NEWSLETTER

of the

American Scientific Affiliation & Canadian Scientific Christian Affiliation

VOLUME 31 NUMBER 2                                                                             APRIl/MAY 1989

NEWSLETTER of the ASA/CSCA is published bi-monthly for its membership by the American Scientific Affiliation, 55 Market St., Ipswich, MA 01938 (U.S.A.). Tel. 508-356-5656. Information for the Newsletter may be sent to the Editor: Dr. Walter R. Heam, 762 Arlington Ave., Berkeley, CA 94707. Q 1989 American Scientific Affiliation (except previously published material). All rights Reserved.
[Editor: Dr. Walter R. Hearn/Production: Nancy C. Hanger]

TAKING STOCK

The inauguration of G. H.W. Bush as President of the U.S. of A. was a reminder that our Affiliations hold elections but not inaugurations.
Without divisive campaigns, there's no need to reunite ASA or CSCA in ritual reaffirmation of our basic unity. Our commitment to Jesus
Christ should keep us "kinder and gentler" as we sort out any disagreements.

On the other hand, reviewing our common task and assessing "the state of our Affiliations" regularly makes sense. ASA's 1988 Annual Report did a good job of that, with messages from outgoing ASA president Charles Hummel, CSCA Council chair Robert VanderVennen, and ASA executive director Robert Herrmann, plus reports from editors, committees, commissions, and various people in charge of various projects.

The financial reports remind us that we are long-term investors. We put a portion of our individual incomes as well as our lives into the dual task of representing science to the Christian community and presenting the gospel to our scientific colleagues. According to the 1988 Annual Report, we're making a sound investment.

DATA BASE (ALMOST) READY ALREADY

Not long after reading Paul Arveson's report in the ASA Annual Report, we received a mailer containing dim 5-inch floppy disks for review and suggestions for revisions. An instruction sheet introduced Version 1 of the data base program (PC File + copyright Jim Button), utilities, and data for a keyword-based index to the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (now Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith). The data base. contains citations for all articles and most letters and communications for volumes 1-40.

The file READ.ME on the utilities disk produces a 25-page manual before running the program. You can also print out the list of 650 keywords in KEYS.001 and 90 subject disciplines in DISCIP`L-001 to aid your searches.

To do all that stuff, of course, you need a computer that runs IBMDOS programs-which everybody but the Newsletter editor seems to have. Copies will be available from the Ipswich office within the next few months ($20 postpaid for the entire set). Or, for a "review copy" (with the promise that you'll send in suggestions for changes to Version I ASAP) contact: Paul Arveson, 10205 Folk St., Silver Spring, MD 20902. While you're at it, thank Paul and ASA's Computer Applications Committee for taking on this huge task and doing it so efficiently.

MORE TO COME: SPRING 1989

Revision of Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy has taken longer than expected, but the Committee for Integrity in Science Education is still promising a third printing "this spring"---possibly by the time you're reading this.

Another ASA publication awaited each spring is the Call for Papers for the upcoming ASA ANNUAL MEETING, to be held this year on AUGUST 4-7 at INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY in MARION, INDIANA. While awaiting the Call, though, you can be getting your thoughts on paper-or, more likely, into your computer. Papers on the general theme of "Bioethics" are especially welcome this year. But any ASA/CSCA member can contribute a paper on any subject relating science and faith.

MORE TO COME: SUMMER 1989

We can promise that the 1989 ANNUAL MEETING will be both intellectually stimulating and spiritually challenging. Bioethics is recognized as an area where scientists and religious people must work together. The ANNUAL MEETING will enable you to tune in to various facets of a fast-moving field.

The latest volume (13) of the Bibliography of Bioethics, edited by LeRoy Walters & Tamar Joy Kahn, contains 2,250 entries. Over 1,700 entries cite material published since 1984. This 519-page volume, containing abstracts for the 94 court decisions cited and for some 300 other entries, was published in 1987 by the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, associated with Georgetown University (Washington, DC 20057. $35).

