of the
American Scientific Affiliation & Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation
Volume 35 Number 4 August/September 1993
NEWSLETTER
of the ASA/CSCA is published bi-monthly for its membership by the American Scientific Affiliation,
P.O. Box
668, 55 Market
St., Ipswich, MA 01938-0668. Tel. 508-356-5656, FAX: 508-356-4375, Email: asa @junkyard.
UUCP. Information for the Newsletter may be
sent to the Editor: Dennis Feucht, RD 1 Box 35A, Townsville, PA 16360-9404. 0 1993 American Scientific Affiliation (except previously
published material). All rights reserved.
See Ya At Seattle
There are all kinds of reasons
for attending the ASA ANNUAL MEETING at Seattle Pacific
University, August 5 to 10, even
apart from "The Environment," a
topic on everybody's mind these
days, and Calvin De Witt of Au
Sable Institute for Environmental
Studies, a great keynote speaker to
deal with that topic from a
seasoned Christian perspective.
We'll have daylong field trips to
two rich natural
areas (Olympic and
Mt. Rainier National Parks); a
program with a full
symposium ("Can
There Be a Scientific Theory of
Intelligent Design?")
and many contributed papers
(even a few empirical ones in the
"Caring Research"
category); meetings
of our affiliated
geology and biology groups;
worship in praise
and prayer; a mouthwatering salmon
banquet in an Indian longhouse-1
ASA reports and business to attend
to; fellowship with friendly folks
serving Jesus Christ in various scientific & technological pursuits.
For the Weary Old Editor, a special treat: not having to cover
every detail for the Newsletter. Special treat for our readers: meeting
the editor who will steer the
ASA/CSCA Newsletter into the 21st
century, Dennis Feucht.
Yep, folks - you're now reading Walt Hearn's last issue. Not the
last one he'll contribute to, for
sure, but the last one he'll be fully
responsible for. (We wanted to
show you what 24 years as an
editor can do to a guy, but our
Everest. After passing the job on
to Wait in 1969, Alton remained a
productive writer and has been the
Newsletter's most faithful reporter. Thanks, Alton, for the example you
set; and thank you, Dennis, for picking up the reins.
Obso-Lessons:
2.
Expect the Newsletter to take on
a new look-though even Dennis Feucht may
not know yet what
that will be. With
his electronics background and interest
in computers,
though, he'll be
able to keep up
with what's going
on in information
gathering, processing, storing, and
dissemination.
Will the WOE just fade away?
Not if he follows a precedent set by his predecessor, F. Alton
After taking that
first step into word
processing, the
WOE left desk-top
Publishing up to
ASA's competent
managing editor.
New evidence of
our obsolescence
hits us every day.
Visiting a lab, we
see every instrument hooked directly
to a computer. Ads for sophisticated programs beckon from
scientific journals.
Journals themselves are going "online."
Chemical & Engineering
News
is now available on the STN
international scientific and technical
network as "C&EN Online" The
text of each issue of The Scientist
can be read as soon as it is published by anyone with an Internet
connection using FTP (file transfer
protocol): Log onto Internet by entering the command ftp ds.internic.net. At the "name" prompt, enter
anonymous. At the "password"
prompt, type in your Internet address. At the next prompt, enter cd pub/the-scientist, then dir
to get
a listing of files in the directory.
To download the 14 June 1993
issue, enter get the-scientist-930614. To end session, enter quit.
Simple, if you've got the RAM,
the connections, and the patience to
enter that much typesetter's "pi a
la modem" without error. According
to "Advances in Electronic Publishing Herald Changes for Scientists"
by Stu Borman in the 14 June
CIEN
(hardcopy version), source of
the above directions, already there's
an online journal about online journals: Public Access Computer
Systems Review.
One can subscribe to "Current
Contents on Diskette"; participate in
online scientific conferences; search
selected journals electronically at certain libraries (Cornell, UCSF,
Harvard) and print out full-page images of articles (including graphics).
On various electronic bulletin
boards (BBS), we're told, over a
half-million bytes of commentary on
Forrest Mims's 1990 dismissal from
Scientific American have been
logged.
It's not only the scientific world
that's being turned upsidedownload. According to Religion
Watch (Mar 1993): a Church
Without Walls BBS from St. Albans Episcopal Church in
Washington, D.C., operates on Compuserve; a Quaker Electronic Project
serves as a "library, meetinghouse,
social center, and bulletin board"
for Friends around the world; a relatively new Rose Hill Forum serves
some of the same functions for
theological conservatives. In the San
Francisco Bay Area one can log on
not only to the Pagan/Occult Distribution Network, Body Dharma, or
Skeptic's BBS, but also to Computers for Christ, Corpus Christi, Orthodox Christian, or Logos BBS.
