of the
American Scientific Affiliation & Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation
[Editor: Dr. Walter R. Hearn / Production: Patricia Ames]
ON TO SEATTLE
Make your plans for the 1993
ANNUAL MEETING on "CARING FOR CREATION" at SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY this
summer. Abstracts are due by April
15. Keep in mind the Committee
for Integrity in Science Education's
modest effort to encourage empirical
research. Reports of hands-on, "data
driven" investigations intended to 1)Care for the Earth, 2) Care for People, or 3) Care for Science are eligible for a $100 prize in each category.
Contest rules" in Oct/Nov
1992 ASA Newsletter, p. 2.)
A call to Ipswich in February informed us that the post-meeting tour
to Alaska already had 21 persons
signed up (including five going on
to Denali National Park and Mt.
McKinley), with room for more to
sign up.
AUGUST 7-8-9 (Sat-Mon) will
contain the "regular sessions" of plenary lectures, papers, worship, business meeting, and a bodacious
Sunday evening salmon-bake in a native Tillicum longhouse on Blake Island in Puget Sound.
Instead of a choice of short
field trips during the meeting, we'll
have two all-day nature outings,
one at the beginning, the other at
the end. AUGUST 6 (Fri) will be
devoted to a bus trip to Olympic
National Park, and AUGUST 10
(Tues) to a bus trip to Mt. Ranier
National Park. (Bring walking
shoes, sweater, and rain gear to explore two of the most scenic parks
in America.)
You can arrive and register on either Thursday OR Friday afternoon,
including neither, either, or both field
trips in your registration (costs of
the trips, including bus fare and
meals, are extra). Come for the
three "meeting" days, the full five
days, or the four that suit you best.
One more innovation is that this
year you may sign up for academic
credit for the Conference. Karl
Krenke has arranged for a one-credit
course under the auspices of Seattle
Pacific University. Requirements are
attendance for a total of 10 clock
hours at sessions on Saturday and
Monday, including Cal DeWitt's lectures, and a report of sessions attended and a detailed summary and
critique of one session. Cost is $20.
BEYOND SEATTLE
A
SA Annual Meetings are primarily
times for ASA members to
educate ourselves. In the environmental theme of this year's ANNUAL
MEETING in SEATTLE, AUGUST
6-10, science, technology, economics, politics, and religion come
together. From his seasoned Christian perspective, keynote speaker
Calvin DeWitt of the U. of Wisconsin and the AuSable Institute will
have a lot to say about how that
should happen.
Continuing environmental debates
will require spiritual discernment to
sort out the calls for action and the
claims of various groups. Since all
those who cry "Lord, Lord," may
not be genuine (Matt 7:21-23), it's
likely that some who bark "Ecology, Ecology," may be up the
wrong tree.
How about those who say, "Ecology, Lord"? They cover a pretty
broad range. The Christian Life
Commission of the Southern Baptist
convention has just published
The
Earth Is The Lord's,
edited by Richard D. Land and Louis A. Moore.
At the other extreme, perhaps, the
all-inclusive NACRE (North American Coalition on Religion & Ecology, 5 Thomas Circle, NW, Washington, DC 20005) announced in its
Fall/Winter 1992
EcoLetter an
ambitious action campaign called "Caring for Creation."
The NACRE campaign is not to
be confused with ASA's ANNUAL
MEETING theme of the same name.
Nor should NACRE be confused
with the biblically oriented NACCE
(North American Conference on
Christianity & Ecology, P.O. Box
14305, San Francisco, CA 94114),
publisher of
Firptainent,
a magazine
frequently referred to in this Newsletter. (See what we mean?-Ed.)
BEYOND HAWAII
What we learn at the Seattle ANNUAL MEETING will probably stay with us. We say that
because we're still working on ideas
presented at the 1992 Annual Meet
ing. Being in Hawaii last year added
a kind of "far-out" intensity, but
every
Annual Meeting "puts things
together" in a way that touches the
heart and sticks in the mind.
The main thing ASA Meetings do, of course, is to put people togethcr. People with good ideas. People who get things done. People
with warm hearts, varied experience,
openness to the Lord's leading. People who love Jesus Christ, love
science, and try to serve God with
competence. Friendly folks: ASA
members, friends, and families.
