Vol. 41 NUMBER 6                                                                       NOV/DEC1999


ASAers Respond to the Kansas Board of Education Decision

The Kansas Board of Education sent shock waves into American culture when it mildly defied the deep-seated evolutionistic status quo of North American state education by leaving it up to local school districts as to how they should handle the teaching of biological evolution. The Kansas board has received criticism from not only materialistic evolutionists defending Darwinism, but also Christians in science who have difficulty with the Creation Science motivations behind the Board decision. One of them was ASA's Science Education Commission chairman, John Wiester, who is quoted in World magazine's cover story, "After the Big Bang" (11 SEP 99, p. 16):

They [the Kansas Board] identify the problem but not the solution. The solution is to teach more [about evolution], like the unsolved problems and unanswered questions that are at variance with the theory.

Later the World article included an excerpt from the Science Education Commission Statement that included the advice to state and local school boards to "ensure that evolution is taught as science, not as ideology." Teachers are encouraged to distinguish between the multiple meanings of the "e-word," and to distinguish between scientific theory and the worldview of materialism threatened by the Board decision. The ASA SEC also encourages teachers to "include unanswered questions and unresolved problems in their presentations."

And in Kansas itself are Keith and Ruth Miller, who have been active in this conflict over science standards. As they tell it, a 27-member committee of K-12 science teachers, science educators and scientists appointed by the Board put together a science-teaching standards document. After the usual review process involving public comment, "the resulting document was really quite well written and stressed both the nature and methodologies of science as well as several unifying theories and concepts that cut across disciplines (including evolutionary theory)." This document was recommended unanimously by the committee.

Next, the document went before the State Board of Education. However one Board member put forward an alternative proposal "that completely bypassed any process of review or public comment. It was ghost-written by members of a local creation science organization." What was disturbing to the Millers about the alternative document was that it

demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the nature of science. It eliminated any mention of evolution and also removed reference to any unifying scientific theories. It rather put the focus on "technological science," and dismissed "theoretical science" as unproven and of little use.

Fully half of the Board members favored the alternative document, leading to a compromise re-write of the standards by three Board members.

Though the final document was not as "egregious" as the original alternative, "it still eliminated the theory of evolution as a model for understanding the history and diversity of life," the Millers noted. The standard does not mention cosmology or the age of the earth. The Millers observe that: "The academic and educational committees of Kansas are very irritated by the current situation. They fear that it will result in continued conflict and opposition to the teaching of evolution at the local level." The importance of state education standards is that they drive state testing and hence the curriculum. Already one textbook publisher has eliminated an introductory chapter on geologic history from a book on the history of Kansas.

Keith and Ruth also reflect on the wider scope of the affair:

Several major popular misconceptions about the nature of science and about the relationship between scientific knowledge and religious faith are driving the current conflict. On the one hand is an image of science as an accumulation of observational fact. In this view, theories are seen as largely untested or untestable guesses that play little or no role in the advancement of science or in its application to real-world problems. On the other hand, scientific and religious explanations are seen as substantially the same kind of explanations and are perceived to be in direct conflict with each other. An ancient Earth and evolution, in particular, are seen as direct threats to a religious perspective. Clearly much public education is needed and Christians in the sciences need to make themselves heard.

The Millers made themselves heard on the Kansas scene by writing letters to Kansas Board members. They also testified at public hearings and have written editorials for local newspapers, such as the interview with Keith for a feature article on "God & Evolution" in the Kansas City Star. Their intent was to "communicate the nature of the scientific enterprise and to debunk widely-held misconceptions about the relationship between science and religious belief."

In the feature article subtitled "Believers, scientists find a middle ground - and peace," Keith is immediately identified by author Edward M. Eveld (Sunday, 8 AUG 99, p. G-1) as a research geolgist who wonders about old-earth geologic issues. Shortly thereafter, he is also identified as "an evangelical Christian and long-time Bible reader." About how they relate, Keith says: "I never had my interest in the natural world and my religious experience compartmentalized." He further elaborates later in the article about his hermeneutic, which "sees history but also allegory and poetry," giving him freedom to explore the creation without a compartmentalized bible-science view:

It allows me the freedom to go where I see the observational evidence leading. I don't feel I have to conform my observations to a cosmology that's already set in Scripture.