Along with Christian Leadership
Ministries, the Christian College
Coalition, and other groups of Christian professionals, the American
Scientific Affiliation now lists
members' e-mail addresses in its
membership directory. What's next?
We'll leave that to Dennis.
Coming Soon
What we do know that's coming
is the 1993 version of ASA's Teachi . ng Science in a Climate of
Controvers v. due from Science Press
this summer. Since its conclusions
on the "open questions" it posed
still hold, the Committee for Integrity in Science Education decided
simply to reprint the 1989 text, adding the background and text of
the 1991 ASA resolution, "A Voice
for Evolution as Science," plus a 16page Addendum containing a
classroom exercise to teach critical
thinking about evolutionary evidence
and inference. At the same time,
the format has been changed to
that of a slightly smaller paperback
book with a spine, so it can be
sold in bookstores. It will be available from ASA, soon.
Also on the way: InterVarsity
Press is bringing out a new paperback edition of Phillip Johnson's
Darwin on Trial containing an
added Epilogue. In that Epilogue,
Johnson summarizes criticisms of
the first edition and replies to his
most prominent critics.
A new paperback due out this
summer is Hugh Ross's The
Creator and the Cosmos, which
will be available from Reasons to
Believe (P.O. Box 5978, Pasadena,
CA 91117). Also new from that
source is a book many heard about
from its author at an ASA-sponsored symposium some years back:
Hubert Yockey's Information Theory
and Molecular Biology, a "heavy"
hardback offered at a discount
price. The just-released second edition of the high-school
supplementary text, Of Pandas and
People, in hardcover, is also on the
current Reasons to Believe book list.
This summer Dordt College Press
in Iowa will publish Evolutionary
Theory: A Christian View, by Dordt
emeritus professor of chemistry Russell Maatman; Russ is disappointed
that it won't be out in time for
the 1993 Annual Meeting. We've
heard that the U. of California
Press has secured from Knopf the
paperback rights to Ronald
Numbers's The Creationists.
Also on its way is the annual
volume of the Journal of Disciplinary Studies from the Institute for
Interdisciplinary Studies (2828 3rd
St. #11, Santa Monica, CA 904054150); edited by Oskar Gruenwald, Vol. 5 focuses on "The Unity of
the Arts & Sciences: Pathways to
God's Creation?" and includes
papers by Robert Ensign and
LeRon Shults.
Bulletin Board
- Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School (2065 Half Day Road, Deerfield, IL 60015) has begun two
new programs featuring concentrations in bioethics. The Life Issues
programs begin this summer with
two courses cosponsored by
Trinity's extension office and nearby Lake Forest Hospital: 1)
Bioethics & Public Policy, taught
by Harold 0. J. Brown, Guy Condon, Ben Mitchell, & Rita Marker,
30 Jul-7 Aug; and 2) Matters of
Life & Death: Introduction to
Bioethics, taught by Nigel Cameron,
2-6 Aug. Contact: Dr. Stephen
Kemp, Asst. Dean, Office of Extension & Continuing Education: tel,
708-317-6550. fax, 708-317-6509.
- "Experiencing the World/Interpreting the World-The Two Ways:
Science & Religion" is the topic of
a symposium to be held 31 Aug-2
Sep 1993 in the Oriental Institute's
Breasted Hall at the University of
Chicago. The symposium is cosponsored by The Templeton Religion
Trust. Contact: The Chicago Center
for Religion & Science, 1100 East
55th St., Chicago, IL 60615; tel,
312-753-0670.
- For the second year, scholarly
papers exemplifying a Theology of
Humility as defined by The John
Templeton Foundation will be considered for cash awards by the
Foundation. In the first year of the
program 100 papers were reviewed
and twelve prizes of $2,000 each
were awarded. Many more prizes
will be awarded in 1993, for
papers in press or published in the
past three years in a refereed scientific or theological journal (book
chapters are not acceptable this
year). Papers should be between
2,000 and 10,000 words in length,
submitted in double-spaced typewnitten form or as reprints of
published papers, in duplicate, to:
The John Templeton Foundation,
P.O. Box 1040, Bryn Mawr, PA
19010-0918. Deadline: 31 Oct 1993.
- The Pew Evangelical Scholars Program (formerly the Evangelical Scholarship Initiative) awards grants
for the pursuit of research in the
humanities, social sciences, and
theological disciplines. Over the past
several years the number and size
of the awards has increased. For
1994-95, fourteen grants of $35,000
each will be awarded. Applicants
should hold earned doctorates in
their fields, be either North
Americans or employed at North
American institutions, and be interested in showing how their
Christian faith informs their scholarly work. Proposals on both
religious and non-religious topics
are invited, from Christian scholars
of all ecclesiastical backgrounds,
and projects that proceed from
demonstrably Christian perspectives
are encouraged. For information on
how to apply, contact: Michael S.
