NEWSLETTER

of the

American Scientific Affiliation & Canadian Scientific Christian Affiliation


VOLUME 33 NUMBER                                                                                           2 APRIL/MAY 1991



NEWSLETTER of the ASA/CSCA is published bi-monthly for its membership by the American Scientific Affiliation, 55 Market St., Ipswich, MA 01938. Tel. 508-356-5656. Information for the Newsletter may be sent to the Editor: Dr.
Walter R. Hearn, 762 Arlington Ave., Berkeley, CA 94707. 0 1991 American Scientific Affiliation (except previously published material). All rights reserved.
[Editor: Dr. Walter R. Hearn / Production: Rebecca Petersen]



YEAR OF JUBILEE

THE ASA AT 50: CELEBRATING THE PAST AND LOOKING TO THE FUTURE is the official theme of the 1991 ANNUAL MEETING to be held July 25-29 at WHEATON COLLEGE Wheaton, Illinois.

In the Old Testament, Leviticus 25 set forth the idea of a "Jubilee" following the last of seven "Sabbath (7th) Years" of special care for the land. The Jubilee Year was intended to bring people back to the land of their fathers every couple of generations. It was a way of recovering old traditions while at the same time affording a fresh start.

That's the spirit of this year's Annual Meeting celebrating ASA's 50th year, with plenary lectures on the interaction of Christianity and science in the middle ages (David Lindberg) and in America in the 1930s (Darryl Hart); on Wheaton biologist Russell Mixter as exemplar (Dorothy Chappell); on the ASA in the period 1941-56 (Mark Kalthof and on the future of ASA (Dick Bube).

Contributed papers are welcome, especially those related to the theme. Deadline for abstracts: April 15. To guarantee lodging on campus, register by May 3 1, even if you've already submitted an abstract. If you missed the Call for Papers, send your 200-250 word single-spaced abstract to Jack Haas, Program Chair, ASA, P.O. Box 668, Ipswich, MA 01938.

Join us for Jubilation. Get serious about science as your Christian vocation. Get yourself to Wheaton, July 25-29.

STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Christians in statistics have made a significant move. Associate prof.  Phillip Rust (2319 So. Lander Lane, Charleston, SC 29414) was on the alert for other Christians within the American Statistical Association when he met Y. Jack Lee in Nov 1987. The two were thrown together as fellow members of an NIMH site-visiting team. The discovery that they were fellow believers led to a determination to collect at least a handful of Christians at the Aug 1988 statisticians' meeting (referred to by them, of course, as "the ASA Annual Meet ing"). At that New Orleans meeting six people gathered for a luncheon discussion.

At the 1989 meeting in Washington, D.C., Phil posted a couple of flyers in the registration area announcing an evening gettogether of a Christian Statisticians' Informal Group Discussion (CSIGD). Twelve people showed up, most of them new. With a growing roster ' plans were drawn for a semiannual newsletter. The first issue of Counted for Righteousness was mailed in Nov 1990. Editor Linda Davis (11539 Mamie Lane, Fairfax Station, VA 22039-2332) invites interested statisticians to add their names and addresses to the mailing list.

In Aug 1990, CSIGD gathered at the American Statistical Association meeting in Anaheim, California. The group has set the Monday evening of that meeting each year to get together for fellowship and witness within their professional society. Instead of adding the names of associates to their roster, they're passing the word on a person-toperson basis, allowing each Christian to decide whether to be "a public or a private disciple." James Ward of Glaxo Corp has agreed to speak at the Aug 1991 get-together. The first CSIGD newsletter offered words of encouragement from Walt Hearn about how Christian groups in other professional societies got underway, such as the Federation Christian Fellowship he helped establish over 30 years ago.

BIOPHYSICAL BASIS

Three ASA members who regularly attend meetings of the Biophysical Society have laid the groundwork for a Fellowship of Christian Biophysicists (FCB). They are Raymond Sjodin (Biophysics of U. of Maryland med school), Tom Hoshiko (Physiology & Biophysics,
Case Western Reserve med school) and Fred Sigworth (Physiology, Yale med school).

Fred Sigworth and David Chester (BSAC, U. of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington) arranged a breakfast meeting on Jan 29 at the Biophysical Society's 1991 meeting in San Francisco and Fred sent out a notice. Attendance was up from the four at their first informal gettogether (1989, Cincinatti) but down slightly from the 18 at the 1990 meeting (Baltimore).