By that he meant that interpretation is common to both the Bible and science. Without theory "all you have left is raw observations." The article ends by discussing God's relationship to creation. Miller is given the last word:

Miller says God's control over chance occurrences is complete. God controls random events. Miller doesn't see the Creator as one who only intermittently insinuates himself in the universe, or the God who "starts things up and takes a vacation."

"Continuous creation" is a phrase that's used," he said. "It's one I like very much."

In a related article attending largely to a new book, God the Evidence: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World, Patrick Glynn, assoc. director of the Institute for Communitarian Policies at George Washington U. notes that "The debate over old-fashioned creation science is a bit outmoded," but recognizes that important questions are being raised about scientific methods and theories: "The idea that the universe's randomness could lead by accident to an orderly place with exacting rules is a metaphysical assumption of modern science, a preference for a godless cosmos."

Miller again gets the last word in the article:

Scientists bring theological, cultural and social presuppositions to their work, he said. "I think some people in the scientific community have it wrong in trying to build an impermeable wall between science and religion," he said. "I think they have to influence each other."

Writing in the Manhattan Mercury (June, 1999), Ruth Miller took issue from an engineering perspective with the alternative Board proposal that was passed. Early on, she stated that "I am a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, a professional society of Christians in the sciences and engineering." She expressed concern about reducing science to "technological" science to the omission of "theoretical" and "historical" science. She notes, as an electrical engineering professor at Kansas State U., that "the realm of engineering is founded upon these 'unprovable' theories" denigrated in the standards document. She elaborates:

Rarely, an engineer may "get lucky" and happen upon some useful device without knowledge or understanding of the relevant physical theory or theories that may describe it. But the developers of most new devices, from computers to satellites to microwave ovens, relied on a very firm grounding in what we call "basic science" - what [Kansas Science Standards introduction author Steve]Abrams calls "theoretical" science.

Others have also expressed interest in retaining the teaching of current scientific theories, but with greater disclosure of their epistemological status. Biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh U. and author of Darwin's Black Box was in agreement with the ASA SEC statement in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, saying: "Teach Darwin's elegant theory. But also discuss where it has real problems accounting for the data, where data are severely limited, where scientists might be engaged in wishful thinking and where alternative - even "heretical" - explanations are possible."

In blowing up the Kansas event to stratospheric proportions, the Establishment news media has invoked the comments of anti-Darwinist cultural observer Phillip E. Johnson: "The reason they are in such a funk is that they perceive a serious public protest against the established religion of scientific naturalism."

* John Wiester, Keith & Ruth Miller

Affiliation Of Scientists and Engineers in Technology

At the ASA99 meeting of the prospective Affiliation of Christian Engineers, the merger with the Industrial Commission was discussed, and continued at the commission's meeting the next day. It was decided that the Commission be assimilated into a new ASA affiliation, the name of which was hashed out as the "Affiliation of Scientists and Engineers in Technology." The point is that anyone involved in technology is welcomed to join, whether a scientist, engineer, or technologist. Industrial Commission leader John Osepchuk led the group in deciding overwhelmingly on electrical engineer Ruth Miller as the newly forming Affiliation's first president. John would be Vice-President and Jack Swearingen Secretary-Treasurer. Harry Lubansky works on Internet technology and has offered to be Webmaster. John and Ruth have crossed paths in their technical work on electromagnetic radiation health issues.

Besides the issue of global warming that Ed Olson has written a 99-page report on, the ASET might also discuss environmental issues with the GR&E Commission, in the quest for a clear approach for Christians to the multi-faceted question of how to relate to the environment.