Some who met in Hawaii are pictured in this issue. We have memories of a lot more, who came from
all over the USA and elsewhere. Paul Chien and Chi-Hang Lee of
California flew "directly" from a
conference of Chinese Christians in
Brazil, via stops at seven different
airports. Others were flying on to
the AIBS meeting on Oahu or to a
Pascal Centre conference in Ontario:
philosopher Elaine Botha stopped
off at ASA "on her way" from Potchefstroom, South Africa, to Canada.
The Affiliation of Christian Geologists and Affiliation of Christian Biologists both met, with plenty of
geology and biology to go around.
Red-hot lava made itself scarce, but
chemist Charles Flynn of Nevada
stayed on to observe a small flow
from a helicopter and chemist Ken
Carter of Missouri hiked up the
mountainside to eyeball that flow at
close range. Many went snorkeling
for the first time, some in a half-mile swim to a coral reef in Kealakekua Bay led by intrepid Ken
Dormer of Oklahoma. At alternative energy projects at Keahole
Point, veteran battery researcher Meryl Bilhorn of Colorado had advice to offer on efficient storage of
electricity generated by wind or oceanic thermal differentials.
Distance and cost may have kept
some away, but even a few grad
students made it: M.I.T. engineering
student Diane DiMassa and her
brother Louis from Pennsylvania got
together at ASA for a Hawaiian vacation. Whether ASAers came primarily for adventure, education,
stimulation, fellowship, or worshipall got a taste of what it means to
be part of ASA and to take part
in ASA. SEATTLE, here we come.
THIS TIME, THE TIMES
The times are a-changin': existence of the American Scientific
Affiliation is no longer a secret.
Close on the heels of one mention
of ASA in Time magazine (28 Dec
1992) came another one, this time
in the New York Titnes Sunday
Book Review section (10 Jan
1993). The Affiliation was named
in a review of Ronald Numbers's
historical study, The Creationists
(Knopf, 1992).
In a review titled "In the Beginning Was What?" (p. 24),'
Liverpool (England) philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark said that the
evolution controversy got political
over here "precisely because the
United States is essentially 'one nation under God,' constitutionally
committed to democracy and historically committed to Protestant piety."
He seemed open to the reasoning
processes of all kinds of
creationists treated by Numbers,
even those who bought into George
MaCready Price's "flood geology."
The argument and counter-argument among creationists has been "at least as vigorous as that between gradualist and catastrophist
Darwinians." Clark quoted Numbers's mention of "honest fundamentalists" who gradually "lost their
faith, at least in flood geology":
To J. Laurence Kulp of the
evangelical American Scientific
Affiliation, for example, the fossil
record presented the Christian with
only two choices ... either the
Creator had deceptively given the
appearance of great age, or the
history of life on earth had really
spanned vast amounts of time.
Although Numbers did not go
into the reasons "honorable people
have had to distrust evolutionary theory," the reviewer pointed out that
evolution has been seen by many
"not simply as a scientific theory
but as a worldview, with its own
morals and metaphysics." People
have been right to suspect that evolutionism is more than a hypothesis: "It had become a creed, and
not one easily similar to ancient ideas of truth or justice."
Clark suggested (as does ASA's
Teaching Science in a Clitnate of
Controversy) that a less moralistic
theory of evolution can avoid such
problems.
Not having located ASA geographically, Stephen Clark doesn't rate an ASA Geographic Award. Nor
does Ron Numbers, for that matter
(unless Ipswich lies buried somewhere in his book's extensive endnotes, which do cite the Wheaton
College Library Collection as the location of ASA historical papersEd.). But for serious consideration
of contrary ideas, both reviewer and
reviewee deserve commendation.
Clark's is the third review of
The Creationists to mention ASA.
The first (Science, 17 Dec 1992)
was cited in "ASA in Print" (p. 4)
in the Dec 92/Jan 93 Newsletter.
The second appeared in Nature (17
Dec 1992), by historian George
Marsden, now of Notre Dame.
