We've heard "Like father, like son," but how about, "Like mother, like daughter"? The ASA has more than one mother-daughter pair in science, but Betty Juergensmeyer and daughter Margie are the first to be interviewed in the Newsletter. Responses are edited for brevity.

Margie: Gravitational physiology, also called space biology. This is the study of any Earth organism, whenever it is off the Earth. This is opposed to exobiology or astrobiology, the study of a non-Earth organism.

Recently, I finished my Ph.D. and am working on two main projects. The first is an investigation of the plastid-cytoskeleton interface. I was curious as to how the chloroplast moves within the plant cell. I used an antibody developed in our lab [at Kansas State U.] to characterize the position of actin and myosin on the surface of the plastid, and to determine which one was attached to the plastid envelope. (Actin was.)

The second project was the one on which my mother and I collaborated. We were examining the ability of bacteria to become more resistant to antibiotics in space. We designed experiments to fly on the Space Shuttle and Mir, and examined the changes in antibiotic resistance capabilities in bacteria exposed to a lack of gravity.

Betty: I am a biologist who teaches at Judson C., a Christian college affiliated with the American Baptist Convention. Judson has only undergraduate students and my major responsibility is teaching. But those of us in science at Judson don't think we can teach science effectively unless we do science, so I maintain a small research project. Early on, I did some of that work from my home.

My doctorate was in protozoan genetics, but very few students were interested in it. I decided to change fields at the time Rolf Myhrman was beginning to work on velvet beans that led to the World Hunger Research Center (WHRC) at Judson last spring. I started looking for appropriate projects in that context.

In the fall of 1994, I was in bed with the flu and burned out with teaching when Margie called to ask if I would like to work with her in designing a Space Shuttle experiment. It would have been easy to say no, but sometimes God opens doors and blesses you greatly if you manage to fall or stagger through them. The project led to three experiments on Shuttle flights and two on Mir. Working with Margie has been one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. My energy and enthusiasm have both increased by quantum leaps. There is one more experiment we would like to run, and I am working on that design this summer.

WHRC provides technical expertise to missionaries and agricultural workers in less-developed countries. Martin Price of ECHO [Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, Ft. Myers, FL; www.xc.org/echo] suggested a project of seeing whether B. Thurengiensus, a bacterium that makes a natural insecticide, can be grown in coconuts for easy and cheap access to people in the tropics. I have had a student working on that project for the last year. I would be delighted to find more projects that could use the attention of a microbiologist.

Betty: Maybe I became interested the first time my father, Ralph Bogart, took me to his lab as an infant. He was working on the genetics of livestock and physiology of reproduction. He was also one of my strongest mentors in science, in being a good human being and in faith. My first paying job was in my father's lab, at the age of 14. I worked in his lab every summer until I graduated from Oregon State U. in 1958.

While I was an undergraduate, my mother asked me to consider high-school teaching as a career. She was afraid, from her own experience, that college work was not a practical choice for a woman. I tried the education program for one semester and hated it. I went back to my zoology undergraduate major and then to the U. of Illinois for my M.S. in zoology and Ph.D. in cell biology.

Margie: I have been interested in science for as long as I can remember. I literally grew up in mom's lab, and one of my earliest memories is playing with her teaching equipment. My sister and I used to fight over the privilege of feeding mom's experimental protozoans, and we only got kicked out of the lab when the students were taking a test and needed quiet.

Margie: My biggest goal is to become a [NASA] Mission Specialist. My one experience with discernable microgravity was a lot of fun, and I think I'd enjoy the space environment.

Betty: The one long-term goal I have is to see the WHRC survive past Rolf's and my retirement. I really think there is a place for a group that can respond quickly to needs of workers in the field without having to be constrained by work descriptions from a grant.

Betty: I grew up in a devout family and have been active in church all my life. However, I probably come from a more theologically liberal perspective than many members of ASA. There was never any conflict between doing science and having a biblical faith because faith dealt with questions of who and why and science dealt with how. Since I grew up in a college town, many of my Sunday-school teachers were also college professors or spouses. They did not see any reason why they had to choose one or the other, so neither did I.