This new affiliation is not short on hot issues to address. As a prospective member of it, the Editor jotted down a few at the Meeting:

Although he was not at the Meeting this year, Joe Carson has been centrally involved as a "spark plug" in helping to get the new group going. He has noted that there are many prospective members for the technology affiliation. There are over two million engineers in the American workforce, according to the Department of Labor, and about 400,000 engineers with PE licenses. The top six engineering professional societies (corresponding to the major engineering disciplines as electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil, industrial, etc) in America have a combined membership of about 800,000 engineers.

Before the Industrial Commission merger with ASET, the proposed Affiliation of Christian Engineers was being considered as an ASA affiliation.

Y2K: Another View

by Bill Bauer

William E. Bauer, 2951 Quincy Lane, Lansing, MI 49810; WBauer33@aol.com

I have just read the Y2K articles in the MAR/APR 1999 issue of the Newsletter. They include the useful parallel of a major winter storm and possible preparations. Earlier in the day I read: "The Detroit area ushered in 1999 at 3 degrees below zero, a major snow storm was underway with hundreds of former welfare recipients without water, electricity, and/or gas..." (Response, p.35). There had been a glitch in Michigan's Work First welfare-to-work program. Today hundreds of thousands of people from Kosovo have been fleeing - many through snow, over mountain trails, with no more than what they could carry, sleeping outside with little cover.

What then is the Christian response to the Y2K uncertainty? Is it Proverbs 21:20, with "stores of choice food and oil"? The cartoon caricature would be of Christians hiding in well-supply holes or forest retreats until the storm is past, then emerging to help out with their surplus supplies and words of Good News. Often Y2K scriptural references concentrate on the Old Testament. Jesus talked about "lilies of the field," and hunger, and being fed, and "love for one another that the world might believe."

Along with pages of things to collect to insulate our well-fed life styles, should not there be something about preparing by seeing that the hungry are fed today? In time of disaster it is the malnourished and the sick that suffer most, groups of particular interest to Jesus. Should the Christians' preparation for Y2K be significantly different from the world's preparation?

We could include in our preparations the goal that there will be no malnourished, at-special-risk child living with the electricity turned off on December 31, 1999. This should get equal time, at least, with a family "spending at least $10,000 º for serious electrical support"? (Newsletter, MAR/APR 1999).

To assure a water supply for a nursing home, we would be willing to loan our "missionary barrels," collected over 35 years as missionary, chemistry teacher and community health nurse in India. From that perspective, a crucial preparation for a Christian response to Y2K might be to have a "dry run" by church members helping each other through 24 hours of no electricity, water or gasoline. Jesus spoke of prayer and fasting. Today it is not a dry run in Albania, Kosovo, India and Detroit. It is the real thing, and most likely much worse than anything that we will face in 2000.

From Honduras, missionary Paul Jeffrey writes of different responses to hurricane Mitch: "Well before dawn on October 29, the 12,000 residents of San Francisco Libre woke up to find their houses caught in rapidly-rising flood waters. Electricity failed, and in the darkness neighbors pulled neighbors out of homes. The town's mayor, Jose de la Cruz Bermudez, used his truck headlights to guide townspeople to the Catholic church, which stood on higher ground." In contrast, "Before the rainfall lessened, a wealthy neighbor of ours (a retired army colonel who spent time in prison for drug trafficking) insisted that people on our street form an armed militia to protect us against a poorer neighborhood down the hill. 'When food gets scarce, it will be the law of the jungle around here,' he proclaimed, 'and we need to prepare to defend ourselves.' No one else in the neighborhood signed up for his militia, despite his offer to teach us how to shoot straight." (www.gbgm-umc.org/UMCOR, 11-8-98, 11-30-98) With every list of what we should collect and check for Y2K, Christians should have a second list of what we can do without, for Christ's sake, and a third list of what we can do together to help those most at risk as we approach Y2K.

Meyer on Fox News

by Jonathan Wells, Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, U.C. Berkeley, and Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture, Discovery Institute, Seattle, WA.