Hamilton, Pew Evangelical Scholars -Program, G123 Hesburg Library, University of
Notre Dame,
Notre
Dame, IN 46556. tel. 219-631-8347;
fax, 219-631-8700. Deadline for
receipt of applications: 30 Nov 1993.
Wherever God
Wants Us:
29.
- The Middle East remains in the
political news but respect for
western technology continues. A
Christian-based secular agency has
been designed for the purpose of
technology transfer to institutions in
that region. In addition to
physicians with various specialties
and surgical room nurses, opportunities are presently open for
professors of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, engineering, food
technology, computer science, and
science education. Teachers of
English as a Second Language are
also needed. Contact: Scientific Technology & Language Institute (STLI),
3349 Golden Rain Rd #1, Walnut
Creek, CA 94595.
- The Republic of Haiti is also in
the political news;
Christianity
Todzn, (21 June) ran a major story
on Christians working to ease the
suffering in that "poorest country in
the Americas." About 120 miles
SW of Port-au-Prince is the city of
Les Cayes, where the American University of the Caribbean (formerly, American U. of Les Cayes) is
looking for Christians to teach in
both degree and non-degree
programs to contribute to the
economic development of Haiti and
other Caribbean countries. Bachelor's
degrees are offered in agronomy, accounting, business management.
English, and community health. A
training program for school teachers
is under development; the Haitian
Foundation for Private Education
(FONEP, with 5,000 schools) has
asked the university to devise a
Christian-based curriculum that can
be taught in English, French, and
Creole. Accredited by the Ministre
de I'Education Nationale of the
Republic, the eight-year-old university is the only educational
institution in Haiti offering degree
programs in the English language.
In 1992-93 there were 250 students,
but the main building, funded by
American Schools & Hos~pitals. Abroad, can handle 700.
The American University of the
Caribbean is a Christian enterprise
with an unpaid volunteer faculty
who come for a semester or for as
little as 30 days. At least a
Master's is needed to teach upperdivision courses, but volunteers with
only a Bachelor's degree can be
put to work. Each course is of onemonth duration and students
generally take only one course at a
time. Most Haitians earn less than
$300 a year, so tuition is kept low
and the university depends on donations from the United States.
Enrollment has declined under the
OAS embargo because prospective
students are unable to earn enough
to pay tuition.
Even so, the university has a
library with 40,000 books, a typing
lab, language lab, and computer center. It has a biology lab (held up
in customs for six months) and
physics lab equipment (to be
shipped when the embargo ends).
Classroom video monitors are connected to a satellite dish antenna to
take advantage of televised instruction from abroad. Nevertheless,
according to president Charles
Schomaker, this is "a developing institution in a developing country."
A provost is responsible for activities in Les Cayes but an
executive office is maintained in
the U.S. by a 15-member board of
directors. For a list of courses you
might teach, an informative faculty
handbook, and a statement of the
university's history, mission, and
doctrinal basis, contact: American
University of the Caribbean, P.O.
Box 673, Herndon, VA 22070.
Squibs
- When the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology
(FASEB) met in New Orleans the
end of March, over 10,000 scientists in nine societies gave some
5,000 papers in eight cross-disciplinary research areas. As usual, the
long-standing Federation Christian
Fellowship (FCF) had its own meeting as a small part of that huge
gathering, with cardiologist Jay Hollman speaking on "Fighting Humanism in Science and in the
Church." Jay urged FCFers to educate fellow Christians about science,
to debunk bad science, and to take
active roles as church leaders. Will
the FCF need to choose a new
name? That's not clear, though the
term "Federation Meeting" wasn't
used this year. Instead, four of the
nine FASEB societies invited five
"guest" societies, including the
Society for Experimental Biology &
Medicine, to meet with them, calling the event "Experimental Biology
'93."
- Information for the above item
came from physiologist Ken
Dormer of the U. of Oklahoma
Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma
City. Ken also reported on the 19
March annual Kurt Weiss Lecture
in Biomedical Ethics there, given
by John Templeton lecturer Armand Nicholi, Jr., of Harvard
Medical School. The lecture, contrasting views of health and happiness
expressed by Sigmund Freud and
C. S. Lewis, was well received by
a large group of students, staff,
and faculty. Armand also spoke at
an evening dinner award ceremony,
where the Christian Medical
Coalition's first scholarship was
awarded to the 3rd-year medical or
dental student "best exemplifying
the humanitarian and compassionate
behavior consistent with the JudeoChristian ethic." (The late Kurt
Weiss %&as a faculty member at the Health Sciences Center and a president of ASA.)