My father was one of my major mentors, and his theology was, perhaps, not the average, but he was sincere in his commitment to Jesus Christ and to a life of the highest ethical standard. My love for my father and his quirky views has certainly influenced my ability to see beyond theological "correctness" to the heart and the love of the person who holds those views.

When I went to Oregon State, I was richly blessed by the two men who led the Westminister House there. Both were scholars committed to the Lord, and both became seminary professors. Our community met for devotions daily. In addition, OSU had two devoted Christians in the Dept. of Religion & Philosophy who participated at Westminister House.

At Judson, I must continually interact with young people who are meeting different views on scriptural interpretation for the first time, who have been told that they don't even "interpret" scripture. I find that I have a major task just convincing some students that I can hold a different view of scripture than they do and still call myself Christian.

I have been profoundly influenced by John Wesley's quadrilateral - using scripture, reason, church history, and the working of the Holy Spirit - and Richard Bube's diagram of science and theology. We are all trying to learn more about God but the methodology differs. In science I see God as Creator and in scriptures, as Redeemer. What greater harmony can there be?

Margie: I have never found anything disharmonious about science and God. God has given me a brain; it would be profoundly ungrateful of me not to use it. To me, science - the act of understanding and appreciating the world God has made - is an act of worship.

I believe it was Einstein who said, "God is in the details." I find this to be true, because the more I see of the perfection of the natural world, the more I am convinced of the perfection of God.

Margie: While science has made great strides toward gender equality, there will always be those who believe that the other gender is inferior. Women working in science (and men, too) need to keep several things in mind: 1) There will always be idiots; 2) Don't work for someone who cannot see you as a unique person, with desires and goals and feelings; 3) If someone tells you it can't be done, they're probably wrong. If someone tells you that you can't do it, they're definitely wrong; 4) If you don't love your job, find something else that you do love, even if it pays less; 5) Don't become a woman who hates all men either; most men are wonderful people too.

Betty: I think the lack of Christian women in science has two root causes: 1) the problem of balancing career and family, including the concerns for child care, and 2) the hostility, or at least lack of enthusiasm, of the Church toward science.

Women are taught that they have the major responsibility for child care, but why does society consider it acceptable for a father to spend 80 hours a week on his career, leaving his wife and children to function without him? Yes, single parents can do a great job raising their children, but I believe that having both parents is the best situation. My father was "daddy" to me, and when Jesus was on the cross, he called not to the great omnipotent, distant father, but to "daddy."

In our society, we [women] should have more choices about how to structure our family. Instead, we have people telling us that we need to have a career to be complete, and other telling us we need to be at home with our children to raise them properly. I think a couple needs to have a great deal of open discussion about children, careers and alternatives. And the alternatives are not stay-at-home mom versus career mom.

My husband and I agreed that, since we were both gone during the day, one of us should be at home in the evenings with the kids. What I did not realize was that, as a lawyer, he was the one who always had evening meetings. I finally got back to singing in the church choir by taking the kids with me to rehearsal. And you would be amazed what it does to choir rehearsal for Margie to come running in, yelling, "Fran fell down and hurt herself, and there's blood all over." I think the choir director led the charge.

There is no one answer. Margie's husband, Brian, is a computer programmer who can telecommute. He may turn out to be the "house husband."

I had a role model in my mother for being involved with family while also having a career. My mother always had time for me and my friends. As a child, I was proud that my mother worked, made a contribution to society, and had time for kids. Other mothers might not work outside the home, but they were too busy with social lives to have time for their kids. Both my parents attended every game, concert, play or other public event at school whether I participated or not; they thought the other kids needed their support too.

I think I'm rambling here, but the point is that people need to decide what their values are and where they will spend their time.

The second problem for Christian women (and men) entering science is the antipathy, if not hostility, the Church has towards a venture that could not have happened without it. The Church encourages people to serve other people, which is admirable. But most of the students who come to Judson C. interested in science think medicine is their only option. I think some people in the church are uncomfortable with questioning and doubting, but that attitude prevents full growth and development of a Christian. Yes, I have doubts. I hope I'll always have questions. But I can use them to turn to the scriptures and to prayer and enrich my relationship with God. It is not comfortable, it takes time and work, but I am the better for it.