Tom Hoshiko and Ray Sjodin had lined up Wait Hearn from nearby Berkeley to speak to the group. Walt spoke of the significance of such fellowships in the various scientific disciplines and offered ASA's assistance in promoting FCB. He brought along sample copies of ASA literature and described some of the things ASA is doing to serve as a bridge between the scientific and Christian communities. Discussion afterward centered on goals for the group, how to get on the Society's official program, and who would make the arrangements for next year's meeting in Houston (Fred Sigworth, Yale Univ. School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St, New Haven, CT 06510). Grad student Mark Strand of the U. of Minnesota told of enthusiasm for ASA's Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy among parents in his home church. Other ASAers present included Gregory Needham of Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis and Barbara Hoshiko.

GEOLOGISTS, ET AL.

The first scientific specialty group to constitute itself as a division of ASA was the Affiliation of Christian Geologists (ACG). The organization has grown beyond expectations in numbers and activities. According to Vol. 2, No. 1, of its semi-annual newsletter, The News!, ACG has 130 dues-paying members and a mailing list of over 300 geologists. They meet during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA); in Oct 1990 at Dallas the ACG evening get-together had a formal place on the GSA schedule, featuring a panel discussion on "Communicating Geology to the Church" organized by Wheaton's Jeff Greenberg and ACG president Davis Young of Calvin College.

Both ACG and the even newer Affiliation of Christian Biologists (also officially affiliated with ASA) plan sessions immediately preceding the 1991 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at WHEATON COLLEGE, JULY 25-29.

All the rest of us who care about science and Christian faith are the "alia" of that et al. Whatever your field or your denomination, expect a stimulating, integrating, worshipful experience at the 1991 ASA ANNUAL MEETING.

BULLETIN BOARD

1. Au Sable Institute in Michigan is a Christian outdoor study center offering college courses in field ecology, chemistry, and environmental stewardship in winter, spring, and summer sessions. In 1991 the spring session is from May 15 to June 4. For information write Dr. David Mahan, Associate Director, Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies, 7526 Sunset Trail N.E., Mancelona, MI 49659; tel. 616-587-8686. The Au Sable curriculum is one of four special programs mentioned in the 2nd Edn of Peterson's Consider A Christian College (1990), official guide to 78 Christian College Coalition schools. The guidebook is available at $12.95 at bookstores or from the Christian College Coalition, 329 Eighth St, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-6158.

2. A two-week continuing education course for clergy on "The Church in an Age of Science" will be held at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, June 16-28. The course, sponsored by GTU's Center for Theology & the Natural Sciences and taught by CTNS director Robert Russell, will cover both theoretical and ethical issues, using Ian Barbour's Religion in an Age of Science and Technology, Environment, and Human Values as texts. Classes M-F, 9 a.m. to I p.m. Tuition $325, GTU dorm housing, $180. For information contact CTNS, 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709; tel. 415649-8152.

3. "History of science is one of the most exciting and fastest growing disciplines of the last few decades." So said a flyer announcing the Oct 1990 annual meeting of The History of Science Society (in Seattle), and inviting new members. The Society publishes a quarterly journal, Isis (Vol. 81 in 1990), an annual, Osiris (Vol. 6 in 1990), a Guide to the History of Science (new edn., 1990) and other publications. Annual membership, $40; students, $22. Address: History of Science Society, 215 South 34th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6310.

4. The biennial meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, & Social Studies of Biology, to be held 11-14 July 1991 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, will include a session on "Science & Religion." For information, write -Dr. - C. G. Winder, Dept of Geology, U. of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5117.

5. "The Creation of the Universe," an outstanding 90-minute documentary hosted by prize-winning science journalist Timothy Ferris on PBS a few years ago, is now available as a home video. It is listed (VHS: 1668557) for $19.95 plus $4 s&h by Bames & Noble, 126 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10011-5666. (Geoffrey Stiles, who produced this program, is now working on the ASA-sponsored TV series.-Ed.)

6. International Book Project (IBP) has sent 1.5 million free books to people in over 100 developing countries. Mentioned in this Newsletter in the past as an example of something ASA/CSCA might do in the future, IBP celebrates its 25th anniversary in May 199 1. It hopes to raise an additional $50,000 to improve its facilities and expand its program. Until we set up our own program for sending science books and journals to needy schools, ASA/CSCA members can contribute to International Book Project, Inc., 1440 Delaware Ave, Lexington, KY 405059979.

KENYA/ASA: 2.

Kenya was the site of a conference for East African rural physicians and dentists from Feb 25 to Mar 1, cosponsored by the Christian Medical & Dental Society (CMDS), Medical Assistance Programs International (MAP), and Butterworth Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan. CMDS members helped update their African colleagues through lectures and consultations.

To sponsor the Christian national doctors invited, CMDS requested contributions to the Burkitt Fund for International Continuing Medical & Dental Education (c/o CMDS, P.O. Box 830689, Richardson, TX 750830689). The fund honors Dr. Denis Burkitt, a distinguished Christian physician in England "who has done so much in the training of national physicians around the world."