An entire institution devoted to bioethics is The Hastings Center (265 Elm Road, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510), known before 1985 as the Institute of Society, Ethics, & the Life Sciences. Its investigations of everything from reproductive technologies to the care of the aging


and dying are published in the Hastings Center Report and occasional books. Over 11,000 associate members support the independent Center with their annual dues ($42; students, seniors, $35).

Almost daily, biomedical news stories reinforce the importance of the 1989 ASA ANNUAL MEETING theme. A proposal for the first transfer of a foreign gene into humans (by W. French Anderson and other NIH scientists) has been scrutinized by NIH for over seven months. Although it will not be "gene therapy," the experiment will test techniques that could later be used to correct genetic diseases. In January the experiment was finally approved by both NIH director James B. Wyngaarden and the Food & Drug Administration.

OUR MAN IN MEDICAL POLITICS

A SA member Frank E. Young, M.D., formerly on the faculty of the U. of Rochester Medical School, served as Commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) under the Reagan administration. FDA is a regulatory agency in the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). The HHS agency more familiar to scientists because of its research support function is NIH (National Institutes of Health) of the U.S. Public Health Service.

We've heard that after President Bush appointed Louis Sullivan to be his Secretary of HHS, one of Sullivan's first major personnel decisions was to ask Frank Young to stay on at FDA. Further, Sullivan asked Young to head the HHS transition team to fill other positions throughout the department. That was an interesting development, since NIH and FDA have not always seen public health issues in the same light. The press has reported a growing hubbub over approval of new drugs to fight AIDS and cancer. Evidently FDA's cautious guidelines for conducting clinical trials sometimes frustrate NIH researchers.

(We're not up on government gossip, but a Washington-based newsletter called F-D-C Reports seems to be. Known in the food-drug-cosmetic trade as "The Pink Sheet," that's where Jack Haynes of Nanuet, New York, spotted the news item about Frank Young. Ed.)

GOD, DARWIN9 & DINOSAURS

An hour-long NOVA program on the controversy over teaching evolution in public schools aired on PBS TV in February. Called "God, Darwin, and the Dinosaurs," it did a good job of sorting out various layers of the controversy, with the help of Ed Larson of the U. of Georgia, author of Trial and Error, who appeared on camera at length. Biologist Douglas Futuyma, philosopher Michael Ruse, anthropologist Vincent Sarich, and science teacher Ronnie Hastings calmly presented arguments against "scientific creationism," which was defended by Henry Morris and Duane Gish of ICR.

Bits of a Sarich-Gish debate before a largely Mennonite audience (judging by the women's "coverings") were treated with remarkable even-handedness. We can hardly wait to see how the militant attackers and defenders of evolution will review this program (having read their reviews of ASA's attempts to be even-handed.-Ed.) A transcript is available for $5 from NOVA Transcripts, P.O. Box 322, Boston, MA 02134 (mention the program's title).

Showing a videotape of this program would be an excellent way for an ASA/CSCA local section to preface a significant discussion. Without the usual ad hominem arguments, the program raised serious philosophical questions about science, religion, facts, theories, beliefs, etc. Focusing on problems faced by local school boards, it profiled a respected teacher who has taught "scientific creationism" for years in Twin Falls, Idaho.

What we saw was an enduring need for the witness of ASA and CSCA. Besides young-earthers Morris and Gish, NOVA flashed on TV evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell to represent Christian theism. As a step toward resolution, NOVA had a Methodist minister in Twin Falls speak up for evolution in the schools, balancing a scene in which he taught children in his church about God as Creator. But where were the scientists who take evolution seriously, yet speak as committed Christians with an (adult) appreciation of the doctrine of creation? Where was ASA's middle position?

SPEAKING OUT

To our earlier mention of cover stories on science/faith issues in Christianity Today and (now defunct) Eternity magazines, add the cover story of the Sept 1988 Moody Monthly. Thomas E. Woodward's "Doubts About Darwin" was accompanied by an analysis of the June 1987 Supreme Court decision on the Louisiana case, "Balance Without the Bar," by Jon Buell of the Foundation for Thought & Ethics and Michael Woodruff of the Christian Legal Society.

