Re: On-line resources from the American Scientific Affiliation

Bob Carling (carling@tcp.co.uk)
Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:52:26 +0100 (BST)

Terry

Delighted to hear about this. When I get time, I will endeavour to put up
details of these files on the Christians in Science web pages. We have our
annual conference on Saturday this weekend, at which I shall be doing a
brief presentation about the CiS WWW pages - so your email comes at a very
apposite time.

Best wishes.

Bob Carling

At 17:50 30/09/96 -0400, Terry M. Gray wrote:
>The ASA (http://www.calvin.edu/chemistry/ASA/) via its web site at Calvin
>College will be making available on the Internet a series of papers on
>basic science/faith themes designed for the lay reader and students. These
>are meant to provide material relating aspects of science to the Christian
>faith to a broad audience. These articles are not meant to be just for
>scholars but for students, teachers, church leaders, and others who may be
>interested in these faith/science questions. In general, these articles
>further the aims of the ASA to educate readers in science and how to think
>Christianly about science. The ASA does not have official detailed
>positions on many issues and its membership holds a variety of viewpoints.
>The Statement of Belief of the ASA can be found at
>http://www.calvin.edu/chemistry/ASA/faithASA.html
>
>Some of these articles are reprints of already published materials--some of
>them have been written especially for this electronic resource. The ASA
>will continue its efforts to provide electronic versions of some articles
>from Perspectives on Science and Christian Belief
>(http://www.calvin.edu/chemistry/ASA/PSCF.html) An index of what is
>presently available can be found at
>http://www.calvin.edu/chemistry/ASA/papers.html
>
>The first one to be made available is a reprint from the May 1995 issue of
>Christian Scholar's Review entitled The Antiquity and the Unity of the
>Human Race Revisited written by Davis Young at Calvin College. The article
>can be found at http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/CSRYoung.html
>
>The abstract of the article is
>
>If the data in Genesis 4 are correlated with the cultural setting of the
> Neolithic Revolution in the ancient Near East about 8000 to 7500
> B.C., then the biblical representation of Adam as Cain's immediate
> father suggests that Adam and Eve lived only about 10,000 years ago.
> The fossil record of anatomically modern humans, however, extends
> at least 100,000 years before the present. There are at least three
> solutions to this dilemma. All three alternative solutions pose
> difficult exegetical or theological challenges that result either in a
> refinement of the doctrine of original sin or a significant departure
> from traditional historical readings of Genesis 2-4. Davis A.
> Young, professor of geology at Calvin College, Grand Rapids,
> Michigan, examines and evaluates these solutions from both a
> scientific and biblical-theological perspective.
>
>The second article will be posted shortly. It is especially written for
>this electronic resource and is entitled Radiometric Dating: A Christian
>Perspective by Roger Wiens of the Caltech Geological & Planetary Sciences
>Division.
>
>The abstract of this article is
>
>Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from
> the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use
> for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each
> using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring
> them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating
> techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent
> picture in which the earth was created a very long time ago. Many
> Christians are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory
> measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent, and
> they are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among
> those actively involved in radiometric dating. This paper describes in
> relatively simple terms how some dating techniques work, how
> accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock
> dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one
> another. In the process the paper refutes some misconceptions
> prevalent among Christians today. God has called us to be "wise as
> serpents" even in this scientific age. This paper is put out by the
> American Scientific Affiliation and the Affiliation of Christian
> Geologists to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this
> issue within the Christian community.
>
>Please pass the addresses of these articles on to interested parties far
>and wide, especially to educators and church leaders who may not be hearing
>a very representative set of viewpoints on these subjects. Of course, the
>various email discussion groups receiving this message may want to use
>these articles as an opportunity to discuss some of these topics (again!).
>Feel free to forward this message to other groups interested in
>faith/science issues.
>
>Terry M. Gray
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
>Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
>Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
>Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt
>
>*This mission critical message was written on a Macintosh with Eudora Pro*
>
>A special message for Macintosh naysayers:
> http://www.macworld.com/pages/july.96/Column.2204.html
>
>
>
>
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Dr R.C.J. Carling, Senior Editor, Life Sciences
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