NEWSLETTER 

of the  

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION - CANADIAN SCIENTIFIC & CHRISTIAN AFFILIATION

Volume 28 Number 4 August/September 1986

HOUGHTON NEWS FLASH

Bring to the 1986 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at HOUGHTON COLLEGE, AUGUST 8-12, your best slides of the 1985 Oxford Conference and ASA Eurotour. Even if you missed out in 1985, the Saturday night slide show should be a visual treat, with no jet-lag.

An important plenary session on CREATION, EVOLUTION, AND EDUCATION has been added to the program since preregistration materials were mailed to the membership. David L. Wilcox, Eastern College biology professor and chair of ASA's Commission on Creation, will lead off with an evaluation of Christian frameworks for teaching origins ("Models of Making: Prime Mover, Craftsman, and King").

David Price, former high school science teacher and chair of ASA's Committee for Integrity in Science Education, will describe the committee's booklet for public school teachers ("Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy"). Publication and distribution of the booklet to some 40,000 teachers has now been guaranteed by foundation support. The manuscript is in its final (7th) draft, after review of the 3rd draft by the ASA Council and other referees, followed by extensive rewriting.

Walter R. Hearn, editor of Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy, will challenge the audience to take seriously "ASA's Responsibility and Opportunity" to help teachers. In March the ASA Newsletter editor "covered" the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association. Walt heard ASA member Helen Martin deliver an award-winning lecture, discovered much interest in ASA's "middle position" in the so called creation/evolution controversy, and found out how ASA can have a significant presence at the next NSTA national meeting, to be held in Washington, D.C., 26-29 March 1987.

Incidentally, at the ASA ANNUAL MEETING at HOUGHTON COLLEGE, Helen Martin will tell how her Unionville (Pennsylvania) High School students improvised a weather-satel lite tracking station. Walt wasn't a bit surprised that Helen's inspiring, well told story won the competition, jointly sponsored by NSTA and the Association for Science Education (U.K.). Winning means that Helen will present the NSTA/ASE Exchange Lecture next January at the annual ASE meeting in Wales. (Keep reading, and you'll learn where Wales is. -Ed.)

On the graduate school campus, the problem of locating interested students and putting them in touch with busy Christian faculty is severe. What may be needed is a part-time staff worker to make contacts and help plan programs. ASA has made such a start with Bill Monsma at Minnesota and CSCA with Don McNally on campuses near the U. of Toronto. Do any of our hundreds of members at universities have suggestions for a parttime ASA staff possibility on your campus? I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

On September 19 the New England Section will hold a joint reception for graduate students and medical students in Boston on the occasion of a lecture by Donald MacKay. We hope the reception will be a good follow up of ASA contacts made at M.I.T. in January at the Owen Gingerich lecture.

If you have some ideas along this line, the national office would be happy to work with you-suggesting speakers and local workers, supplying labels for the area ASA membership, etc.

Graduate school can be a spiritual desert or a peak growth experience. ASA wants to serve the nation's future scientists in those formative years. -Bob Herrmann

ASA: WHERE THE ACTION IS

We can't help being enthusiastic about ASA, even at our age. At 60 the Weary Old Editor (WOE is me.-Ed.) may be running out of energy, but at 45 the American Scientific Affiliation seems to be gaining momentum.

At this year's ANNUAL MEETING, the Council will hear a report from the Publications Committee requesting a change of name of our Journal to better indicate its content to librarians. Members' suggestions have been narrowed down to about a dozen leading contenders, using JASA's present title as a subtitle. Example: Christianity and Science: The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation. Some have argued for a less prosaic, more striking title (such as Cosmos & Logos) but all proposals include the word and to indicate ASA's dual concerns. Jim Neidhardt, Publications Committee chair, says he feels like the widow of Luke 18:1-8 for continually bringing this up, but he wants to see "X": The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation in many more libraries, including every theological library in the country. (Why not the world, Jim? After all, that widow finally got what she wanted.-Ed.)