Here's what Marsden
said about us:
The American Scientific Affiliation,
founded in 1941 as an organization
of Bible-believing scientists,
originally included proponents of a
young Earth as well as advocates
of an old Earth. During the next
two decades, this sizeable
organization became a forum for
accommodations of biological
evolution and biblical belief. The
small minority of young-Earth
proponents felt excluded and
resolved to establish an alternative
for fundamentalists that would be
equally viable scientifically. Later Marsden pointed to a lesson from Numbers's history, that
some scientists have been as guilty
as biblical literalists of posing stark
alternatives:
"Evolution has often been used to
ridicule any traditional faith. Some
secularists have been all too ready
to accept flood geologists' claims
to speak for all "creationists" and
then to dismiss even more nuanced
arguments that belief in a creator
might be a useful hypothesis for
understanding the Universe."
ASA NEWSMAKER
Many
ASA/CSCA
members do newsworthy things. Some actually "make news," which we pass on whenever we hear about it. But
few ever "become news" the way
Francis Collins
has of late. When we last did a story on him (Dec 90/Jan 91, p. 3),
the
U. of Michigan gene-mapper had gained fame
for co-discovering the
cystic fibrosis
(CF) gene, a ground-breaking piece of research which might yet win
him a Nobel Prize, especially if it
leads to an effective gene therapy.
Such therapy is now entering the
clinical trial stage.
To celebrate the second anniversary of the Human Genome Project,
Science (2 Oct 1992) published a
special "genome issue" complete
with a wall chart of the human X
chromosome. Several ASAers called
our attention to the lead story
under "Research News," reporting
the physical mapping of chromosomes Y and 2 1. In that story
("Two Chromosomes Down, 22 to
Go," by staff writer Leslie Roberts), Collins was quoted as calling
the completion of those maps a
milestone, moving the project along
toward its ambitious five-year goal.
At that time, Collins was "rumored
to be the leading candidate to replace James Watson as head of the
NIH genorne effort."
Between the presidential election
and inauguration, it wasn't clear
that National Institutes of Health director Bernadine Healy would stay
at the helm. In the I Jan 1993
issue of Science, a "News & Comment" story by Bethesda (MD) science writer Larry Thompson
announced that "Healy and Collins
Strike a Deal." After "months of
rumor, speculation, and frequent campus sightings," geneticist Francis S.
Collins had agreed to take over the
directorship of the National Center
for Human Genome Research at
NIH, a post from which Watson
had resigned last April. Healy
called their verbal agreement a "big
Christmas present" for the Bethesda
campus. Collins cautioned that he
had yet to receive a written offer,
and that his formal acceptance depended on assurances that the new
Administration was fully behind the
genome project.
Francis wants Congress to set up
a new Institute for Human Genetics
at NIH. Before that can happen, he
was planning to keep his own program going by gradually moving
his Michigan laboratory to NIH.
Next fall he hopes to begin hiring
some 180 full-time staffers, including 20 principal investigators. Although he doesn't want to be stuck
in a purely administrative slot (and
will earn less than he was paid by
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute), the 42-year-old researcher said
he was excited to help shape a scientific development that "will only
happen once, and this is that moment of history."
The 15 Jan 1993 Science ran
two related "News & Comment" stories about NIH. In "Gene Therapists Jump Ship," Larry Thompson
described the departure of two leading NIH gene,-therapy researchers to
academic posts, part of a "brain
drain" that began with W. French
Anderson's departure for USC last
summer. That story pointed to the
hiring of Francis Collins as the
first recruitment of a senior scientist to NIH in years. The other story Genorne Project Goes Commercial," by staff writer Christopher
Anderson) described a rush of venture capital into the genome project,
with dozens of leading scientists
"cutting deals" and new companies
starting up. Francis Collins was reported to be concerned about ethical questions of conflict of interest
that might sully the whole enterpriSe.
Those who know Francis, and reporters who interview him in depth,
are impressed by the fact that his
research is driven as much by compassion as by scientific curiosity.
They also discover that he is very
concerned about ethical issues
forced on us by new knowledge of
the human genorne. In a profile 'On the Track of the Stuff of
Life') in the Jan/Feb 1993 issue of
Michigan Alumnus
magazine, writer
Tom Rogers presented a wellrounded picture of Francis that included his articulate Christian faith
and desire for integration of all aspects of his life. (Thanks to Don
DeGraaf of Flint, Michigan, for
sending us that one.-Ed.)
That profile cited the diseases
Collins hopes to get a handle on
next, including familial breast cancer. A gene for just such susceptibility has been located by U.C.