- Susan Howatch is an English
writer whose novels (including the
best-selling
Penmarric)
have sold
over 20 million copies in the past
20 years. A few years ago she became a Christian and began writing
a series of novels with a new outlook (e.g.,
Glittering Images),
se in
a fictional cathedral-town called
Starbridge. To her surprise, the first
five sold well enough to earn her
another fortune while impressing
many church leaders with their
sound theology. Now living modestly as a Christian, this spring she
put her wealth to a use that
startled many scientists. After reading the works of physicist/priest
John Polkinghorne, Howatch found
herself sitting next to him at a dinner. Their conversation led to her
gift of a million pounds to
Cambridge University (where Polkinghorne presides over Queen's
College) to finance in perpetuity
"The Starbridge Lectureship in Theology and Natural Science." An 18
March editorial in
The Independent
newspaper of London described the
novelist's hope for "a more fruitful
relationship between science and
theology," and her view that "these
disciplines should no longer be
seen as opposed but complementary."
- Endowment of the Starbridgle Lectureship in Theology and Natural
Science and the editorial praising it
(see above) brought forth a surge
of letters to
The Independent.
A predictably sour note was sounded in
the 20 March issue by biologist
Richard Dawkins (of
The Blind
Watchmaker),
who railed that "The
achievements of theologians don't
do anything, don't affect anything,
don't achieve anything, don't even
mean anything. What makes you
think that 'theology' is a subject at
all?" The blind mythmaker's blast
was balanced by one from
biochemist Denis Alexander, editor
of
Science & Christian Belief-,
he
cited the recent Templeton Lectures
cosponsored by Christians in
Science (ASA's counterpart in the
U.K.) as evidence that "the partnership between science and theology
appears remarkably healthy." By 22
March, chemistry Nobelist Max
Perutz had weighed in, dissociating
himself from Dawkins's attack,
saying that he would have preferred
a chair in science and ethics as a
counter to "the increasingly prevailing law of the jungle in the
scientific world." Perutz called a
chair in science and theology "the
next best thing," adding that , 'Scientists may not believe in God, but
they should be taught why they
ought to behave as if they did."
By 23 March, the Letters page was
full of comment, pro and con, including a serious rebuttal to
Dawkins by Susan Howatch herself.
On I April, an editorial in the
scientific journal
Nature
called the
Starbridge Lectureship an "empty"
venture and asked if it was proper
"that one of Britain's leading
centres of learning should put a
price on its academic rigour and accept her donation."
The two stories above are based
on clippings sent by U. of Minnesota geneticist Elving Anderson, who participated, back in 1965, in
a conference on a Christian
philosophy of science held at Oxford, England. That conference was
cosponsored by ASA and by what
is now Christians in Science, then
known as the Research Scientists'
Christian Fellowship. (That was
before CSCA came into being, but
it was the financial support of a
Canadian ASA member, engineer Norman Lea, now associated with
St. Stephen's University in Maine,
that made the conference possible.)
One of the British participants was a young reader in mathematical
physics at Cambridge named John
Polkinghorne. He has since become
an Anglican priest whose writings
on science and Christian faith are
widely influential. Evidently he has
now influenced establishment of a
lectureship in science & theology at
Cambridge. One plants the seed,
another waters, another harvests but "it is God who gives the
growth" (I Cor. 3).
- Sharp-eyed geologist Ken Van
Dellen of Grosse Point Park,
Michigan, wrote that the TV series
"How Do They Do That?" aired a
recent piece about the dead-letter office of the U.S. Postal Service.
While watching that show he recognized one of the lost items as a
copy of Charles Hummel's
Galileo
Connection.
Ken said that if anyone
ordered the book but didn't receive
it, he knows where it is.
- "Creation Science: A Challenge in
the Classroom" is the title of a
paper in the May 1993 issue of
The Physics Teacher (pp.
300-304)
by Gary Kessler, chair of the
Physics Dept at Illinois Wesleyan
U. in Bloomington. Kessler outlined
his answers to eight questions
posed to him in a freshman seminar on "Physics as a Liberal Art"
by several assertive students whose
information came from two books
by Henry Morris of the Institute
for Creation Research. The questions dealt with physics and
astronomy. Sample: Globular clusters
are supposed to be very old. Estimates, according to J. Wheeler of
the U. of Texas, vary from 7 billion to 26 billion years old, yet
there are both "old" red stars and
"young" blue stars. How can this
be? Kessler spent some 40 hours
tracking down the pertinent scientific literature to answer the
students' eight questions, then found
that some of them still weren't convinced. (Thanks to physicist Don
DeGraaf of Flint, Michigan, for
this one. -Ed.)