Finally, short of "outer space," what's the farthest-out place you can think of for the next ASA tour? You guessed it: China. Former ASA president Chi-Hang Lee is beginning to make arrangements for ASA members to tour major cities in the People's Republic of China in August 1987 following the Annual Meeting. The cost from San Francisco will probably be under $3,000 per person. Interested? Contact Dr. Chi-Hang Lee, 120 Brandywine Way, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. If enough scholars in various fields sign on, the idea is to arrange for them to give lectures at various institutes and universities along the way. Chinese scientists are even less aware than many American scientists that "science and faith are compatible" (to quote ASA's ad in Science 86).

Kevin Woods of Gibson City, Illinois, discovered that the University of Illinois library's run of JASA stopped back in the middle 1970's. He found out that many journals were discontinued in those years because of budget cuts, and that the library would be glad to bring its collection up to date, if it could do so at no cost. Kevin bought nine back issues from the national ASA office to combine with some of his own, presenting them as his gift to the university library.

Some good ideas pay off: Once its collection was complete, the library decided to renew its subscription to ASA's Journal. Does that give anybody else an idea?

Here's what happened: State Senator Paul Henry was elected to the U.S. Congress, so a special election was held to fill out his term. Senator Howard Baker called it the most crucial election in the U.S. last year, because control of the state Senate was at stake. With a Democrat as Governor and Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans needed a win to have any say in governing the state. The election was so hotly contested that over a million dollars was spent by all parties in the campaign.

Vern calculated that on election day he had more than 3,000 volunteers telephoning, knocking on doors, taking voters to the polls, and so on. Interestingly, his opponent in the general election was former state Senator Stephen Monsma, who had given up his Senate seat to run for Congress in an earlier election. With two Dutch Christian Reformed evangelicals running against each other it was a relatively clean campaign, "although on occasion some of our followers got carried away," Vern adds.

The upshot was that Vern won with approximately 55 percent of the vote, taking office on 3 April 1985. Life in the state Senate is busy and challenging. Vern is now chair of the Public and Mental Health Committee, again finding his science background helpful.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the Ehlers political saga. Meanwhile, we leave you with Vern's exhortation: "I strongly urge my fellow ASA members to run for office. There is definitely a need for sensible Christian leadership from people with a scientific background."

The conference planning committee consists of biological scientists Elving Anderson, Bob Herrmann, Gerry Hess, Marvin Meyer, and LeRoy Walters (of the Kennedy Center for Bioethics). Suggestions for topics or participants will be welcomed by the program chair, Dr. Gerald D. Hess, Dept. of Biology, Messiah College, Grantham, PA 17027.

The potential of gene-splicing for medicine was highlighted in a recent news release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -whose commissioner happens to be ASA member Frank E. Young. Young announced government approval of cancer treatment using human alpha-interferon produced by genetically altered bacteria. The approval covered treatment for only one disease, hairy cell leukemia, a rare but deadly form of cancer afflicting several thousand Americans each year. Some 90 percent of patients treated with interferon survive the disease.

Young credited recombinant DNA technology with making enough interferon available for clinical testing. He named three other kinds of cancer against which inteferon is now being tested with possible beneficial results, including Kaposi's sarcoma, the killer of many AIDS patients. The human interferon product is marketed by Hoffman-La Roche and Schering-Plough pharmaceutical companies.

2. Donald M. MacKay will lecture at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, on Thursday, Sept. 4, on "Information Processing in the Visual System" (4 p.m., Room E-501, Medicine), and on Friday, Sept. 5, on "Brain, Mind, and Will: Information Theory and the Mystery of Self" (8 p.m., Hatch Auditorium, Baker). According to Tom Hoshiko of the Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics at Case, this is a rescheduling of lectures cancelled last fall because of illness. A buffet dinner is being arranged to precede Friday night's public lecture. For information, call Tom at (216) 368-3359 or 932-4409, or Dwight Davy at 368-6443 or 248-7718. Donald MacKay is a distinguished investigator of brain mechanisms at Keele University in England who has written widely on the integration of science and biblical faith.