I just watched Michael Behe and Steve Meyer being interviewed on Fox News. Needless to say, they both did a great job. Mike began by explaining that
"Darwin's black box" is the cell, about which Darwin knew virtually nothing, but which we now know consists of numerous irreducibly complex
molecular machines. Although Darwin's theory of variation and selection works at some levels (e.g., the evolution of antibiotic resistance), and
his theory of common descent may be true, Darwinian variation and selection cannot account for what we see inside the cell.

Steve pointed out that the information content of DNA cannot be explained by Darwin's theory, and that design inferences are a normal feature of human reasoning. The interviewer wanted him to go further and admit that science is now finding evidence for God, but Steve explained that while scientists can infer design, and design requires an intelligence, determining the nature of the intelligent designer is outside the realm of science.

All in all, it was a brief but delightful interview, broadcast nationwide.

CSCAers in Faith Today

Faith Today is a bimonthly publication of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, a Canadian counterpart to Christianity Today. On the front-cover of the July/August 1999 issue is astrophysicist Hugh Ross, originally of Vancouver, BC, next to his telescope. The cover story, titled "Convergence: Big-picture science and faith find common ground" by Denyse O'Leary (oleary@interlog.com), introduces the change in scientific climate over that of Thomas Gradgrind, the fictitious 19th century materialist of facts and calculations in Hard Times by Charles Dickens. "Yet when 20th century scientists began poking at Gradgrind's 'facts,' his cosmos began to crumble º " The article goes on to tell of how Big Bang cosmology has made the existence of a creator God a reasonable assumption, contravening a dichotomy between "faith" and "facts." Other noted areas of recent scientific advance that impact science-religion issues are the anthropic principle, microbiology, quantum physics and relativity.

You might think the article was a Who's Who of Canadian ASAers, who appear in high density throughout the article, in boxed inserts with their pictures: Judy Toronchuk, Harry Spaling, Robert Mann, Gary Partlow, Dan Osmund, and Don Page. U. of Alberta physicist Page ponders:

As a Christian, one of the motivations for my doing science is to try to understand the universe which God has created, and thereby try to understand God better. As Psalm 111:2 says, "Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them." º it is remarkable how much of the universe we can understand. º Science reveals the intelligibility of the universe; the Bible reveals the Intelligence behind the universe.

Another physicist, CSCA President Gary Partlow at the U. of Waterloo, echoed a similar attraction to study of the creation:

The awe-inspiring, mathematically regular laws of physics, and their often surprising consequences, always demand a deeper explanation than physics itself can provide.

U. of Toronto physiology professor Dan Osmund wraps up the convergence theme: "The wonder of it all certainly provokes a Christian to acknowledge and worship the creative power of the great Creator º "

Hugh Ross makes an interesting observation based on his Reasons to Believe (www.reasons.org) ministry experience. A century of liberal theology has separated faith from reason, and churches now expect to provide emotion-based responses to difficult issues. Hugh says:

It's not that secularists don't like what we're saying; it's that Christians don't like what we're saying. They're confronted with issues that they have never been confronted with before.

If scientists begin to suggest that God exists, then people are increasingly going to want churches to relate dogma to facts. Ross nails the issue down by saying:

When I speak on a university campus, people say, "Okay if [the Intelligent Designer] is the God of the Bible, I want to talk about evil and suffering, free will and predestination, the mathematical absurdity of the Trinity." These are questions that many Christians prefer never to deal with.

Ross loves such questions from secularists because in asking them they recognize that these traditional "hard" questions are truly important. The article echoes a similar view from Phillip Johnson: "One of the reasons why Christianity has no intellectual standing in the universities is because it has been running away from issues." But, the article goes on to say that "This may be about to change."