In his 5-pager, Tom cited Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History, Michael Denton (author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis), and other scientists, with particular emphasis on the theme of The Mystery of Life's Origin by Charles Thaxion, Wafter-Dredley, and Roger Olsen. Tom also contributed a small side-bar, "Signature of Intelligence," on how scientists expect to recognize intelligent programming in SETI (Search for Extra-Ten-restrial Intelligence).

Tom Woodward, a former missionary to the Dominican Republic, now teaches at Trinity College in Florida. He directs the C.S. Lewis Fellowship, a component of Trinity's Center for University Ministries. 'Me Center seeks to stimulate and equip Christians (especially overseas) to "engage the leaders of thought and research in their societies in friendly dialogue with the aim of presenting the gospel and making disciples among them."

 Tom has a degree in Latin American history from Princeton University (where he became a Christian) and a degree from Dallas Seminary.

As an alumnus, Tom has encouraged a number of Princeton faculty members to read The Mystery of Life's Origin. At the invitation of several sympathetic professors, Mystery author Charles Thaxton spoke on the Princeton campus in December 1988, giving a well-attended public lecture at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Public & International Affairs. Charlie pressed home the argument he defended last June at the ASA-sponsored Tacoma conference on DNA id6nnation sources: that "intelligent cause" has a legitimate role in science, not just in metaphysics or religion.

ASA members are speaking out effectively. Last summer an excellent call for "a respectful analysis of the basic presuppositional states of each party" in the public debate came from Taylor University biologist Andrew P. Whipple. Andy's thoughts were published in a letter to Nature (Vol. 333, 9 June 1988, p. 492). Andy argued that the evolutionary controversy takes place against a clash between theistic and naturalistic worldviews. His letter drew a response from Emile Zuckerkandl of California (4 Aug 1988), who argued that theism is set against materialism, whereas naturalism (which to him recognizes a spiritual domain, such as mind, while excluding the supernatural) is a third, intermediate position. Then Aziz Islam of Australia jumped in (29 Dec 1988), to the effect that Zuckerkandl's philosophical position is intermediate between science and religion but blurs the boundaries. Good exchange.

Andy Whipple attended the January meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco, a joint meeting with the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. He and the two Taylor students he brought with him heard Newsletter editor Walter Hearn speak at a breakfast meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Biochemists. Local ASAers Scott

Moor and Ken Olson were among the 35 or so in attendance. Mildred Carlson didn't make it because of transportation problems, according to one of her colleagues from Des Moines. Grad student Dan Diaz of Case Western Reserve missed the FCB breakfast but dropped in on the Newsletter office in Berkeley later in the week.

FCB organizer Durwood Ray had asked Wait to respond to the idea that evolutionary scientists cannot be committed Christians, a charge made on several occasions by William Provine of Cornell. Walt argued that members of FCB and ASA refute that charge simply by doing good work and living according to I Peter 3. Walt quoted some excerpts from the Living Bible paraphrase:

"Don't repay evil for evil. Don't snap back at those who say unkind things about you. Instead, pray for God's help for them... Quietly trust yourself to Christ your Lord and if anybody asks why you believe as you do, be ready to tell them, and do it in a gentle and respectful way" (vv. 9, 15).

BULLETIN BOARD

- A seminar on creation and evolution, "Dice or Deity? How Did We Get Here?," will be held April 7-9 at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. Each of the three speakers has a doctorate in science from Cornell University and a master's in theology from Biblical Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. Each is also an ASA member: Robert Newman of Biblical Seminary, Perry Phillips of Pinebrook Junior College, and John Bloom of Ursinus College. For registration information, contact Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute (P.O. Box 423, Hatfield, PA 19440).