3. ASA/CSCA members have much to gain from our counterparts in other countries (see Item 1), but we also have something to contribute. In particular, Oliver Barclay of RSCF (Research Scientists' Christian Fellowship, with whom ASA met jointly in Oxford in 1985), would like to hear of any ASA/CSCA members traveling to the United Kingdom for scientific conferences. He would be glad to make arrangements for mini-conferences or individual conversations with RSCF members. Address: Dr. Oliver R. Barclay, 8 Southland Road, Leicester, LE2 3RJ, England.

4. Full sets of all papers given at the 1985 ASA/RSCF Oxford Conference are available from the office of Nick Isbister, UCCF Professional Groups Secretary, 38 de Montport Street, Leicester, LE1 7GP, England. (RSCF is one of the various professional groups of Associates of the Universities & Colleges Christian Fellowship, formerly Inter-Varsity Fellowship.) A number of the papers will appear in JASA. The simplest way to receive a copy of an unpublished conference paper (without having to translate dollars into pounds) is to order a copy at cost from ASA, P.O. Box J, Ipswich, MA 01938-and let them duplicate it from their complete set.

Hefley's book on Jimmy Carter's SBC roots, The Church That Produced a President (Simon & Schuster, 1977), was heavier on history, but The Truth in Crisis goes back at least to the Scopes trial, and to the 1938 Mercer University "battle for the Bible" in which now famous John Birch functioned as a "student prosecutor." Then in 1961 Ralph Elliott's The Message of Genesis was published by Broadman Press, the SBC publishing house, but withdrawn after furors at several annual conventions (see "Southern Baptists, Genesis, and Education" under "News and Notes," JASA, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 94-6, Sept. 1963).

The political Ploys of present-day participants are presented in more detail than most readers will care to peruse but Hefley also predicts what may happen in the near future. Although evolution and "creation science" are barely mentioned, they seem to lurk in the background whenever biblical interpretations divide Bible believers.

Jim Hefley's book rates more than just a nod here, partly because it shows the difficulty of sticking to intellectual issues once they get entangled with "super-star" preaching on moral issues; with institutional loyalties, political maneuvers, and legal hassles; and let's face it-with self-righteous arrogance. Further, the fact that each SBC faction gets about 50 percent of the vote each year shows how careful-and prayerful ASA should be in speaking about science/faith issues within the body of Christ, keeping the message of 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 always in mind. (At its 1986 convention in New Orleans, the SBC elected a "conservative" president again, by a 54-46 vote.-Ed.)

The split on biblical interpretation in the SBC seems to parallel the approximately 50/50 split on evolution in the American population as a whole. According to a Washington Post news story, some 2,000 American adults were almost evenly divided on the statement that "human beings as we know them today developed from earlier species of animals." That question was part of a 1985 survey on science and pseudoscience taken by Jon S. Miller of the Public Opinion Laboratory at Northern Illinois University. Results of the survey were reported by Miller at the 1986 AAAS meeting in Philadelphia. (Comments by the editor.)

2. The Contrasts and Similarities Among Science, Pseudoscience, the Occult, and Religion (4th edn., 1986) is a bibliography self-published by T. Harry Leith of York University's Atkinson College. This edition of what might be called "Leith's Longer Loonies List" rates a nod as a real book this time, for its sheer size (202 pp. of single-spaced typescript) as well as its usefulness in tracking down resources. The index runs from Astrology to Velikovsky's Catastrophism with several dozen entires in between, including a "Miscellany of Unorthodoxies" difficult to catalog elsewhere (its 41 subheads range from Acupuncture to Vampires and Werewolves). Books are listed alphabetically by author, articles in no particular order but more or less chronologically. The section on Creationist Critiques of Evolution and Critiques of Gradualistic Evolution lists over three pages of books and nine pages of articles, beginning with 1975 JASA articles and ending with many 1985 citations.