* Robert Vander Vennen

Websites

The Design Debate: http://www.christianity.net/bc/8B5/8B5034.html

Interview with John Polkinghorne: http://www.christianity.net/bc/8B5/8B5030.html

New ASA Email Address

The new computer equipment at the Ipswich office is accompanied by a new ASA email address:

asa@asa3.org

asa3.org is our new domain name. You can also send to individuals:

don@asa3.org carol@asa3.org lyn@asa3.org frances@asa3.org jack@asa3.org

Tjeltveit's New Book

by Alan Tjeltveit

Ethics and Values in Psychotherapy, Alan C. Tjeltveit, Routledge, 1999, 352 pp. (www.routledge-ny.com; tel: 1-800-634-7064).

Psychotherapists often contend that therapy is based on science and is value-free. With the recognition that therapy is not value-free and that science alone cannot provide ethical answers to the ethical questions raised within therapy, therapists and others in society need to give careful consideration to the ways in which therapy is value-laden, to its ethical character.

The author examines how the ethical convictions of both therapist and client contribute to therapy, addressing therapy goals and outcomes, some ethical dimensions of therapy's intellectual and social contexts, the contributions and limitations of scientific psychology to an understanding of therapy values, the therapist's role as ethicist, and the role of therapy in society. The book argues that a comprehensive examination of the ethical dimensions of therapy in American society must include religious issues.

The author earned an M.A. in theology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary, serves on the editorial boards of two theoretical psychology journals, and works in a scientifically-oriented psychology department. He is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, PA; tel.: (484) 664-3421; fax: (484) 664-3234; e-mail: tjelt@muhlenberg.edu;
web: http://hal.muhlberg.edu/depts/psychology/faculty.htm#alan

Gould Gets Gaudy: ASAer Cites ASA in Science

John Wiester writes:

I was reading through the latest letters to the editor in Science (30 July 1999) when I came across the following phrase in an article criticizing Stephen Jay Gould for his usual scientistic putdown of theism: "the confidence expressed in any scientific conclusion should be directly proportional to the quantity and quality of evidence for that conclusion." It sounded so right and also familiar. Then I saw it was referenced to the ASA book, Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy. It even had ASA's location in Ipswich, MA. In any event, for the record, the brilliant quote came from the pen of co-author Walter Hearn. How delightful to find it quoted in Science.

The letter was by Kenell Touryan, who responded to an effusive homily to Darwinian religion and a gaudy condescension to you-know-which alternative by Gould ("Darwin's More Stately Mansion," Science, 25 JUN 99, p.2087), who offered "three principles that might guide our pastoral efforts: (i) Evolution is true - and the truth can only make us free. (ii) Evolution liberates the human spirit. º (iii) [Evolution] beats any myth of human origins by light-years."

Touryan pointed out what Gould made obvious: "It is amusing to see how quickly evolutionists fall into the trap of scientism (which is religiosity) º " Touryan and fellow physicists, in contrast to Gould's "visceral demotion of Homo Sapiens" - a phrase he borrowed from Sigmund Freud - they see "intelligent design everywhere in nature," and instead of seeing humanity as a little higher than the apes, we are made "a little lower than the angels," quoting Psalm 8.

In another publication, Wiester has joined Robert DeHaan in writing "The Cambrian Explosion: The Fossil Record & Intelligent Design," in the July/August 1999 issue of Touchstone. Their essay denies the claim "that natural selection provides the sole organizing principle in the history of life and especially in the formation of major innovations" It instead asserts "the necessity of intelligent design in any plausible account of major innovations." Their support (as the title suggests) is drawn from the geologically brief Cambrian period in the fossil record (of 5 to 10 million years), when nearly all the major animal phyla burst on the scene. "Each of the fifty Cambrian animal types can be identified by its unique body plan." The argument proceeds to show how the fossil evidence from this period contradicts Darwinian theory and some of its predictions. The article ends by echoing the theme of Wiester's presentation at ASA97:

The theory of Darwinian evolution is no more impregnable than the old geosynclinal theory of mountain formation. The theory of intelligent design, with its new perspective on design in biology, is destined to replace Darwin's mechanism of natural selection. º This will radically alter Western culture's outlook not only on science, but also on the very nature of reality.