- C. Gordon Winder, emeritus professor of geology at the U. of Western Ontario in London (Ontario, Canada) continues his ongoing campaign to foster "a positive, compatible, and complementary relationship between science and religion" 
(and specifically, between biological evolution and creation) in the public schools of Ontario. The Crucible, newsletter of the Science Teachers' Association of Ontario, recently published an essay on Gordon's Ontario Initiative. The essence of that Initiative was to introduce into the social science curriculum a unit on "The Relationship Between Science and Religion," which Gordon worked out in some detail. He argued that teaching the unit in a positive way (covering all the possibilities of relationship) would keep young-earth "creation science" out of science "classroom instruction" but greatly improve the "corridor education" of students about biblical religion. The Ontario Ministry of Education did act on the Initiative, but not in a way that completely satisfied Gordon. Undaunted by political machinations, however, he will try again when the guideline is up for revision. He might appreciate hearing from others trying to be Christian peacemakers in support of good public school science education: C.G. Winder, 1151 Richmond St., London, Ontario, Canada N6R 5B7.

- Edward L. Kessel has expanded his paper, "A Proposed Biological Interpretation of the Virgin Birth" (JASA Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 129-136, Sept 1983) into a new book, The Androgynous Christ. Educated at Greenville College (IL), Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and U.C. Berkeley, Ed has a Ph.D. in biology and is emeritus professor of biology, U. of San Francisco, and emeritus curator of insects, California Academy of Sciences. His 1983 paper was one of the most controversial ever published in JASA and no doubt his book will be equally so. Subtitled A Christian Feminist View and dedicated to the Evangelical Women's Caucus International and to Daughters of Sarah, it has a brief Foreword by noted feminist scholar Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. The book argues that after conception by Divine Parthenogenesis, the Christ Child must have undergone sex-reversal to the androgynous state. It also contains Ed's interpretation of some other biological matters in the Bible and his theistic interpretation of ASAICSCA NEWSLETTER evolution. But he isn't trying to push his ideas on anyone who would be annoyed by them. In fact, Ed's privately printed book is not for sale. "Distribution is accomplished only through free copies given by the author to selected recipients. Copies are available from him as long as the supply lasts." Write Edward L. Kessel, Apt 337, Rose Villa, 13505 S.E. River Road, Portland, OR 97222.

- Earth Sciences History (Vol. 7,
No. 2, 1988, pp. 151-158) had an interesting historical paper on "The Evolution of Creationism" by geologist John R. Armstrong of Calgary, Alberta.

- The Fall 1988 issue of Creation/Evolution journal (Issue XXIV) had two major articles on what might be called historical theology. Tom McIver's article, "Formless and Void," examined "gap theory creationism." In "Scientific Creationism: Adding Imagination to Scripture," biologist Stanley Rice of The King's College in New York examined 16 years of the Creation Research Society Journal. He urged "scientific creationists" to be more careful in their use of reference materials (including Scripture) and urged their critics not to let creationist "flights of fancy" lower their opinion of the Bible.

- Origins Research, published by Students for Origins Research (P.O. Box 38069, Colorado Springs, CO 80937-8609), now has a regular column on Teaching Science, devoted largely to responses to ASA's booklet, Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy. In the Fall/Winter 1988 issue, Robert Kenney charged that the TSCC authors never responded to negative criticism of the booklet's mention of evolutionary convergence. A letter from Walter Hearn and John Wiester in that issue quoted responses to that criticism from articles they submitted to California Science Teacher's Journal and The Science Teacher in 1987. The letter noted that the CSTJ editor refused to print the ASA authors' response.

- Origins (Vol. 15, No. 1, 1988) reviewed the 2nd edition of

Creation's Tiny Mystery (Knoxville, TN: Earth Science Associates, 1988) by former ASA member Robert V. Gentry. Gentry's work on pleochroic halos has been strongly criticized by Richard Wakefield (CreationlEvolution XXII, pp. 13-33, 1988; J. Geological Educ., Vol. 36, pp. 161-175, 1988). The reviewers in Origins also found problems in Gentry's work severe enough to warn against its use as evidence for a recent ex nihilo creation. Gentry is a Seventh Day Adventist and Origins is published by the SDA's Geoscience Research Institute at Loma Linda University in California.

- Russell Maatman, editor of Dordt College's Pro Rege, says the next issue of the quarterly journal will be a combined Mar/Jun 1989 issue containing proceedings of a creationevolution conference held at Dordt last fall. To get on the (free) mailing list, write: Editor, Pro Rege, Dordt College, 498 - 4th Ave. NE, Sioux Center, IA 51250.