Harry Leith is a prolific and productive browser. He also produces a bibliography on Resource & Environmental Issues & Policies, another on the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology. So specify the Pseudoscience bibliography when ordering the one we've described. The price is $10.95 Canadian or $7.95 U.S. Order from: Prof. T. H. Leith, Atkinson 438, York University, North York, Ontario M3J 2R7, Canada.

Here's the key: Great Britain, the principal island of the British Isles, consists of England plus Scotland and Wales. Administratively it also includes some smaller islands (the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Outer Hebrides north of Scotland, for example). The U.K. is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland, which is on the second largest island, most of which is Ireland, known to crossword puzzlers as Eire, its name in Gaelic, a language spoken by the Celts, pronounced Selts or Kelts-not to be confused with kilts, which are worn by the Scots-not the Scotch, which...

Skip the Scotch which key. Soberly consider the Isle of Man, another of the British Isles, which lies between England and Northern Ireland. It is inhabited by people who used to speak Manx, a variety of Gaelic which...

Gaelic whiches are probably the worst kind. But how about lpswiches? Yep, just like the old York, the real Ipswich is in England, as we found out last summer. All those -wich and -wick endings (Greenwich, Warwick, bailiwick, etc.) come from the Latin vicus, "a group of houses," from which we get our word vicinity. Evidently when the Romans were building their wall across Britain, that's what they called the villages that sprang up in the vicinity of their garrisons. Ipswich, once called Gipeswic, is on the river Gipping in Suffolk, about 70 miles NE of London. Its good harbor (spelled harbour, of course) faces the European continent, which is good for trade but bad for other reasons; in 991 the town was sacked by Vikings.

(Indeed, one can learn not a little from reading this Newsletter, one might say-if one were no less litotic than the British. Or do we mean the English?-Ed.)

Of course, the kind of "case" we had in mind was intellectual, not legal. Today's arguments over "scientific creationism" are generally tainted by the win-or-lose mentality characteristic of political and legal fights.

This fall the U.S. Supreme Court gets in on the scrap, climaxing a five-year legal battle in Louisiana. The Louisiana "Balanced Treatment" act passed by the state legislature in July 1981 was struck down by Judge Adrian Duplantier in January 1985 on grounds that it violated the constitutional separation of church and state by promoting selected religious beliefs. In July 1985 Duplantier's ruling was upheld by a three-member panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and in December 1985 the full court voted 8 to 7 against hearing an appeal of the panel's decision. Now that appellate judgment is being appealed.

Meanwhile, the composition of the Supreme Court has changed, moving in what some commentators regard as a more conservative direction. We'll let you know how it comes out, but whatever the verdict, the religious significance of the doctrine of creation and the scientific significance of the concept of evolution will remain. So will a lot of other questions about the interaction of science and Christian faith.

To keep up with the controversy, however, several publications are available to supplement the Institute for Creation Research's freebie Acts & Facts:

The quarterly Creation/Evolution journal and the bimonthly Creation/Evolution Newsletter are official publications of the National Center for Science Education, Inc., sponsor of the Committees of Correspondence organized to protect the teaching of evolution from creationist attacks. Order from National Center for Science Education, Inc., Box 32, Concord College, Athens, WV 14712 ($9 for CIE, $7 for CIE Newsletter, $15 for both; $12 for members of a Committee of Correspondence).

CIE journal is edited by Frederick Edwards and actually published by the American Humanist Association. Its tone varies from article to article, but the current issue contains "A Summary of the Taylor Site Evidence" by ASA member Glen J. Kuban and another article on the alleged Paluxy River "man-tracks" by former member Ronnie Hastings. We think ASA members will particularly appreciate the openness and genteel spirit brought to CIE Newsletter by editor Karl Fezer as he reports the news and comments on it.

Origins Research is published semi-annually by Students for Origins Research, P.O. Box 203, Goleta, CA 93116 (free to students or educators on request; $5 for two years to others). OR obviously prefers creation over evolution but tries to be open and fair to all points of views. Editor Dennis Wagner and technical editor David Johannsen are both ASA members. The Fall/Winter 1985 issue carried a major criticism of the Paluxy River "man-tracks" by evolutionary anthropologist John R. Cole, along with a response by geophysicist and ASA member John W. DeVilbiss, who has his own Office for Research on Origins. The Spring/Summer 1986 issue has a major article on the Paluxy River tracks and a response to ICR's rather reluctant recantation of its long-standing interpretation of them, both by Glen J. Kuban.