The key challenge for Intelligent Design is to provide a well-developed alternative theory. The article provides four features of such a proto-theory in accord with the Cambrian-era evidence.

* Ken Touryan, John Wiester

NCSE Taken Too Seriously

One of the marginal benefits of attending ASA Annual Meetings (in Massachusetts next year) is the variety of literature one can accumulate there. One truly marginal piece offered at a couple of past Meetings is the Editor's parody on his own ASA/CSCA Newsletter, the "Loseletter." Well, the Loseletter has been far-fetched enough to ward off anyone mistaking it for a serious expression of anything, but that was not so for a couple of articles published in the NCSE Reports. One of them, filed in Lawrence, Kansas, was titled, "Flat Earth Theory Should be Taught in Schools, New Group Says" (March/April 1999, p. 31). The article appears realistic enough, replete with a website address for the new Families for Learning Accurate Theories (FLAT) organization.

The Editor commends the new NCSE Reports Editor Andrew J. Petto (editor@natcenscied.org) and Publisher Eugenie C. Scott for the judicious exercise of humor to occasionally lighten up an otherwise seriously controversial subject-matter.

NCSE (www.natcenscied.org) is a pro-evolution state-education watchdog group whose views on the creation-evolution controversy sometimes converge with and at other times diverge from views of ASAers. In the same issue, NCSE (seriously) reviews Bill Dembski's new book, The Design Inference, acknowledging that "Dembski employs clear writing, illustrative examples, and cogent argumentation. The work though is motivated and informed by an anti-evolutionary impulse, and its flaws appear to follow from the need to achieve a particular religious aim." The Editor's discussions with Dembski suggest instead that, though one's worldview underlies all efforts at explaining the creation, including Dembski's, he and other members of the Intelligent Design movement are interested in fresh approaches to origins issues - new thinking in what is otherwise a stagnated paradigm. For more on TDI, see the Discovery Institute's website: www.discovery.org/fellows/design.html. Wesley R. Elsberry of Texas A&M U. wrote the review. See the expanded version of it at:

http://inia.cis.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html. For more on Dembski's work, see U. of Texas philosopher Rob Koons' website at: www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/ntse/papers/Dembski.html.

Doings of ASAers

David Bourell of the school of engineering at the U. of Texas at Austin (www.engr.utexas.edu) received a Lockheed award for excellence in engineering teaching. Bourell is Templeton Foundation professor of mechanical engineering and a researcher with UT's Texas Materials Institute. During his 20-year tenure at UT, he has received three major teaching awards and has 14 patents in selective laser sintering.

The UT Engineering News announcement gave more insight into this ASAer's teaching style:

Bourell often brings in hands-on examples of his research to class. That combined with his easy-going, humorous personality are integral to his success in the classroom, a success evidenced not only by his latest teaching award but also by comments he receives on his student surveys. "Awesome and interesting," "genuinely cares about his students," and "the best teacher I have ever had at The University" are typical comments.

Bourell elaborates about the importance of real-life examples to teach abstract topics such as the mechanical behavior of materials: "For instance, if we're talking about fatigue, I'll bring in a big chunk of propeller that broke when somebody was flying. Then I'll jump into a total mathematical treatment of it." Engineering Dean Ben Streetman regards Bourell as an excellent example of why there is no conflict between teaching and research. Were it not for his high-school counselor in Dallas, however, Bourell would have majored in music; he was a Texas High School All-State Orchestra member and now plays bass guitar in a band. After Texas A&M, Bourell did his graduate work at Stanford U. in materials science. What Bourell enjoys most about teaching is what he can contribute to the lives of others - like the letter from a former student, who said: "I used something today in my job that you taught me." * Michelle Gilson

New ASAer Anne Douglas joined the Ursuline College faculty in Cleveland, OH. Anne is an organic chemist finishing her Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve U., also in the Cleveland area. She plans to defend her thesis on Oct. 15. God bless the event, Anne! And about Ursuline College - it is a Catholic women's college.