The Burkitt Fund was set up by a CMDS Committee on International Medical Educational Affairs, which sponsored educational programs in Pakistan and Romania in Oct 1990 and has set up additional teaching opportunities in India and Nigeria for CMDS members in 1991. (These post-graduate educational programs are distinct from the CMDS overseas clinical programs called Medical Group Missions)

Dcnis Burkitt's name is also attached to a tumor he studied in the 1960s (Burkitt's lymphoma). Oat bran fans know of his epidemiological studies on intestinal cancers, which played a major role in recognition of the necessity for fiber in the human diet. Most ASAers will recognize Burkitt's name from his "Flexibility in Interpretation" (Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith, Dec 1989, pp. 232-5). In that communication he drew analogies between some of his clinical research experience and the need to sort out interpretation from evidence in our understanding of Scripture.

Denis Burkitt is an exemplar of a Christian researcher making a contribution to Kenya. Those of us not in clinical research can help in the scientific development of Kenya, too. ASA is trying to work out good ways to do that-in association with our Kenyan friend and colleague, Dr. George Kinoti.

WHEREVER GOD WANTS US: 17.

More on the Mideast: John W. Brabner-Smith, director of the Institute of Jurisprudence (1026 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, DC
20036) writes that a Dutch businessman whose firm has traded for three centuries with Russian traders told John last summer that
President Gorbachev's primary concem is the Soviet Muslim population.

Noting Bill Campbell's comment in the Dec/Jan issue that Muslims consider the Bible to be a book altered by Christians, John says that the Institute of Jurisprudence has undertaken to "translate" into more modem English Thomas Jefferson's copy of The Truth of the Christian Religion by Hugo Grotius (15831685). Grotius was a statesman in the Netherlands in the 1600s when Muslim armies were threatening Europe, reaching to the gates of Vienna. For expounding the principle that all nations should follow certain international rules of conduct, Grotius is today known as "the father of international law."

Hugo Grotius wrote The Truth primarily to educate Dutch sailors and traders about Islam. One of his objects was to refute the claim that
Wi the Bible had been changed. 11 tried to help Christians defend their faith and to help the more intelligent actually convert Muslims to Christianity. The book was a bestseller in its day, with over a hundred issues published in numerous languages.

Grotius's book can still be of value but publishing technology has changed radically since his day. Dozens of books on Saddarn Hussein were probably rushed into print this winter, destined to disappear about as rapidly as their subject. In contrast, a new edition of Arabs, Christians & Jews by James & Marti Heney should have a longer life. Although it tries to explain the mixed feelings of Arabs toward Saddam Hussein, the religious and political issues it deals with date back to the first century. The first edition was praised for its "balance" and "realism." The 1991 edition came off the press on Feb 15, just before Iraq was finally forced out of Kuwait. The trade paperback is available at $10.95 from the Hefleys' own Hannibal Books (921 Center, Suite A, Hannibal, MO 63401).

Another ASAer influencing opinions on the Middle East is Alonzo Fairbanks, an IVCF staffer working with international students in Minnesota. Al spent 11 years in Beirut on the faculty of several colleges. In December he spoke at a forum at the U. of Minnesota on "Is Blood Thicker than Oil?" The forum, sponsored by Bill Monsma's Maclaurin Institute, also featured a Muslim Arab-American woman who had been interviewed on National Public Radio. Some highlights from that dialogue:

The 5% of Arabs who are Christians feel forgotten by the West, and Muslims in general feel that the Christian West is once again interfering with their world-after the Crusades, the carving up of Arab territory in the 18th and 19th centuries by imperial European powers, and Western sponsorship of Israel after WWII. Although the panel expected resentment against Christianity to grow after the bombing of Iraq, individuals who have shown understanding of Arab concerns have found doors opening for discussion with Muslims about Christian faith.

SQUIBS

Two books by Gary North (Unconditional Surrender and The Sinai Strategy) evidently left behind by someone at the 1990 Annual Meeting were picked up by Art Peterson (3200 Gordon Drive, Greenville, NC 27834), who will gladly return them on request.

By mid-March, Phase III of the direct mail campaign to increase subscriptions to Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith had yielded 319 paid subscriptions plus 582 other inquiries. That seems like a low yield from 60,000 pieces mailed, but compare it with the yield from advertisements placed 'in magazines: our most productive ad, in Christianity Today, yielded 19 paid subscriptions and 5 other inquiries.

  According to Gary I. Allen, president of the Christian Mission for the United Nations Community, that ministry has changed its mailing address to P.O. Box 159, Monroe, CT 06468.