- The June/July issue of
First
Things
had a great exchange of
views on "God and Evolution" with
a strong paper by Howard J. Van
Till, professor of physics at Calvin
College in Michigan, and a strong
reply by Phillip E. Johnson, professor of law at the U. of California
in Berkeley. Van Till wrote in
response to Johnson's earlier First
Things article, "Creator or Blind
Watchmaker" (Jan 1993. Defending
the "forgotten doctrine of Creation's
functional integrity" against what he
considers a variant of the "God-of the-gaps" perspective, Van Till
argued that evolutionary processes
"explore" or "discover" possibilities
built in by the Creator but do not
themselves create:
It seems to me that this theistic
paradigm provides precisely what
the naturalistic (broad) paradigm -
the blind watchmaker hypothesis -
could not. It provides the answer
to the question, How is it possible
that such a remarkable array of
life forms is not only viable but
historically realizable within the
economy of the world at hand?
Could anything less than the infinite creativity and faithful
providence of God suffice?
Johnson replied that Christian intellectuals who interpret "evolution"
to their audiences in a genuinely
theistic manner need to realize that
theistic evolution is not what the
reigning authorities have in mind
when they propose to teach every
school child that "evolution is a
fact." If people like Van Till were
in charge, science education might
be different, Johnson wrote, but it
is the uncompromisingly naturalistic
view of evolution taken by Gould,
Dawkins, Saga, Futuyma, and company that dominates public
education. Agreeing with Van Till
that we must distinguish between "scientific theorizing and naturalistic
propaganda," 1ohnson added that:
- we also need to recognize that
the persons who now rule science
do not themselves know how to
make that distinction, and do not
even want to make it. We will
have to teach them that naturalistic
philosophy and scientific investigation arc not the same thing, and
we cannot even begin to do that
if our first priority is to avoid conflict with the rulers of science.
Phillip Johnson (of Darwin on
Trial) contributed a Review & Outlook piece on "Science Without
God" in the Wall Street Journal
(WSJ, 10 May 1993). Specifically
he called attention to the reductionistic philosophy promoted by physics
Nobelist Steven Weinberg in
Weinberg's new book, Dreams of a
Final Theory (Pantheon). Weinberg
expressed hope that discovery of a
unified particle theory will convince
the public that nature is governed
by impersonal laws, and thus discredit "irrational beliefs." While
calling Dreams of a Final Theory
11
a good book and an honest one,"
Johnson questioned how tolerant triumphant scientists would be toward
those who do not consider reductionistic naturalism a rational
philosophy. Within science. "only
an unquestioned naturalism is allowed," so:
That means that the scientific community claims the sole right to
decide
for the nation that God is
a product of the human imagination rather than the ultimate reality
behind the cosmos. Whatever else
one may say about this claim to
power, it does not reflect either uncertainty or tolerance.
In its 16 June issue, WSJ published eight letters in response. As we
understand it, Johnson sent Weinberg a pre-publication copy of his
essay-review. Weinberg then called
Johnson and they have since
engaged in some crisp face-to-face
dialog. Johnson thought Weinberg
seemed a bit tense on that occasion
- but maybe the U. of Texas
professor had other things on his
mind. Not long afterward, Congress
struck a "GUT"'-wrenching blow to
the Texas-sized supercollider, a
project Weinberg was counting on
to confirm his electroweak theory
on the way to that "Grand Unified
Theory."
Academic
Freedom
Christian Leadership Ministries (CLM, 100 Sunport Lane, Orlando' FL 32809-7875), a division of
Campus Crusade for Christ, has
been working since 1980 to build a
network of Christian professors on
university campuses. According to national director Stan Oakes, that
network now includes about 12,000
faculty members, each teaching (and
influencing) on average perhaps 400
students a year. CLM's regular
newsletter, The Real Issue, introduces Christian faculty to each other. CLM's occasional Campus
Alert reports on academic freedom
cases and causes.
A recent Alert featured placement
of evangelistic ads the week before
Easter in nearly 100 student
newspapers, over the names of
local faculty willing to "sign on"
as believers in the resurrection of
Jesus. The same issue pointed to
the irony of certain actions at the
U. of Alabama in Birmingham.
Professor Phillip Bishop was ordered to cease even occasionally
mentioning his Christian faith in his
physiology classes there. then the
faculty senate voted unanimously to
support purchase of a controversial
"art object" by Andres Serrano-a photograph of a plastic replica of
Michelangelo's "Pieta" submerged in
a tank of urine and cow's blood -
on grounds that "it is the proper
role of the university to examine a
wide range of ideas and perspectives."