Berkeley geneticist Mary-Claire King
on chromosome 17. Following his
discovery of the CF gene, Collins
had discovered a gene for neurofibromatosis (NF) on chromosome
17, so he "knows the territory"
now associated with about 60 percent of familial breast cancers. The
story of his collaboration with King
and with Michigan coworker Barbara Weber-and of genetic counseling dilemmas already encountered
in women with a family history of
breast cancer-was told in a special report ("Breast Cancer Research") in the 29 Jan 1993 issue
of Science.
BULLETIN BOARD
- A major symposium on "knowing
God, Christ, and Nature in the
Post-Positivistic Ea' will be held
at the U. of Notre Dame in
Indiana, 14-17 April 1993. Nearly
forty scientists, philosophers, and
theologians who have written on
science/faith issues in North
America and Great Britain have
been invited to participate. The list
includes Owen Gingerich of
Harvard, ASA executive director Bob Herrmann, and John Suppe of Princeton (with Owen and Bob
both identified as representatives of
the American Scientific Affiliation).
For registration information, call the
symposium office at Notre Dame,
219-239-6691.
- A summer course on
"Contemporary Science & Christian
Theology" will be offered at the
Center for Theology & the Natural
Sciences in Berkeley, California,
14-25 June 1993. The course,
designed for "laity in late career or
in retirement," will be taught by
CTNS director Robert J. Russell,
using Ian Barbour's two-volume
Gifford lectures as principal texts.
The course will include visits to
nearby scientific laboratories. For a
brochure, write to W. Mark
Richardson, CTNS, 2400 Ridge Rd,
Berkeley, CA 94709; tel
510-848-8152; Fax, 510-848-2535.
- The ecumenical Roundtable on
Science, Technology, and the
Church is planning a national
conference on science and
technology to be held 26-30 July
1993 at Concordia College,
Moorhead, Minnesota. Confirmed
speakers include John Polkinghorne
and Ian Barbour. For information,
write: Verlyn L. Barker, Division
of Education & Publication, Board
for Homeland Ministries, United
Church of Christ, 700 Prospect
Ave, Cleveland, OH 44115-1100.
The Roundtable is composed of
national denominational working
groups on issues of science and
technology. Participating groups are
from The Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, Evangelical
Church in Canada, Anglican Church
in Canada, The Episcopal Church,
Presbyterian Church USA, United
Church of Christ, and United
Methodist Church. In addition to
preparing educational material for
their own churches, some groups
have sponsored seminars or sessions
at scientific meetings, such as the
"religion track" at the Feb 1993
AAAS meeting in Boston.
- The 1992-93 catalog of research
reports, books, and tapes from the
Interdisciplinary Biblical Research
Institute is available on request
from IBRI, P.O. Box 423, Hatfield,
PA 19440-0423.
- in the Feb/Mar 1992 Newsletter
we reported that Oskar Gruenwald of California had received a John
Templeton Foundation award for a
paper on Humility Theology. At the
time we didn't have complete
information on the dozen cash
awards given. Two other ASA
members were among the winners:
mathematician Bruce Hedman of
the U. of Connecticut and
psychologist David Myers of Hope
College in Michigan. For
information on future awards, write
to: Mrs. Frances Schapperle, John
Templeton Foundation, P.O. Box
1040, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-0918.
SQUIBS
- Editorial CLIE in Barcelona
publishes En El Principio, Spanish
version of ASA's Teaching Science
in a Climate of Controversy. Since
locating CLIE's U.S. representative,
The Spanish Evangelical Literature
Fellowship (TSELF, P.O. Box 8337,
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33310), this
Newsletter has been receiving mail
from TSELF addressed to Apreciado
Librero Cristiano C'Dear Christian
Bookseller"). Practicing his Spanish
on a bulletin of new titles from
CLIE, the editor found one by an
ASA member: La Depresion y su
Tratamiento, by psychologist Pablo Polischuk of South Hamilton,
Massachusetts. (Una obra prdctica
as advertised, no doubt, but en un
lenguaje comprensible para todo
lector? Not for this Weary Old
Lector. - Ed.)
- In CMDS Journal (Summer;. Fall
1992) the Christian Medical &
Dental Society presented a two-part
series on "Facts for Faith: Clinical
Religious Research" by Susan S.