  The article, "Calls of Ivy," by physicist Jack McIntyre, with accompanying sidebar by psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (Christianity Today, 5 Nov 1990), drew a number of comments from CT readers in the 14 Jan 1991 issue Library science prof Donald Davis at the U. of Texas echoed Jack's criticism of the nonacademic emphasis in evangelical circles, adding that he sees even less encouragement of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences than in the physical sciences. Randy Bare of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship pointed to IVCF's new ministry among "groups of graduate students committed to the very principles affirmed in this article."

  With their I I Jan 1991 issue of Science, the 140,000 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science received a 20page booklet, Science: The End of the Frontier? The pessimistic report on research funding was compiled by AAAS president-elect Leon Lederman (Nobelist and physics professor at the U. of Chicago) to expose 44 signs of extreme stress" in American science. Lederman attributed that stress primarily to "the impoverishment of basic research."

 The Jan/Feb 1991 issue of Advocate (newsletter of Evangelicals for Social Action, 10 Lancaster Ave, Wynnewood, PA 19096) was devoted entirely to the pros and cons of a voucher system for education. ESA's staff had not reached consensus on the topic, but executive director Ron Sider (who spoke at the 1990 ASA Annual Meeting) concluded that, on balance, to expenment with a voucher system offering parents greater educational choice for their children is "worth the risk."

 The Jan 1991 issue of American Biology Teacher had a guest editorial, "A Biologist in Wonderland: The Texas Biology Textbook Adoption Hearings," by Joseph D. McInerney, NABT president and director of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in Colorado Springs. McInerney, who testified at the Nov 1990 hearings, called creationist testimony at the hearings "a monument to scientific illiteracy," reminding science educators that their perspective is "not as universal as we might wish." He found encouragement  in the 11-4 vote to approve eight books with pervasive treatment of evolution-and in "the very fact that the creationists found all of the books objectionable" for that reason.

  High school science teacher Ronnie Hastings, a physics Ph.D . in ASA's Friend category who served on the 1990 Texas Secondary Science Textbook Selection Committee, was also encouraged by that committee's performance. In "Good News from Texas About Biology Textbooks" (NCSE Reports, Nov/Dec 1990), Ronnie praised a strong Proclamation 66 explicitly requiring evolution as a major theme for biology texts; an improved method of selection, which he described; and "a commendable response by the publishers."
A lot of other ASAers turned up in the same Nov/Dec issue of NCSE Reports. Walter Bradley, Charles Thaxton, and Kurt Wise were listed among "well-known creationists" featured on the John Ankerberg TV show early in 1991, which the editor anticipated as "a breath of fresh air" compared to Ankerberg's 1987 series with Florida evangelist D. James Ken nedy. A writer cited science his: torian Owen Gingerich's evidence (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78, part 71 1988) that Tycho Brahe lifted his astronomical system from the wn*tings of Paul Wittich. A review compared G. L. Schroeder's Genesis and the Big Bang (Bantam, 1990)

-4-

to John Wiester's The Genesis Connection (Nelson, 1983). Gillette & Lockley's Dinosaur Tracks and Traces (Cambridge U. Press, 1989) was mentioned as including two papers by Glen Kuban on the Paluxy River tracks. A squib on the Nov 1990 Bible-Science Newsletter mentioned a young-earther's warning against Hugh Ross's The Fingerprint of God. Finally, a review of the nontechnical sessions of the 1990 International Conference on Creationism described two talks by Jerry Bergman and one by Mark Hartwig. Bob Schadewald's editorship of the National Center for Science Education's Reports ended with that issue. New (interim) editor is anthropologist John Cole, 1990 president of NCSE.

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) Graduate School in Santee (near San Diego) is in its 10th year of offering M.S. degrees in sciences related to origins and in science education. Its courses and research are based on the interpretation that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Despite several years of attempts to revoke its state license to offer degrees, the ICR graduate school seems to have won a reprieve of perhaps two to three years while legal maneuvering continues. A story in Science (15 Feb 1991) described the current standoff. The February Acts & Facts, ICR's monthly publication, warned that ICR's troubles are but "one tip of a massively dangerous iceburg," citing the imminent passage of a bill to establish a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. ICR is concerned that the Board would be able to "mold all curricula to promote the evolutionary, humanistic goals of the so-called ,new world order.' "