The Bishop case went to court,
so one can track its complex legal
outcome in U.C. Berkeley law
professor Phillip Johnson's "The
Creationist and the Sociobiologist:
Two Stories about Illiberal Education," (California Law Review, July
1992). In that essay-review of
Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education, Johnson compared the Bishop
case with a cause celebre at his
own university, an attack on U.C.
anthropology professor Vincent
Sarich by "liberal" students and
faculty members over certain implications of Sarich's scientific views, which they' labeled
racist, sexist,
and politically incorrect.
The Sarich case did not go to
court. Since Darwinist Sarich had
criticized Johnson's Darwin on
Trial, Johnson's defense of Sarich's
academic freedom by juxtaposing
the two cases probably caused
some consternation among the Law
Review editors. At one point,
Johnson quoted a Berkeley
anthropologist who "dismissed
Sarich's theories from the realm of
science in precisely the language
Sarich would use in speaking of
creationism: 'It isn't bad science; it
isn't science at all.' " Johnson:
"Professor Sarich, meet Professor Bishop.
More recently, San Francisco
State biology professor Dean H.
Kenyon has been on the hot seat.
Though Dean has not been a member of ASA, his name is known to
many of us. In 1969 he and colleague Gary Steinman wrote
Biochemical Predestination, outlining
a possible scenario for a strictly
naturalistic origin of life. By 1984
he had come to such a profound
reassessment that on the jacket of
The Mystery of Life's Origin by
Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen, Kenyon wrote
that "The authors believe, and I
now concur, that there is a fundamental flaw in all current
theories of the chemical origins of
life." With Percival Davis he
authored Of Pandas and People
(Haughton, 1989), a supplementary
high school text setting forth "ititelligent cause" as an alternative to
Darwinian theories of biological
origins.
Kenyon, with degrees from the
U. of Chicago and Stanford, has
been tenured at S.F. State since
1970 and has been a full professor
since 1974. His views on origins
have been widely known on campus and were a source of conflict
with the chair of the Biology Dept.
Since at least 1977 Kenyon has participated in teaching Biology 100, a
general education course in "Human
Biology." In Oct 1992, after devoting half of his three lectures on
origins and evolution to the prevailing view, he spent the other half
critiquing the Darwinist hypothesis
and offering his own views. A student complained, setting in motion
an academic tango with a lot of
back-and-forth steps.
In Jan 1993, we gather, department chair John E. Hafernik, Jr.,
indicated that Kenyon would not be
teaching Biol 100 in either Summer
or Fall 1993. Kenyon then formally
requested that the university-wide
Academic Freedom Committee
(AFC) review his case and make
recommendations.
In June the AFC completed a
very thorough investigation, including review of university documents
and a lengthy hearing (with Phil
Johnson sitting in as Kenyon's
legal advisor). The 15-page AFC
report contained three findings, to
the effect that: 1) Due process had
not been followed in removing
Kenyon from the class; 2) No matter how offensive his views,
"accepted principles of academic
freedom" recognize Kenyon's "right
to present even objectionable viewpoints about the subject he is
teaching"; and 3) Conflicts over curricular preferences of individual
faculty "should be resolved by faculty peers." The AFC recommended
1) That the dispute should be ignored and Kenyon scheduled for
Biol 100 as before; and 2),
That the School of Science give
some thought to the prospect that
the tensions arising from differences in perspective on issues of
human origins and evolution are
not likely to dissipate in the near
future and in fact may increase.
Recognizing the depth of belief
and tenacity of feeling this topic
evokes, the School might well
wish to develop a collective and
public response protective of the
views and rights of all, an official
response intended to minimize unproductive conflict or disruption of
normal academic activities.
Because S. F. State's Academic
Freedom Committee has no power
to enforce its recommendations, however, "all is not won." Latest word
is that Prof. Hafernik has decided
to disregard the AFC's findings.
"Professor Kenyon, meet professors
Bishop and Sarich."
Mims Wins One
Readers of this Newsletter have
been familiar with the name of
Forrest Mims III of Seguin, Texas,
since 1990. That's when he was
shut out of writing "The Amateur
Scientist" column for Scientific
American, after editor Jonathan Piel
probed into his religious beliefs. As
a plenary speaker at the 1992 ASA
Annual Meeting in Hawaii, Mims re
lated that story and came across as
both a serious Christian and a
serious scientist.
In the Feb/Mar 1993 issue
("Mauna Loa Fallout," p. 4), we
told how that trip to the University
of the Nations in Hawaii enabled
Forrest to calibrate his homemade
Total Ozone Portable Spectroradiometer (TOPS) against
the world standard Dobson
ozonometer and thus detect an error
in NASA's ozone measurements.
We also mentioned his plans to set
up a global network of ozone observers using his TOPS instruments.