Larson and David B. Larson. David
Larson is a public-health-orented
M.D. (married to Susan, a science
writer) who has worked for NIH
and is now senior research
consultant at the private, nonprofit
National Institute for Healthcare
Research. His analyses of published
research data on the health effects
of religion have begun to change
negative perceptions. Through a
grant from the John Templeton
Foundation, CMDS has published
The Forgotten Factor in Physical
and Mental Health: What Does the
Research Show? by the Larsons
and an annotated Bibliography of
Research by Scientists on Spiritual
Subjects by Dale Matthews and
David Larson ($15 each plus $1.50
s&h, prepaid only, from CMDS,
1616 Gateway Blvd, Richardson,
TX 75080).
- In a Christianity Today interview
("Holy Health," 23 Nov 1992),
David Larson (see item above) told
Eastern College professor
Christopher Hall that "Evangelicals'
emphasis on faith and practice
clearly promotes well-being. The
importance of a healthy devotional
life, giving to the poor, and the
serving or volunteering ministry of
all believers appears to be highly
beneficial." Adolescents show
benefits from taking seriously the
spiritual reasons given by
evangelical churches to steer away
from drugs, alcohol, and sexual
promiscuity. Dysjunction between
belief and practice, however, can
have negative effects. Accompanying
the Larson interview was an article
by David Myers on "Who's
Happy? Who's Not," based on
Dave's book, The Pursuit of
Happiness: Who is Happy-and
Why (William Morrow). According
to the Hope College psychologist,
research shows positive links
between active religious commitment
and mental health. Why? Maybe
because the Christian life provides
many things needed for happiness:
social support, something worth
living and dying for, unconditional
acceptance, opportunity to work for
something bigger than ourselves,
and a hope-generating eternal
perspective.
- The Slavic Gospel Association
(SGA) is establishing regional
ministry centers in 13 cities in the
Commonwealth of Independent
States to help Christians in the
former Soviet Union reach out to
their neighbors. The SGA centers
will support local churches with
evangelistic literature, radio
broadcasts, theological training, and
humanitarian aid. For example,
some 500,000 pieces of Christian
literature supplied by SGA were
distributed in Siberian villages last
summer by CIS evangelists traveling
on riverboats on five rivers and
Lake Baikal. Established in 1934
by Peter Dyneka, a Russian
immigrant to the U.S., the Slavic
Gospel Association is changing its
U.S. periodicals to reflect recent
changes in its operations. The SGA
newsletter BreakThrough has been
replaced by the bimonthly InSight,
and Newswire by the bimonthly
Reflections mailed on alternate
months, both now accompanied by
a monthly prayer guide. These
publications are available on request
from SGA (P.O. Box 1122,
Wheaton, IL 60189), which
welcomes financial support for its
ministries in the CIS.
WHEREVER GOD
WANTS US: 27.
This column spotlights ASA/CSCA
members who use their skills in
Christ's name overseas (e.g., No.
24), or who exert an influence for
Christ overseas without leaving
home (e.g., No. 26). Anthropologist Miriam Adeney of Seattle Pacific
University may soon be doing both
-as director of the Bookwriting
Program of Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.
The Regent Bookwriting Program
helps mature thinkers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America begin writing "significant, biblically-rich, and
culturally-contextualized books for
their people." For centuries most
Christian books available to believers in many countries have been
translations of American or European works; even when skillfully
translated, most are set in a "foreign" cultural context. In the Regent program, each book is written
in the language of the intended audience by a believer who knows that
culture from the inside.
In 1992, books in the program
were underway in Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, and English. Applicants for 1993 included the national
training director for IVCF in Brazil,
working on a series of small Portuguese handbooks of theology ("What
is Faith?" etc.); a Syrian writing in
Arabic on 'The Old Testament for
the Arab"; and a Ghanaian writing
in English on "African Women in
Christian Leadership." A Colombian
employee of an international agricultural organization was unable to
come after being denied a visa to
Canada; she had discovered Miriam
Adeney's
How to Write,
translated
it into Spanish, and gotten it published locally in Colombia.