OBITUARIES

Charles H. Troutman, Jr., died on 18 Nov 1990 in Tucson, Arizona, at age 76. Born in Butler, Pennsylvania, he received a B.S. from Wheaton College in 1936, intending to go into medicine. Instead he accepted a one-year appointment with the fledgling Canadian InterVarsity. His visits to student groups in Michigan led to many years of service with IVCF-USA, culminating in his years as general director (1961-64). After serving with the Army Corps of Engineers in Australia in WWII, he spent eight years (1953-61) as general secretary of IVF-Australia. From 1966 to 1980, he and wife Lois served with Latin America Mission, working with students in Costa Rica. Lois died on 8 Dec 1990.
Linda Wanase1ja died on 13 Dec 1990 of a heart attack in her home in Whiting, New Jersey. Born in 1920, she served as a missionary in India from 1951 to 1966, and as an assistant professor of Bible at The King's College in Briarcliff Manor, New York, from 1967 until her retirement in 1986. Linda, who was trained in nutrition, faithfully served the Metropolitan New York ASA local section as a Council member over the years.

Aldert van der Ziel, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the U. of Minnesota, died in Minneapolis on 20 Jan 1991 at age 80 after a long, progressive illness. Born in Zandeweer in The Netherlands, he completed a thesis on spectroscopy at the U. of Gronigen at age 24, then joined the Natuurkundig laboratorium of N.V. Philips, where he developed a lifelong interest in electronics and "noise." Aldert and his family endured the Nazi occupation of Holland, emigrated to the U. of British Columbia, Canada, in 1947, then to Minnesota in 1950. He advised over 80 doctoral students and published hundreds of research papers, continuing his research activity after becoming Emeritus in 1980. Since 1968 he had also taught part-time at the U. of Florida in Gainesville. Aldert wrote some 15 textbooks and two books on science and religion: The Natural Sciences and the Christian Message (1960) and Genesis and Scientific Inquiry (1965). He received many honors, including two honorary doctorates and membership in the National Academy of Engineering. He had once participated actively in the North Central section of ASA and contributed to ASA's
Journal.

(Former colleague Carolyne Van VIiet of the U. of Montreal sent extensive information for a Memorial Resolution on Aldert van der Ziel to be read during worship at the 1991 Annual Meeting at Wheaton College. Friends and professional associates of other ASA members who have died in the past year are invited to submit such material to Karen Brunstrorn at the Ipswich office.)

THE EDITOR'S LAST WORDS: 14.

I intended to begin an ongoing seminar on "How to edit this Newsletter" but have run out of space. Maybe the first topic should be something like 'The elastic modulus of copy space," sort of a corollary to Murphy's Law. A simple way of putting it is that the amount of space available in the Newsletter is inversely proportional to the importance of the news items on hand. An abundance of space is usually correlated with loss of the most timely items in piles of press releases, advertisements, and what-have-you on the editor's desk (and the overflow on the floor). Then when the hot news items turn up, it's either too late or the next issue is already full.

I'll try to squeeze in a little follow-up on the Forrest Mims story from installment No. 13. Forrest didn't go to the AAAS meeting because the Council told him the statement of their Committee on Scientific Freedom & Responsibility would stand as AAAS policy. The Feb 18 issue of The Scientist, handed out at the meeting, however, carried a major "debate" in its Opinion section under the heading, "The Mims Case: Defending Science or Persecuting Religion?" Mims contributed an effective piece titled "Intolerance Threatens Every Scientist-Amateur or Not." U. of Minnesota ethicist Arthur L. Caplan opposed Mims in a piece titled "Creationist Belief Precludes Credibility on Science Issues."

Back in May-June 1987, when The Scientist published two reviews of ASA's Teaching Science booklet and my reply, the editor told me that  draw the largest response from their readers. It will be fun to see what kind of mail they get about the Forrest Mims debate-and if they publish the Letter to the Editor I faxed to them on Feb 24.

Another story on the dropping of Mims for his beliefs by Scientific American was scheduled to appear in the March issue of Harper's magazine.

LOCAL SECTIONS

METROPOLITAN NEW YORK
The Spring meeting will be held Saturday, April 6, in the Main Bldg (2nd floor) of The King's College in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Walter R. Thorson, professor of chemistry at the U. of Alberta in Edmonton will speak on the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. Thorson's 3 p.m. lecture is entitled "Biblical Teaching and an Epistemology of Personal Knowledge." After a brief business meeting and dinner in the college dining hall, Thorson will give a 7 p.m. lecture on "Tacit Presuppositions and Current Scientific Enterprise." (For more information, call Bob Voss at 908-6890910 or Jim Neidhardt at 201-584-0436.)