(Evidently it was Glen's extensive investigations, and his gracious insistence that someone from ICR examine the Paluxy site with him in October 1985, that led to John Morris's turnaround in ICR Impact Article 151 early in 1986. When we noted that reversal in a BULLETIN BOARD item last issue, we didn't know about Glen's major role in it. Sorry. Glen Kuban lives in Brunswick, Ohio, has a degree in biochemistry, and makes

his living as director of systems software for The Computer Place.-Ed.)

We can't work up much enthusiasm for Theistic Evolutionists' Forum (224 Parliament Drive, Greenville, SC 29615; $12/year), however, a sort of wide-ranging, freeform correspondence-exchange choreographed by editor Edward T. Babinski. One of the two issues we've seen contained an article by ASA member Robert Newman on "Scriptural Evidence for an Old Earth." In general we found the contents provocative in both the good and bad sense of that word. Babinski, an "exfundamentalist," enjoys satire; he also publishes Monkey's Uncle, containing satirical jibes at "both fundamentalist and atheist distortions of science and faith."

Jibes, jabs, and jurispudence abound. The other day a lawyer called the Newsletter office from Mobile, Alabama, asking for the names of Christian scholars in sociology, anthropology or psychology who might be willing to testify on behalf of 624 parents, teachers, and students. We forget whether the 624 are plaintiffs or defendants. Anyway, they are seeking to prove in court that the entire curriculum of the Mobile public schools unconstitutionally promotes "the religion of secular humanism."

We gave the lawyer some names of ASA members with. out any guarantee that they would want to participate. Personally, we thank God for letting us be human and even secular. We're not sure what that suffix -ism does to secularity and humanity. It seems to improve a few words, like baptity and Presbyterian ity- b u t it certainly ruined creation and evolution for some of us.

Russell Hoyle was born in Dixon, Illinois. He received A.B. and M.A. degrees in mathematics from the U. of California and another M.A. from Stanford. He was a member of Citrus Heights Friends Church and a former youth worker and Sunday school teacher. He is survived by his wife Genevieve and three grown daughters. A long-time member of ASA, Russ had attended a number of Annual Meetings and participated in local ASA events whenever possible, even though he usually had to drive 150 miles to do so.

Irwin A. Moon died on 7 May 1986 at age 78 and was buried in Placentia, California. He is survived by his wife Margaret and four children. Irwin was known throughout the world as producer and host of the famous Moody science films. He founded the Moody Institute of Science, a branch of Moody Bible Institute,

Dr. Irwin A. Moon presented his famous million-volt demonstration before hundreds of thousands in his unique Sermons from Science lectures and directed it until his retirement in 1972. Under his direction MIS produced 39 educational films, which won 27 national and international awards. After retirement he remained active in its work as an advisor and friend of the staff.

(Working with Irwin at the Institute for 25 years in the film production program was F. Alton Everest, first president of ASA. Alton, who lives in Whittier, California, sent us a personal memoir along with an account of Moon's life and ministry.-Ed.)

As a young pastor in Los Angeles, Irwin Moon found the visual approach especially effective in reaching young people with the gospel. He devised a set of the old 31/4 by 41/4 inch glass slides entitled, "The Microscope, the Telescope, and the Bible." That presentation eventually formed the basis of the first Moody science film, "The God of Creation."

In the 1930's Irwin began to travel the length and breadth of the land with his Sermons from Science platform ministry. A trailer full of demonstration equipment enabled him to project on a big screen every microscopic thing from Brownian motion to protoplasmic streaming, plus time-lapse photographs of plant growth. Standing on a big Tesla coil, he would let sparks of high frequency electricity, a million volts worth, stream from his fingers, a demonstration which ended his week of meetings with a strong evangelistic thrust. During World War 11 he went from one military base to another, appearing in base theaters along with big-name entertainment personalities. His ministry was especially effective with military personnel on the west coast, awaiting an unknown future in the Pacific.