In the first two years of the program, seven writers have participated each year (6 Africans, 5 Asians,
3 Latin Americans). The program begins with a 3-credit course every
spring semester, followed by two years of free consultancy. The overall course covers such topics as biblical world view, audience analysis
specific to the writer's country, market & publishing analysis, literature
of the country, and practical writing
advice. To help Miriam with work
written in languages other than English, each writer finds at least one
critical reader in the Vancouver
area to read and critique his or her
work periodically.
The close Christian fellowship
with other writers at Regent provides an ingredient many of the students lacked, working alone in their
home countries. They leave Regent
with at least 50 pages of critiqued
manuscript, an outline, a description
of the audience they are writing
for, research data and plans, and a
probable publisher. Beyond that, Miriam says, they have the experience
of disciplined writing, a consultant
and encourager for the next two
years, and a lifetime support network of Christian thinkers from
around the globe.
Each year the David C. Cook
Foundation provides a student scholarship to bring to the program a
"World Writer," a published author
willing to spend a sabbatical working on a new book and sharing
the trials and joys of less experienced students. (The David C.
Cook Foundation, 850 N. Grove
Ave, Elgin, IL 60120, publishes
Interlit,
an excellent quarterly trade
journal designed to "develop and upgrade Christian publishing throughout the world." This Newsletter's
Weary Old Editor has learned a lot
from reading
Interlit.-WOE.)
Miriam hopes to travel at six-month intervals to some location
overseas where two or three serious
writers have work in progress but
need editorial help, one of them
probably a Regent alumnus/a. Meanwhile, she is putting together a network of consultants with professional
editorial experience ("and a global
heart") to be matched one-on-one
with writers completing the semester
course.
Speaking of meanwhile, Miriam
invites (tax-deductible) contributions
to help provide airfare, housing,
health insurance, etc., for students
from the Two-thirds World, made
out to: Regent College Bookwriting
Scholarship Fund, 5800 University
Blvd, Vancouver, BC, V6T 2E4 Canada (Attention: Craig Tanksley).
And speaking of books, we
should have mentioned that the
Jul/Aug 1992 issue of
Mission Frontiers,
bulletin of the U.S. Center
for World Mission (1605 Elizabeth
St., Pasadena, CA 91104) contained
a complete catalog of materials for
sale from the William Carey Library. Books of interest to readers of
this column include J. Christy Wilson's
Today's Tentmakers: Se#' Support, an Alternative Model for
Worldwide Witness
(Tyndale, 1979);
Donald Hamilton's
Tentmakers
Speak: Practical Advice from over
400 Missionary Tentmakers
(TMQ
Research, 1987); and Steve Hawthorne's
Stepping Out: A Guide to
Short-Term Missions
(YWAM,
1992).
Finally, from a note on his
Christmas card, we learned that
Henry Weaver, Jr., who ran overseas student programs for Goshen
College and then for the U. of California before he retired, has a 1992
book out from Interculture Press:
Students Abroad- Strangers at
Home.
Hank is working on a program for retired professors to teach
in Third World universities as volunteers. Interested? Contact Hank at
4986 Old Oak Place, Santa Barbara, CA 93111.
WITH THE LORD
George W. Evans of Monona,
Wisconsin, adjacent to Madison,
died on 18 Nov 1992 at the age
of 66. Born in Chicago, he grew
up in Madison, and during WWII
served as a radarman on a Navy
mine sweeper in the Pacific. After
the war he earned a B.A. in philosophy at the U. of Wisconsin and
started working for the Oscar Mayer
meat-packing company, where he
was a research technician until
1973. For the next seven years he
worked on the Biotrin Project and
for the Dept of Agricultural Engineering and Bacteriology at U.W.
From 1980 to his retirement, George
worked for the Internal Revenue Service. He was a long-time member
of ASA and active in the Bethany
Evangelical Free Church of Madison. He is survived by his wife,
Virginia, three sons, two daughters,
a number of grandchildren, and a
brother. (Along with our prayers for
"Jinny" Evans go our thanks for
sending an obituary notice from the
Madison newspaper.
-Ed.)
George Evans will be included
in a memorial resolution to be read
at the 1993 Annual Meeting.
THE EDITOR'S LAST
WORDS: 26
In what seemed like virtual reality, a human figure stood before
the computer, pointing to the strange
words that had appeared on the
screen. Out of fear, or respect, our
four felines backed away from him.