Second, I think scientists have done us a bad turn by projecting the idea that science has all the answers. I have met the attitude that "When you become a real scientist, you won't have to have all this religion nonsense." It is strange that someone who considers themselves open to new ideas and questions can block themselves off from one part of life.

And we often fail young people who ask questions and get pushed away. I had the blessing of being at Westminister House with strong mentors from on and off campus. I could ask questions and get directions toward answers. I think that we who are members of ASA have a responsibility to counteract this problem. We need to get the Church to see that science is a valid activity that can lead to a stronger faith. We need to get the Church to appreciate both the creation and the Creator, and we need to demonstrate that the use of logic and brain power does not mean an end to faith.

Margie: Growing up in mom's lab, I got to spend a lot of time working with bacteria. I always enjoyed it. Mom never pushed me in any direction; she mostly encouraged me to decide for myself which areas I enjoyed. She did think I was a little weird for choosing space biology. (Her words were that I'd "been watching too much Star Trek.") But she's always been supportive.

Margie: Working with a parent does differ somewhat from working with other colleagues. For example, I have never discussed my research with my major professor while mopping his kitchen floor or bathing his dogs. However, one of the biggest advantages to working with my mother is that we've already got excellent communication established. I don't have to worry about her changing the focus of research halfway through, or not asking questions if she's unclear about my ideas. We already know each other well enough to share the work equally, and not to worry about "did my partner do what she promised? Should I check to be sure?" Before we even started the research we knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, and knew that we could work together as full partners - a distinct advantage because there's nothing worse than being forced to take up the slack from a non-productive team member.

Betty: My goal for both Margie and Fran was for them to become independent, responsible individuals who were competent in a profession they love. So being able to relate to them as two equal adults has been a true joy. Margie and I made that switch while she was still in high school.

Working with Margie on the research project - we are alike in our approach to laboratory work; we are both terminally organized. When we went to [Cape Canaveral] Florida with experiments, we had to take everything with us and never had a problem with missing items. Using our differences has also been valuable. She thinks in terms of protein synthesis; I think about DNA. Being able to work with Margie as two equal scientists (co-principal investigators) has been wonderful. I am blessed that she has chosen to share her [space program] interests with me.

Betty: My husband has always supported my desire to work outside the home and to do science - as long as I also do everything his mother did in the home. John has greatly supported the project Margie and I shared, especially since he got to go to Florida with us for the launches. I think he is quite proud of us, even though he doesn't really understand the rigors of doing science. As an attorney, he knows how carefully he has to prepare his legal cases, but somehow he doesn't carry that over º to science.

Brian, Margie's husband, is very supportive of her work. As a microbiology/computer-science major in college, he has a better understanding of what we are doing. As Margie looks for a job, he is the mobile [telecommuting] person.

Margie: My father is a lawyer, and doesn't really understand science. However, he loves to be outdoors, and gave me a lot of early encouragement. He showed me the best way for a non-scientific parent to encourage a kid to love science: take the kid anywhere - park, beach, zoo, backyard, aquarium - show them something, and say "Look at this! Isn't this neat? It's a ________, and it can ________."

  for Dodge Dartre

Author unknown * Ken Feucht

Ted Davis is an ASA historian of science who has brought back into print a major work by one of the most significant contributors to the rise of modern science, Robert Boyle. The treatise by Boyle is A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly [Popularly] Received Notion of Nature. Cambridge U. Press has published it (1996) as edited by Edward B. Davis and Michael Hunter.

Ted says that "The deep issues related to God's ongoing relationship with the creation - ordinary concourse, sustaining, foreknowledge, etc. - are deeply explored in Boyle's treatise ..." Boyle notes that nature is not a biblical word or concept.

Boyle's relevance today is echoed by Davis on such issues as Intelligent Design: "in places Boyle sounds just like Howard Van Till, in others like Phil Johnson." The book is being reprinted at Davis's urging for the sole reason that it is so relevant to contemporary theological discussions about science.