This year marks the centennial of Michael Polanyi's birth in Budapest, Hungary. He began his career as a physician but made a name for himself in physical chemistry, especially after joining the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin in 1921. In 1933, in protest to Hitler's policies, he moved to the U. of Manchester in England and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1944. A broadly ranging scholar, he accepted a chair in the social sciences in 1948. After retiring from Manchester in 1958, he continued his work in philosophy as a senior research fellow at Merton College, Oxford. Polanyi died in 1976, leaving a legacy of philosophical challenges to the concept of objectivity dominant in the sciences. All knowledge is personal knowledge, he insisted, including scientific knowledge, integrated within a living person with that person's tacit knowledge, which cannot be fully described or communicated.

Special attention is being paid to Polanyi's thought in 1991. For example, at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 19, Walter Thorson will lecture on "Michael Polanyi and the Presuppositions of Modem Science" at the Center of Theological Inquiry, 50 Stockton St (Rte 206), Princeton, NJ 08540. (For information, call Kate Le Van at 609-683-4797.) A major three-day symposium on Polanyi's life and work will be held April 11-13 at Kent State University in Ohio, with eight speakers, including theologian Thomas F. Torrance. (For information, contact Bursar's Office, Dept N, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, or call 216-672-3100.)

Four new members of the Metropolitan New York ASA Council were elected at the Fall 1990 meeting: Gregory Bezilla, Ralph Ellenberger, Jack Haynes, and Donald Walker. Continuing into the second year of their terms are Robert Hsu, Ernst Mouse, Jim Neidhardt, and Richard Rohmer. Officers for 1991 are Neidhardt, president; Ellenberger, vice-president; Bezilla, secretary; and Monse, treasurer.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN
Saturday, Feb 2, marked the section's fourth meeting, held on the Foothills Campus of Colorado Christian University in Morrison, Colorado. The morning was devoted to a keynote lecture by Hugh Ross, founder and director of Reasons to Believe, Pasadena, California, on "The Extradimensionality of the God of the Bible." Hugh, author of The Fingerprint of God, fielded questions from the audience after his lecture.

After lunch and a half-hour business meeting, the afternoon was devoted to contributed papers: "Teaching Values for Planetary Citizenship," by educational research professor Dean Turner of the U. of Northern Colorado, Greeley; "Science and Politics in the U.S. AIDS Epidemic," by clinical psychologist John Vayhinger of Colorado Springs; "Alexander Winchell and the '17heory of Pre-

Adarnism: A Case Study in Late Nineteenth Century Scientific Racism," by geologist and seminarian Phillip Harrold; "Effects of Greenhouse Sea Level Rise: Australian East Coast," by earth sciences prof. William Hoyt of U.N.C., Greeley; and "Natural Selection or Providence: The Bed Bug Case," by biology prof. Richard Beal of Colorado Christian U. at Denver.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
The Feb 9 potluck dinner meeting featured Jack Swearengen, back home from his two-year stint as Scientific Advisor for Arms Control in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, including a role in the START negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva. Jack's talk on "Arms Control and God's Purpose in History" gave 30-some ASA members and guests an inside look at the Pentagon, where 28,000 government employees put in 60hour weeks in a maze of 35 miles of corridors. Mostly the military "action officers" are high-quality people who work under unrelenting pressure.

START and I.N.F. (Intermediate Nuclear Force) were only two of the acronyms Jack had to get used to: while he was there, the whole issue of arms control was O.B.E.'d ("overcome by events"). Outlining four basic ideological approaches to peace (deterrence; arms control; pacifism; foreign policy of intemational justice), Jack pointed out that policy decisions are based on one view alone, with other views not welcomed by policy-makers. Although deterrence "worked" for 40 years, a huge arms race was part of the cost, producing "local wars" instead of real peace. As a Christian, Jack believes that arms control has a positive, more redemptive aspect than deterrence. But he's glad to be out of the Pentagon pressure-cooker.

PERSONALS

James G. Ashwin was one of a number of ASA/CSCA friends who sent notes to the Weary Old Editor on learning of his brother's death in the Feb/Mar issue. Jim recalled that the WOE spoke as a VCF evangelistic missioner some 30 years ago at the U. of Saskatchewan, where Jim taught physiology. Jim's role as faculty sponsor put him in the line of fire when a militantly atheistic professor complained to the dean of the medical faculty about one of the missioner's public lectures. It all seems mildly amusing now that Jim is retired, living in Ottawa with wife Myrtle, writing and getting published. "Healthwise at 64," he says, "I'm 35 years in a wheel chair [from polio while teaching in a medical school in India], very stiff, diabetic, congestive heart, edematous, partly deaf, requiring attendants morning and night. Otherwise, not bad." The samples of his writing aren't bad, either. His poem about the cry of the Innuit people against the "tillicum" sent us to a dictionary to fathom native terms like "oogruk" and "hohoq." The Kiplingesque poem was published in Hog's
Back News, a periodical named for a waterfall near the Ashwin home.