He spoke a language I took to be
ASCII, but could have been Aramaic. "WOE is you?" he asked (or perhaps prophesied). "Right," I replied, as Weary Old Editor.
Solemnly he addressed me, as
what sounded like "Never-could-scissor." I had been weighed, he intoned, and found "light on levity,short
on brevity, long on jevity." But, he
added, "Not to worry," for Mene
would be Tekeled to take over as
Newsletter editor, and a certain
Parsin was almost ready to do so.
Suddenly I realized who it was.
"Daniel!" I cried out, "Daniel! The
only reply came from Our Wedded
Editor, who was shaking me. "Wake
up," she said. "You're swearing in
your sleep."
LOCAL SECTIONS
SAN FRANCISCO BAY
The 19 Feb meeting at Stanford
University held jointly with Stanford's Graduate Christian Fellowship
featured a lecture by Larry Lagerstrom on "Religion and the Rise
of Modem Science." Larry recently
received his Ph.D. in the history of
science and technology at U.C. Berkeley, after chairing the section during his graduate studies. His lecture
brought a historian's balanced perspective to the question of the roles
played by Christians and by the
church in the 17th-century scientific
revolution.
PERSONALS
William L. Bell has moved from
Dallas to Winston Salem, North Carolina, where he has become assistant professor of neurology at the
Bowman Gray School of Medicine
at Wake Forest University. He is
also director of the EEG laboratory
and of the epilepsy surgery program at the North Carolina Baptist
Hospital.
David Fisher of Wheaton, Illinois, has felt the impact of changes
in Eastern Europe in a more personal way than most of us have.
For the past 14 years the Slavic
Gospel Association has produced a
program written by Dave for broadcast in the Russian language. From
ASA speakers and writers, Dave
has picked up a lot of ideas for
that program, originally called the
Radio Academy of Science
(RADAS), more recently "Quests and
Discoveries." But in 1993, with most
of its operation moving to centers in
the former Soviet Union, SGA has
dropped the program. When we
heard from Dave he was continuing
to write scripts as a free-lancer, hoping to find a new outlet for such a
series. Dave's fine profile of "Computer Chemist" Henry F. Schaefer,
1H, appeared recently in a Moody
Press hardback collection of Christian
biography called More Than Conquerors. In a brief chronology of
"Fritz" Schaefer's life, Dave cited
1988 as the year Fritz was elected a
Fellow of both the American Institute of Chemists and the American
Scientific Affiliation. (Hey, why
doesn't ASA get Dave to write
SEARCH-or whatever replaces it?
- Ed.)
Susan E. Halbert has moved
from Parma, Idaho, to Aberdeen,
where she works for the Aberdeen
R&E Center of the U. of Idaho. In
her post as aphid survey coordinator for the Pacific Northwest, she
does a lot of' public service work.
She manages a network of aphid
traps and reports weekly to wheat
growers about potential pest problems. The traps collect some'300
species, of which about a dozen are
pests. When a Russian wheat aphid
showed up as a new pest, Susan
made trips in 1989 and 1991 to the
(former) USSR to collect natural enemies of that aphid, which she is
now responsible for distributing.
Charles E. Hummel of Grafton,
Massachusetts, former director of
IVCF faculty ministries and former
ASA president, had the lead editorial in the 11 Jan 1993 issue of
Christianity Today. Author of The
Galileo Connection (IVP, 1986),
Hummel wrote the CT piece ("Making Friends with Galileo') to comment on Pope John Paul's 1992
proclamation that the Roman Catholic Church erred in condemning the
astronomer in 1633. Charlie ended
his comments with these sentences.
"As Christians we must resist the
temptation to make the Bible do science. Then we can seek its guidance on how to use science and
technology for the glory of God
and the good of his creation."
James H. Kraakevik was honored by Wheaton College in Illinois
as its 1992 Alumnus of the Year.
Jim is director of the Billy Graham
Center on the Wheaton campus but
his total service to the college adds
up to more than 25 years, despite
several stints as a missionary or missions executive. After graduating
from Wheaton in 1948, he worked
at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., and earned his Ph.D.
in physics at the U. of Maryland.