In April, Mims won one of the
1993 Rolex Awards for Enterprise,
established in 1976 to encourage
"the 'Spirit of Enterprise' in individuals throughout the world by
contributing to the realization of outstanding personal efforts or
contributions made in selected
categories of human endeavor." Five
such awards are given each year
by the Swiss company famous for
its watches. Each Laureate is invited to Geneva to receive a check
for 50,000 Swiss francs and a gold
Rolex chronometer.
Forrest and Minnie Mims were
set up in a swanky hotel in
Geneva and were able to visit the
church where John Calvin preached.
Ever the investigator, Forrest made
ozone measurements in the Alps
and from the airplane window on
the transatlantic flight. The airline
crew first tried to stop such suspicious activity, but then the pilot
invited him to the cockpit for over
an hour of making measurements
through its larger windows.
Forrest will use some of the
Rolex money to build new instruments for the ozone measurement
network, more important than ever
now that the TOMS instrument on
NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite has quit
working. In June, Forrest returned
to the U. of the Nations in Hawaii
to teach electronics to 11 Christian
students from 11 different countries
and to make further ozone measurements. He has recently measured
historically low levels of ozone
over Texas, a cause for concern.
The sweetest irony in this story
is that a Rolex ad announcing the
awards appeared in the June 1993
Scientific American, with a picture
of Mims holding a partially visible
TOPS instrument. Three of Mims's
"Amateur Scientist" columns had
been published in the magazine
before an eely Pie] repealed the
deal; the fourth, which would have
described the TOPS instrument,
never made it. In a squib in The
Scientist
for 28 June (p. 4), Mims
was quoted as saying, "My instrument finally made it into
Scientific
American."
The (Old Editor's Last Words:
28
Editorial deadlines are killers. but
their lethal effect on your
Weary Old Editor (WOE is me)
has been gradual. This tongue-in
cheek column probably began as an
apology for some foot-in-mouth comment years ago, but I've-forgotten which one.
Mostly I've managed to appreciate all sorts of viewpoints,
hoping that others would do unto
me the same. To try on that many
mind sets, it has helped to read as
widely as possible. Professional journalists call that "research" or "deep
background." Our Wedded Editor is
more apt to refer to it as "goofing
off."
Besides standard sources of news
and commentary (like
Science, American Scientist, The Scientist, Christianity Today, Religion Watch,
Zygon, Science & Religion News,' I've been known to browse for
hours in whatever comes across the
desk. It's fun to read accounts of
the same "creation/evolution debate"
in both ICR's
Acts & Facts
and
NCSE Reports,
for example. Tired
of such polemics? Pick up the irenic Origns from-Loma Linda's Geoscience Research Institute, or
the relatively open-minded ARN
Origins Research
or the NCSE journal,
CreationlEvolution.
For "variety of religious experience," I read things like
Radix;
Fuller Seminary's
Theology, News
& Notes; Focus on the Family;
CMDS Journal;
NAACE's
Firmament;
Evangelicals Concerned's
Record;
USCWM's
Mission Frontiers;
even CSICOP's
Skeptical
Inquirer. To
see what we're really
up against, try
Free Inquiry
from
the Council for Democratic &
Secular Humanism (Summer 1993
theme: "Is Religion a Form of Insanity?").
All kinds of periodicals yield
bits of news about ASA/CSCA members, opportunities for Christian
service, issues we need to face,
and so on. Newsletters, for example. (I'm inordinately fond of
newsletters.) My favorites are those
of our own members, like that of
the Affiliation of Christian
Biologists, Martin Price's
Echo
News,
Hugh Ross's
Facts & Faith,
or the Calvin College
Geogram.
The "exchanges" will eventually go
to the new editor, though he's
counting on the rest of us to be
his eves and ears.
I'm already tapering off, dropping some things
(American Biology Teacher, Science Scope)
and trying
to resist trial- subscription-offers. This week I managed to turn down
free copies of
World Monitor
and
The Pope Speaks.
With freebies,
even if you cancel when they send
a bill, your name is already on
their mailing list and maybe sold
to other hungry publishers, so you
keep getting more offers. What I'd
like to do now is skip the breadth
and start reading deeply again-to
explore my own viewpoint, you
might say.
Maybe I'm hooked. I do expect
to keep reading a few radical Christian publications that make me
think:
Peacework
from the Baptist
Peace Fellowship of North America;
The Catholic Agitator
from the
L.A. Catholic Worker Community;
The Plough
from the Hutterian
Brethren; and of course the New
Testament.
What a privilege to edit a Newsletter that so many thinking
Christians have included in
their
reading. WOE is no longer me.