James Houston said of the treatise: "Boyle's attack on the deification of such concepts as nature, unique in the history of English literature for its extent and explicitness, is consistent with our needs today." (from I Believe in the Creator, p. 36)

For a quick read, Ted recommends the introduction (by the editors), main body: pp. 3-4, 9-17, 19-30, 38-40 (Van Till speaks?), 50-53, 58-60, 62-63 (Johnson speaks?) and 157-163. 
* Ted Davis

"Ethical behavior is no longer about what you do, but how you look while you're doing it." Utah law professor Glen Reynolds

ASA's website manager, Terry Gray, was cited in the Philadelphia Inquirer (www.phillynews.com/inquirer/98/Jun/07/lifestyle/BEHE07.htm). In the June 7 article, titled "His work is a nucleus of science-faith debates," staff writer Frank Wilson covers the interaction of science and religion nowadays, with emphasis upon Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box.

Deep into the article, Gray is cited as disputing that irreducible complexity clearly implies design. Gray is quoted as saying in a phone interview that Behe's model of an unevolving cell implies "an interruption of God's normal operation. While I don't deny that as a possibility, I don't know that that's the ordinary way He operates."

Terry said further that "What I want to advocate is that God is intimately involved all along the way, but that he operates in such a way that there is a regularity and pattern accessible to scientific analysis that most observers would regard as a purely natural process."

An ASA Website article is referenced in the newspaper article (http://asa.calvin.edu/evolution/irred compl.html). Gray says Behe is "correct º that little is known for certain and in much detail and that there is little in the professional literature" on the subject. But, he says, "there are a lot of comparative studies serving to support evolutionary hypotheses."

In the next week's column, the Inquirer planned to talk with John Polkinghorne.

Raconteur extraordinaire, Calvin B. DeWitt, tells the story of his home township, Dunn, Wisconsin, in Christianity Today, June 15, 1998, pp. 33-37, in the article, "God's Green Acres." Cal told this fascinating story at ASA93 in Seattle. In summing up, writer Tim Stafford states:

DeWitt really thinks we can find common ground between environmental concerns and humanity's needs when we experience the creation (as distinct from arguing about it). That's why, in his university classroom [at U. of WI-Madison], his chief objectives are "awe and wonder" and "developing community." º Through the long, ongoing process of figuring out how to care for Dunn and to keep it, they [Dunn's citizens] came to know and value each other.

Chemist Enno Wolthius is seen next to a prototype vernonia-seed cooker, to be used in Kenya. Shown in the Calvin College parking lot is the big solar cooker, in a Calvin C. Connection article (Fall 1997). Vernonia is a thistle that grows in arid regions near the equator, and contains a marketable oil. The engineering project's contraption both separates the seeds from the plant and rids the seeds of an enzyme that would otherwise spoil the seed mix. The process requires heating the seed to more than 150 ƒ F. The giant cooker contains copper tubes inlaid in aluminum, surrounded by insulation and under glass. Solar-heated water then travels up to a 55 gallon drum where it cooks the seeds. The cooked seeds are then pressed to extract the oil. The cake that is left can be used for livestock food.

The cooker was designed by Calvin engineering prof. emeritus Jim Bosscher for the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. * Don DeGraaf

Richard Bube is just possibly ASA's tallest member. But 6 ft., 7 in. has its disadvantages - to one's back, hip and knee joints - which has limited Dick's ability to travel, though he had been a frequent attendee of ASA events.

Dick has now been an Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford U. for six years, yet remains active in the department. With seven books on scientific topics and six relating science to Christian faith, yet another book, Photovoltaic Materials, was published in June 1988 by Imperial College Press, London, and World Scientific Publication, Singapore. In autumn of 1998, Dick taught photovoltaics, the conversion of light to electricity.

Dick has also been communicating the issues of sci/Xny to a Chinese student group at Stanford, wrote an invited commentary chapter on "Where Do We Go From Here?" for Maker of Heaven and Earth: Three Views on the Creation/Evolution Controversy, for Zondervan Press (to be out in 1999) and talked on the same subject to a L'Abri group in May. Continuing his international involvement, he contributed an invited paper, "Can Science Dispense with Religion?," to be published by the Inst. for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran, Iran.

Dick 's book, Putting It All Together, which had been offered by ASA (until we ran out), was the text for an adult education class at three local churches and will be used in a Stanford sophomore seminar in winter 1999.

What is Dick working on now, you might wonder. Another book, of course! He is working on the manuscript, "A Changeless Gospel in a Changing World," which he used to teach in five different local church classes.