Hosting Bible studies for international students helped Jim and wife
Lynn decide to go overseas. In preparation, Jim taught physics at Wheaton from 1958 to 1964, when the
Kraakeviks went with Sudan Interior
Mission to Nigeria. Jim became principal and president of Titcombe College, a post that enabled him to
help rebuild Nigeria's educational infrastructure after the country's civil
war. After returning to the States
for health reasons, the Kraakeviks
again sealed at Wheaton, nurturing
the spirit of missions as Jim taught
physics and astronomy. They spent
three years in New Jersey, again
working for SIM, before returning
to Wheaton in 1984.
Wilbert C. Lepkowski of Reston, Virginia, serves as a senior correspondent of Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical
Society weekly. For the 18 Jan
1993 issue he teamed up with
other C&EN correspondents and editors to report on new science-technology policies expected from the
Clinton-Gore administration. By then
Wil's major story in the 7 Dec
1992 issue, on the need for new directions in science-technology policy,
was drawing letters from readers.
One executive charged that Wil had
relied too heavily on Washington
policy-makers as sources instead of
industrial scientists "beyond the beltway" (4 Jan). A long letter from
Prof. Rusturn Roy of Penn State,
agreeing that the scientific community has shown an "arrogant, slow,
and inept response to legitimate concerns" of the public, added Roy's
own criticisms of leaders of NAS
and AAAS (11 Jan). Another reader
weighed in about the importance of
energy economics for the U.S. in a
competitive world. Roy's letter drew
many critical responses.
Donald M. Logan has moved
from Huntsville, Texas, to Amarillo,
where he is still serving as a psychologist for the Texas Department
of Corrections. This time he is employed by an independent agency
furnishing professional personnel to
TDC. At times Don finds his work
with "aggressively mentally ill" inmates somewhat frustrating: with
such inmates, "things are pretty direct, not reaching a very high level
of symbolism or abstraction." Publications on the release of beta-endorphins in childhood trauma (making
a child addictive to the point of
showing withdrawal symptoms) have
helped Don understand how some
patients could get a "high" from viciously smashing in someone's face.
Don has attended a workshop on
childhood trauma by Bessen van
der Kolk (author of Psychological
Traunia), and other workshops on
Multiple Personality Disorders, from
which many of his patients suffer.
The Amarillo prison has 450
"cases" to study while Vying to
care for them as individuals isolated from "the free worldk"
Daniel J. Scheeres is now working at the Jet Propulsion Lab in
Pasadena, California. He recently
earned his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at the U. of Michigan, after
receiving a bachelor's degree in engmeering from Calvin College. As a
member of JPL's Navigation Systems
section, Dan analyzes navigation
needs for certain U.S. civilian spacecraft missions.
Dorothy Woodside's mother,
Ruth Wells of Pomona, California,
has updated us on her daughter's adventures as a nurse at Chitokolold
Hospital in Zambia. This spring Dorothy was studying the Luvale language at another station. Dorothy
didn't make it to the 1992 ASA
Annual Meeting but she did get to
the States and attended a seminar
on leprosy at Carville, Louisiana.
Since returning to Zambia in Oct
1992 she has worked in the mission
I
s leprosarium and tuberculosis
colony, besides regular shifts at the
hospital and children's clinic. A statistic from her mother in her first
year Dorothy delivered nearly 70 babies-of whom seven were named
Dorothy by their parents.
PEOPLE LOOKING FOR POSITIONS. Biology: ASA member Jeffrey L. Regier (Dept of Biochemistry, 522 Biochem Bldg, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1319) seeks teaching position at a liberal arts college, beginning Fall 1993 (Ph.D. anticipated in Summer); interested in teaching cell/molecular biology, microbiology, and classicaJ & molecular genetics.
POSITIONS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE. Blochemiatry: Fall 1993, 1-yr sabbatical replacement, teaching biochem and biophysical chem, plus probable participation in non-major chem courses; women & minority candidates encouraged to apply. Send letter of interest and vita to (ASA member) Dr. Larry Funck, Chair, Chemistry Dept, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. Geology: Spring 1994 sabbatical replacement (Jan-May), teaching one section of physical or historical; mineralogy with Lab; plus possibly one of these: 1) lab section of physical or historical, or 2) haff-sernester course in general oceanography or natural disasters. Send vita and letter stating teaching experience with names of two references familiar with applicant's teaching to (ASA member) Dr. Jeff Greenberg, Geology Dept, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187.