Personals
Kirk J. Bertsche,
now of Cedar
Hill, Texas, is employed as a
physicist at the Superconducting
Super-Collider (SSC) under construction about 40 miles south of
Dallas. Kirk dropped in on the
Newsletter editor this spring "on
his way" to a biennial Particle Accelerator Conference in Washington,
D.C. Actually he came to the Bay
Area to continue a tradition begun
while he was working on his Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley -teaching a
science segment in a course on contemporary issues in theology at
Western Seminary of San Jose, an
extension of Conservative Baptist
Seminary, Portland, Oregon. (Considering the status of appropriations
for the multi-billion dollar project,
other SSC physicists may start exploring theology or other alternatives.
- Ed.)
Paul S. Darby recently
received his M.D. from Georgetown
University School of Medicine. He
is now doing an internship at
Madigan Army Medical Center in
Tacoma, Washington. Paul plans to
do a residency in occupational & environmental medicine.
Leon Dennison of Olympia,
Washington, studies Quaternary alluvial patterns. He recently
completed a field study near Coalinga, California, where a 150-ft-deep
gravel pit contains unlayered
rounded boulders and cobbles as
large as 3 ft in diameter. The pit
is a remnant of a former 1000-ftdeep freshwater lake basin into
which the gravel was evidently
swept by alluvial forces.
Norman L. Geisler of Charlotte,
North Carolina, is a prolific writer
of books on theology and
apologetics. His book on Islam
and
Christian Apologetics
(Baker) will
be out this fall. Meanwhile, Norm's
When Critics Ask
(Victor) was
nominated for the Medallion Award.
The new seminary in Charlotte
where he teaches, Southern Evangelical Seminary, offers a degree in apologetics. In its first
year of operation (1992-93) the seminary had 90 students.
Brett W. Gracely of Boulder,
Colorado, is a water resources engineer for Science Applications
International Corporation (SAIC). He
recently transferred from SAIC's
Pleasanton, California, office to
their office in Golden, Colorado.
Brett has a B.S. in engineering
physics from Westmont and a 1992
M.S. in civil engineering (water
resources) from U.C. Berkeley. His
daily commitment is to "apply his
engineering skills and knowledge of
water resources to the stewardship
of creation."
Roger A. Hinrichs of the State
U. of New York, Oswego, has
been a Fulbright professor of
physics at Sultan Qaboos University
in Oman this past year. (News
item from one of chemist John
Chan's letters from SQU.-Ed.)
Gordon R. Lewthwaite retired
from his position as professor of
geography at California State U. at
Northridge in Aug 1992 during a
"downsizing" of the whole state
university system. In Jan 1992 he
had undergone angioplasty, and this
spring his cardiovascular system
acted up again. After suffering both
a stroke and heart attack in March
he had quintuple bypass surgery. A
post-surgical aneurysm developed on
his thoracic aorta but further
surgery was deemed too risky. With
good care from his wife Lydia, Gordon has recovered rather well
(except for an almost 30-day gap
in his memory)-though he says
he may not make it to the ASA
Annual Meeting. After a 1980 sabbatical trip to Israel, including a
stay at the Institute of Holy Land
Studies, Gordon introduced a course
in Holy Land studies at Northridge.
Jeffrey Simmons received his
Ph.D. in natural resources (forest
science) from Cornell in May and
now has a postdoctoral position in
the Dept of Plant, Soil, & Environmental Science at the U. of Maine
in Orono. He is investigating
linkages between climate and
nutrient cycling in forests. Jeff
recently attended a U.S./Canadian
conference held in Portland, Maine,
on regional response to global
climate changes in New England
and eastern Canada.
Paul H. Whitaker is professor
of mathematics and chair of the
Mathematics & Computer Science
Dept at Mount Vernon Nazarene
College, Mount Vernon, Ohio. At a
banquet in May he received Mount
Vernon's Teacher of the Year
award for 1993. Mount Vernon's
vice-president for academic affairs
cited Paul for going well beyond
Arthur Chickering & Zelda
Gamson's widely circulated "Seven
Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" by
demonstrating that "the revelation of
divine love in Jesus Christ provides
the most adequate basis for understanding the meaning of all events
and facts." A student testimony:
"Anyone who can make an 8 a.m.
calculus class interesting is a
genius."
POSITIONS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE.
Biology: Fall
1994
tenure-track asst prof opening for Ph.D., preferably with teaching & research experience.
Teach intro and
3
of following: cell, molecular, developmental, marine biol; genetics; physiology. Commitment to Christian liberal arts education
& undergrad research. Lefler & c.v. to (ASA member) Dr. G. Ayoub, Dept of Biology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA
93108;
tel,
805-565-7019;
fax,
805-565-7035.