Jack Irvine and his wife have finally, after ten years of retirement, actually "retired" to Pacific Grove, CA, on Love's Point, a half-block from the ocean. The Monterrey Aquarium is but a mile down the coast. Like the Ken Lincolns and Dave Coles, Jack's move out of the Bay area has "stimulated 'bees' in Walt Hearn's head" to consider as an option to Berkeley. But this migration, Jack notes, is depreciating the energy of the Bay Area local ASA section. (Who says retirees don't have energy?!) Jack asks that we pray for this section's future. Perhaps a Monterrey section will form, Jack muses.

Sherrie Steiner Aeschliman, a visiting assistant professor at Eastern College, was awarded the James Short Jr. Research Award at Washington State U. in May. She also has a publication coming out in vol. 8 of Advances in Human Ecology (JAI Press), titled "Transitional Adaptation." And in addition, she presented a paper at the American Sociological Assoc. meeting on ecologically-based social change.

Marc Horney has achieved the pinnacle of student accomplishment, a Ph.D. - in animal science from the U. of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is currently working for the U. of CA Cooperative Extension Service as a livestock and natural resources advisor in the Northern Sacramento Valley.

ASA99's keynote speaker, William Phillips appears, African-style, in "At NOBCChE, Chemists Look Beyond 2000: Annual conference calls for black professionals to be ready to face 'relentless change' in new millenium" in the May 3, 1999 C&EN (p. 47, 48). Phillips gave a talk on laser cooling at the conference, held in San Diego. In his humorous style, Phillips quipped that physicists who make measurements on atoms like to keep them apart. "If they are stuck on other atoms, that's what we call chemistry."

* Walt Hearn

Miriam Adeney is into missions, teaching "Anthropological Tools for Christian Missions" Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) in New Haven, CT Dec. 6-10. From Regent College in Vancouver, BC, she applies anthropological principles to cross-cultural mission. OMSC offers mission seminars and workshops for missionaries on furlough, overseas national church leaders, mission executives, pastors, educators, students, and lay leaders. Contact: OMSC, 490 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511-2196; tel. (203) 624-6672; email: live&learn@OMSC.org; web: www.OMSC.org.

V. Elving Anderson is now a retired genetics professor of the U. of MN and has hunted the genes for epilepsy. One of Elving's former students, Mark Leppert, mapped the gene to the long arm of chromosome 20. Elving's long career reaches back to his breast-cancer doctoral work, completed the same year that Watson and Crick published their double helix paper (1953). He reflects:

When I entered the field of genetics there was a sense of fatalism. If something was genetic, there was nothing you could do about it. Now we are concerned lest we change too much.

Anderson co-authored with Bruce Reichenbach the book, On Behalf of God: A Christian Ethic for Biology. The two authors see creation themes as very relevant for genetic questions. This was reported in the Inst. for Advanced Christian Studies (IFACS) Christians & Scholarship (Vol. 2, No. 1, SEP 98). Contact IFACS at: P.O. Box 44362, Madison, WI 53744-4362; tel.: (608) 274-3227; email: IFACS2@ibm.net

Bahrain ASAer Seeks Job

An unusual "person looking for a position" has arrived, from Dradel Budagher in Bahrain. He is presently a professor of mechanical engineering and member of the American Society of M.E.s, with a Ph.D. in 1989 from the U. of CA. He has not only academic teaching experience but also industrial development and management experience, in charge of a factory operation with 60 people in 1996. His areas of expertise are: vibration mechanisms, control and system dynamics, vehicle dynamics, stability simulations, flexible-rotor response and balancing, optimal control, structural dynamics, nonlinear systems, rotor dynamics, and torsional damping analysis. He has done diesel engine research. Contract Dradel at: P.O. Box 15277, Adlyia, Bahrain; tel. 276552; pager: 9371513