of course, according to Mr Anderson and his Ill Informed Buddies at Uncommon Descent the thing that really matters is the number of posts in our public forums…
I could try to correct the mistakes, point out that the apparent drops in posts are largely down to discussion moving to the members areas of the forum, and a stricter editorial policy (to put it simply, less tolerance of fundie garbage!) but to be honest, I’m not too worried – if people consider you dead and gone, then they stop paying attention.
In the meantime, we continue with the important work behind the scenes, just as always.