James 0. Buswell, III has completed his 10th year as dean of Win. Carey International University at the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena. In Aug 1990 Jim taught missionary anthropology at the 18th annual Summer Institute of World Mission at the East-West Center for Mission Research & Development near Seoul, Korea. In Dec 1990 he and Kathleen represented WCIU at the "Urbana '90" missionary conference. Jim has also served nearly 30 years on the board of Trans World Radio, which broadcasts the gospel worldwide via shortwave and medium wave (AM). Each year more than a half-million letters reach TWR and affiliated broadcasters, many from listeners among the two billion people in areas with no access to a church, a Bible, or a missionary. Listeners in such isolated situations do come to Christ through TWR broadcasts. (Jim reports that TWR headquarters moved in 1990 from New Jersey to P.O. Box 700, Cary, NC 27512.
-Ed.)

Edward B. Crowell, Jr., is teaching in the Hernatology/Oncology Section of the Dept. of Medicine at West Virginia University in Morgantown, after 14 years of teaching medicine at the Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, Punjab, in northern India. Wife Susan Brownlee Crowell writes that they are on extended leave with their mission, InterServe (formerly BMMF). After teaching biochemistry at CMC in Ludhiana, she is now working at home, setting up a new household for the Crowells, including 16-yearold Jonathan and 14-year-old Virginia, who are missing Woodstock School in India. Susan, inadvertently dropped from ASA membership several years ago, says "no one seemed to know how to keep both a missionary husband and wife on the rolls."

Thomas Cummings, professor of chemistry at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, since 1955, was given Bradley's Putnam Award for Excellence in Teaching at Founder's Day ceremonies in Oct 1990. Tom earned his Ph.D. at Case Inst. of Technology and has spent sabbatical leaves at such places as the U. of Birmingham, England, and the Analytical Institute at the U. of Vienna. He was cited for being a devoted teacher and person of integrity and conscience, who "has consistently upheld that the school's most important function is not only to impart information, but also, by indirect means, to project some moral values."

Edward B. ("Ted") Davis, associate professor of science & history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, is working on a new edition of the works of Robert Boyle, the 17th century chemist whose law of the behavior of gases bears his name, and whose will endowed the Boyle Lectures in defense of Christian faith. in January Ted spent two weeks in London completing a survey of Boyle's papers housed at the Royal Society. He enjoyed lunch dates with two British evangelicals with similar interests: Colin Russell (past president of the British Society for the History of Science; author of Cross-Currents) and John Houghton (head of the Meteorological Office; author of the newly published Does God Play Dice?). One day Anglican physicist John Polkinghome dropped in to the Royal Society library. Recognizing him from his picture, Ted introduced himself and was invited to a lecture that evening at a London church. An audience of some 250 people (including a few Fellows of the Royal Society) heard Polkinghorne speak of how his Christian faith helps him make sense of the world as a whole, emphasizing its orderliness, contingency, and wonder. While in London Ted heard that he has been named a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at the U. of Pennsylvania for 1991-92, enabling him to spend the academic year in residence at the Beckman Center for History of Chemistry and the Dept of History & Sociology of Science-a perfect setting to complete his book on Robert Boyle.

Elmer Hartgerink of South Haven, Michigan, is a chemist and entrepreneur whose Wyckoff Chemical Co. has grown from $113,000 in sales per year in 1978 to about $15 million in sales today. Wyckoff employs 70 people in the manufacture of important bulk pharmaceuticals. Elmer attributes the company's success to "the hard work of many people and the blessings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." The note on ASA's financial situation in the Feb/Mar issue prompted him to send a much-appreciated contribution to Ipswich, along with a Wyckoff brochure. On the cover were pictures of Elmer and his son, who is taking his place as head of the company. The cover also featured the structural formula of a Wyckoff product; Elmer offered ASA director Bob Herrmann a prize if he could name the compound. (We haven't heard whether Bob won the prize, but we've heard of several other members who have responded to help bail ASA out of its cash-flow crisis and put our 50th Anniversary Year on a firmer financial footing. -Ed.)