According to Alton Everest, "The American Scientific Affiliation owes its existence directly to Irwin Moon. He saw that many of the students he counseled had questions about the relationship of science to Christian faith. He convinced Will H. Houghton, president of Moody Bible Institute, of the need to do something. Houghton then arranged that first meeting in 1941 from which sprang the ASA."

Out of a flood of memories, Alton was surprised to find one in particular that kept coming back, from a time when they were working together 40 years ago on the film, "Voice of the Deep." Alton wrote, "We were both in Navy deep-sea diving outfits on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean at Emerald Cove, Santa Catalina Island. Suddenly the reassuring throb of the engine driving the air compressor stopped, leaving only a couple of minutes of air in our suits. Also eliminated was the usual method of ascent by blowing up the suit and shooting up like a balloon. Now it was grunt work, hand over hand up a line. When we finally reached the line, I motioned for Irwin to climb up first. He motioned for me to do the same. That Alfonso-Gaston procedure went ' on for some time, wasting precious seconds, until I realized anew that Irwin would rather suffocate than give in. Not being endowed with such competitive drive and rather yearning for a breath of air, I gave in.

"That was the Irwin we knew and loved, and whose talents and ability we respected. He is gone now, but the institutions he established continue to do the Lord's work."

Neal 0. Brace, professor of chemistry at Wheaton College in Illinois, sent a fascinating report of his 1985 sabbatical trip to the People's Republic of China. Neal and his wife were shown every courtesy in China as well as in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. In Japan he gave a paper at an international meeting and lectured on his organic research at various universities and research institutes. In China he lectured mostly on chemical education, to large and appreciative audiences. At several places he encountered professors or officials who identified themselves as Christians or as products of mission schools. In Beijing, Mr. Zhao Ji, secretary general of the Chinese Education Association for International Exchanges and the Braces' host, invited them to return and to send other visitors from Wheaton College. (Clearly, Neal was paving the way for the 1987 ASA China Tour being organized by Chi-Hang Lee, et al.-Ed.)

John Chambers and his wife Ruth have established a Christian Graduate Training Program in Bandung, Indonesia. Their aim is to prepare young graduates from secular universities for ministry within their own churches and for effective witness through their professions. They have experimented with an intensive fourmonth course to provide basic tools for systematic Bible study and to whet students' appetites for continued theological reflection on their life-work. The second course began in February. Five Indonesians serve as co-leaders of the program. The Chambers might appreciate some encouragment, at JL Sawunggaling 7, Bandung 40116, Indonesia.

Donald G. Davis, of the Graduate School of Library Science at the U. of Texas in Austin, returned from a trip to Eastern Europe this spring. Among the libraries he visited were the State Lenin Library of the USSR in Moscow, the Saltykof-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad, and the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest. He also presented a paper at a conference on library history at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenb0tel, Federal Republic of Germany.

Jeffrey K. Greenberg is moving to Wheaton College in Illinois as associate professor of geology. For the past eight years he has been precambrian geologist at the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and associate professor of environmental science at the U. of Wisconsin. Jeff will continue several research projects but his primary emphasis will be on revitalizing Wheaton's geology program and attracting geology majors.

Theodore Hsieh, associate professor of psychology at Judson College in Elgin, Illinois, participated in the 3rd annual Conference on Christian Approaches to Learning Theory held at Trinity Christian College in Deerfield, Illinois, last November. His paper was entitled "Freedom and Discipline in the Learning Process: Contrasting Confusion, Liberal Arts, and Scriptural Perspectives."

Allen Wai Jang of Alhambra, California, will serve as principal of Orange County Christian School in Cypress next year. He has been high school principal and chief science teacher at the California Christian School. Allen, who has a doctorate and was listed this year in Who's Who in California has brought a number of innovative programs to Christian education. At OCCS he will introduce a "Gifted Student Science Program" in which upper elementary and junior high students spend an hour each week in "hands-on" laboratory or field science. Allen says his high-school level exercises for that program have been classroom-tested for safety and high motivational value.

