Mark Edon

Mr. Edon joined the BCSE committee in the second half of 2007. Suffice to say that:

• Like most of his colleagues, he has no qualifications in science or education that would qualify him to pose as any kind of science educator, let alone a national expert who should be lobbying newspapers and MPs.
• Like most of his colleagues, Mr. Edon's motivation is obvious, as he is a rabid supporter of Richard Dawkins.
• Again, like most of his colleagues, Mr. Edon is seriously equivocating in his involvement in the BCSE, because whereas:
  • the BCSE claims to be a scientific body and not driven by religion, and to believe that science and religion are broadly complementary ...
  • ... Mr. Edon's own personal beliefs are exactly the opposite: science and religion are irreconcilably opposed and it is the purpose and destiny of the former to replace the latter. Mr. Edon's own Internet activities are motivated in the most obvious possible way by his own deep dislike of theism.

It is apparent enough too that there were two reasons why Mr. Edon was invited to join the BCSE committee:

1. The BCSE's collapse by that point was so advanced that, if they wanted to still have a committee, they were more-or-less obliged to offer a place to anyone who was willing, and
   
   
2. Mr. Edon's polemical activity on the Internet made him a friend of the BCSE leaders. This is all really we need to know about the BCSE; there is no need to have any real understanding of science education to join it - a bit of experience in atheist polemics is quite sufficient.

See Also:

• "Freedom Pluralism And Deception 2" - Mr. Edon evidenced his own way of thinking when he signed a petition which called for the prime minister to outlaw parents from instructing their children in any way of life except for secularism.
• I also commented on the dishonest and revealing nature of Mr. Edon's polemical activity in this post.

Footnote : A Response to Some Of Mr. Edon's Polemics

From examining Mr. Edon's polemical efforts to discredit my research, his prize claim is apparently that I am dishonest because in one place on the Internet I described my degree in more general terms as being in science, whereas in another place I described it more specifically as being in mathematics.

Mr. Edon writes that these two claims are obviously contradictory (he did a straw poll in his office to establish that mathematics cannot be described as a scientific subject), and that therefore I am a liar.

http://community.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=932

I don't know whether to laugh at this claim for its silliness, or cry because of the tragic waste of a life in pursuing such a pointless set of goals. What cause could be such a bad one that it requires this to help it?

My course was described as a scientific one by the university which awarded me the degree, where the mathematics department that taught me describes itself on the front page of its website as teaching "Mathematical Sciences", and on my university application, five of the six universities to which I applied awarded a Bachelor of Science (BSC) degree for their mathematics course. (For reasons of historical tradition, Oxford is the exception: it awards a "Bachelor of Arts" for its three-year course).

My UCAS application: note the right-hand column

A letter from my college

Even if Mr. Edon had bothered to look up on Wikipedia, he would have found maths described as a science!

That Mr. Edon:

• Never thought of checking up on such basic facts,
• had no idea that mathematics degrees in the UK are generally awarded with a Bachelor of Science degree,
• but instead rushed into print to try to discredit me
• and apparently believes that scientific questions are settled by taking a straw poll of people in his office...

... is all the evidence we need about what kind of people are leading the "British Centre for Science Education": what their agenda and competence is.

I will leave it to Mr. Edon to decided whether or not these universities are also pseudo-scientists and liars... or whether it's not the case that his attempts to discredit me have rather scraped the barrel and left him looking rather silly.