W. Jim Neidhardt is professor of physics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and chair of ASA's publications committee. He keeps his eye out for books of ASA/CSCA interest. A fan of Edinburgh theologian Thomas F. Torrance (Jim wrote the introduction to Torrance's The Christian Frame of Mind, Helmers & Howard, 1989), he recently spotted a chapter giving Torrance's answers to a series of questions posed by Michael Bauman in Bauman's Roundtable Conversations with European Theologians (Baker, 1990). Torrance's partial answer about misunderstandings of his thought by other theologians: "Too many theologians do not take the concepts of space and time properly or seriously as relational concepts. Nor do they appreciate pure science, which is our ally." One of Torrance's regrets: "That my scientific studies came so late in life." Jim Neidhardt himself had an article in the 1990 annual Glaube und Denken of the Karl-Heim GeselIschaft in Germany, "Ein Naturwissenschaftler betrachtet Harold P. Nebelsicks Beitrag zurn Dialog zwischen der Theologie und den Naturwissenschaften" (Vol. 3, pp. 20-47). Jim began his appreciation of Harold Nebelsick's work by describing ASA and the late theologian's interest in our Affiliation. In 1988 Nebelsick and Torrance organized four regional science/theology consultations under sponsorship of Princeton's Center of Tleological Inquiry (CTI) and the Templeton Foundation. A major international consultation at CTI scheduled for 1990 was postponed after Nebelsick's death in 1989.

Hugh Ross, president of Reasons to Believe (RTB), a California-based ministry of evangelism and scientific apologetics, reports that 1990 was a busy and productive year for RTB. Among other articles that increased RTB's visibility, World magazine (successor to Eternity) published Hugh's article on the Hubble telescope and Epiphany, a Greek Orthodox magazine, published his article on "Design and the Anthropic Principle." An interview of Hugh and South African astronomer David Block in the Jews for Jesus magazine Issues described RTB, David's Star Watchi . ng (Lion, 1988), and Hugh's The Fingerprint of God (Promise, 1989). (Both books are available from Reasons to Believe, P.O. Box 5978, Pasadena, CA 91117.) In a recent issue of RTB's quarterly newsletter Facts & Faith, Hugh described his fall 1990 trip to his native Canada to speak at two universities under auspices of Campus Crusade for Christ. He called the aggressive verbal assaults from several atheistic professors the worst he has received, even in Marxist countries. On the other hand, many students entered into continuing discussions of Christian faith, and several Christian professors took a public stand for Christ.

Lois H. Visscher left the OMFrun hospital in Manorom, Thailand, in April 1990 to work in a TBMF hospital in Bangkok through August.

After that, she didn't know what her address would be, but she sent a generous contribution to ASA's Templeton Foundation matching fund. This already-retired physician was quoted in PERSONALS over a year ago as saying that she might 44really retire" after a few more years in Thailand.

Roger C. Wiens began working as a Staff Scientist in the Geology & Planetary Science Dept at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena last summer, after completing a postdoc term at UC San Diego. This spring he was also planning to teach part-time at Azusa Pacific University. Roger & Gwen have been pleased to find a strong Christian presence at Caltech and a strong intellectual influence in the Christian community there.
Seung-Hun Yang is studying science and Christianity in the Dept of History of Science at the U. of Wisconsin in Madison. He expects to return to the Dept of Physics at Kyungpook National University in Korea in 1993.

PEOPLE LOOKING FOR POSITIONS. Chemistry: T. Gordon Scott (Dept of Chemistry, Union College, Barbourville, KY 40906; tel. 606546-4151-x281) seeks position at 4-yr college. Has Ph.D. in organic, minor in biochem (Illinois, 1969) plus B.A. & M.A. (Cambridge U., England); JACS publications; college teaching experience in general, organic, analytical, & physical, plus biochem; can direct undergrad research in organic & medicinal chemistry. History: Stephen C. Herrmann (66 Tirrell St, Apt 4, Quincy, MA 02171) seeks position teaching history or social studies and coaching track, at secondary school or junior college; has B.A. in political science, M.A. in history (Boston U.), 15 yrs teaching experience at Hingham High School and Quincy Jr. College; single, will relocate, prefers Alaska or other mountainous state; for un(?)biased reference, contact Steve's dad (Robert L.) at ASA office in Ipswich.

POSITIONS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE. Mathematics: Fall 1991, tenure-track position requiring master's in math, Ph.D. preferred. Resume to Dr. Donna Peterson, Academic Dean, Trinity College, 2077 Half Day Rd, Deerfield, IL 60015. Anthropology: 1-yr sabbatical replacement; cultural anthro with area specialty in Africa, Asia, or Oceania; college teaching experience and Ph.D. preferred. Vita and letter of interest to (ASA member) Dr. Dean Arnold, Dept of Sociology/Anthropology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. Biology/Ecology: teach intro botany or zoology, principles of ecology, plus several of the following: human ecology, population ecology, limnology, invertebrate zoology, microbiology, mammalian physiology; preference to Canadian residents; females encouraged to apply. Contact Dr. S. K. Ward, Academic Vice-President, The King's College, 10766 - 97 St., Edmonton, AB, Canada T5H 2M1. Tel. 403-428-0727. (Sounds like a replacement for ASA member John Wood, from whom you might get the scoop at the college address.-Ed.)