Gary S. Lee and Janet W. Lee are an ASA couple living in San Diego, California. Gary has just finished medical school and is beginning an internal medicine residency at UCSD. Janet is going back to her old job as a physical therapist at Rees-Stealy Medical Center. They spent three months this spring working at a mission hospital run by Overseas Missionary Fellowship in Central Thailand.

T. Harry Leith does a lot of things at York University in Toronto besides teaching at Atkinson College and compiling bibliographies (see BOOKENDS, item 2). As director of the university's Development Corporation, he looks for research-oriented companies to bring to campus. He's completed terms as 'chair of the University Senate and of his department. He's also active in civic and environmental affairs, for example as vicepresident of the Metro Toronto & Region Conservation Foundation and chair of the Renewable Energy advisory committee to the Kartright Center for Conservation. On a sabbatical a year ago Harry lectured on the philosophy of science at the U. of Potchefstrom in South Africa, visited France, Ireland, and Yugoslavia, and did a lot of writing. Now he's back to teaching courses in philosophy of science, geology & astronomy, and the physical environment at Atkinson College, Harry still does some television work, with one of his series on climate change now running on CTV in Canada.

John D. McCalpin is a Ph.D. candidate in physical oceanography at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He was recently awarded a PACER fellowship (Program for Advanced Computing in Engineering and Research) sponsored by Control Data Corporation. John is designing and implementing a high-resolution ocean model for the ETA-10 Supercomputer (from ETA Systems in Minneapolis), "the first of a new generation of supercomputers with sustained speeds of over 1 billion operations/second." The ETA-10 with Serial No. 1 will be delivered to FSU in October. The model John is writing will first be used for his group's research on ocean prediction, but he hopes it will be useful for more general climate studies by the larger oceanographic community.

Emmet McKowen, whose home address is Fairfax, Virginia, lives and works in Saudi Arabia. He is employed by Sperry Corporation to teach English as a second language (ESL) to Saudi naval cadets. Having taught science in Turkey and Afghanistan, Emmett has many tales to tell of life in the Middle East. In May he paid the Newsletter editor a visit with his brother Paul McKowen, pastor of Irvington Presbyterian Church in Fremont, California, and current chair of ASA's San Francisco Bay local section. Emmett was glad to learn of other ASA members called to serve the Muslim world.

Laurence C. Walker is not only professor of forestry at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, but also a Presbyterian minister. He's a minister not only of the Trawick Presbyterian (USA) Church but also of the Rock Springs (Cumberland) Presbyterian Church. He recently sent us an issue of The Cumberland Presbyterian (1 Feb 1986) devoted to that denomination's Scottish heritage. It contains a lead article by Laurence about his experience filling in for a minister of the Kirk, or Church of Scotland, in Inverkeilor, midway between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. (Laurance was at first confused by the 2:30 a.m. phone call inviting him to come. He thought the voice with the strange accent at the other end was saying "I am a forester;" as a longtime dean of the forestry school, he assumed that the caller was a foreign student in trouble with the police. It turned out to be a minister named Ian Forrester, calling from Scotland.) "A Scottish Experience" describes present conditions in the national Kirk, the Free Kirks, and several other Reformed bodies related in one way or another to Presbyterianism. It also outlines some of the quirks of history that led to fragmentation. Evidently "the Disruption of 1843" over state control led half the congregations to leave the state church and form the Free Church of Scotland. Many ministers emigrated, contributing to the growth of Presbyterianism in the U.S. (We may not have it all straight, but we now know better than to call the Church of England "Britain's established church." That church is established only in England and Wales. In Scotland the established church is the Church of Scotland -although the monarch is not its head. With such controversies among the dignified Scots, maybe the Southern Baptists aren't such a cantankerous bunch of Celts, after all.-Ed.)