E.GAD-NOW IT'S EMAIL

A note from Leland H. Williams about his move to the Naval Research Lab in Washington included his old and new electronic mail addresses. You can still reach him via Triangle Universities Computation al Center at TUCLHW@TUCC (+ .TUCC.EDU if you're outside of EDU). Or you can catch him in D.C. at WILLIAMS9@NRL.ARPA (but, he says, don't overlook the "9".

Evidently more and more people have electronic mail addresses. Our first hint came last year from mathematician Ken Smith of the U. of Queensland in Australia. When he wrote to the Newsletter about Barry Setterfield's curious calculation of changes in the speed of light, Ken suggested that E-mail is not only faster but cheaper-at least for overseas mail up to about two pages (Oct/Nov 1988 Newsletter, p. 5). He fisted what must be his Email addresses on four different computer networks:

ACSNET: kgs@axiom.uq.oz

ARPA: kgs%axiom.uq.oz@uuriet.uu.net

JANET: axiom.uq.oz!kgs@ukc

UUCP: uunetmcvax,ukcnttlab,ubc-vision) !munnar!axiom.uq.oz!kgs

That kind of unpronounceable gobbledegook may make sense to a computer programmer used to reading and writing "code," but to a typo-chondriac like the Weary Old Editor (WOE is me!-Ed.) it spells trouble. It's bad enough when our own computer balks because we didn't spell some FILENAME exactly right. But g'nite, mite-imagine arguing with an Aussie computer in such a weird language.

Typographical errors in ordinary English have been known to slip past proofreaders into ASA publications. But ASA managing editor Nancy Hanger says E-mail is coming, so we should start adding such addresses to the ASAICSCA Directory. She says that members who want an E-mail address included in future editions should send it to her on a postcard to the Ipswich office--or access her home computer on COMPUSERVE: Nancy C. Hanger - 74000,2366 . (Our managing editor is obviously up to speed on such matters. We don't even know our nine-digit ZIP-code.-Ed.)

WHEREVER GOD WANTS US: 6.

Last fall, when turmoil between the Arrnenians and Azerbaijanis in the Soviet Union was making headlines, we thought about Kenell
Touryan's stay in Yerevan in 1986-87 as a "tentmaking" scientist. Ken replied to our inquiry in November 1988, just a month before that
devastating earthquake hit Soviet Armenia.

Ken, an engineer and once assistant director of the Solar Energy Research Institute in Colorado, has had a long-standing interest in preparing and sending "bivocational missionaries" to places where the gospel is heard weakly or not at all. Ken once set up several business enterprises, one to promote tentmaking, the other to finance that project through investments in natural gas production in Utah. Collapse of natural gas prim in early 1987 put some of those projects on hold. Did that divert Ken from his long-range calling? Not at all.

In fact, together with J. Christy Wilson of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Ken is heading the Tentmaker Task Force for Lausanne '89 (a follow-up of the 1974 Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization), to be held 11-21 July 1989 in the Philippines. The Task Force has held consultations on each continent and is now preparing training materials as  Occasional Papers" plus workshops on tentmaking for the Manila meeting.

While waiting for increased natural gas income to give him more time for tentmaking activities, Ken is back in high-tech R&D. He directs energy research at Tetra Corporation, a small company (20 employees) in Albuquerque investigating pulsed electric power, seeking peaceful uses for "Star Wars" developments. Ken gets considerable pleasure out of turning SDI swords into plowshares, but has not been keen on the energy and other costs of long-term "commuting" between NM and CO. Ken wants to see Tetra modeled on Christian principles. For example, an internal tentmaking program would allow senior staff to spend three to six months in a developing country with support from the company on a rotational basis, like academic sabbaticals.

Practicing what he preached got Ken to Soviet Armenia, Having - couraged others to use their ski Is overseas, he "laid out his fleece" by applying for a Fulbright lectureship. Ken doubted his chances without a university connection, even though he speaks Armenian fluently. He was amazed when he was actually accepted. Here are some of his own words about the experience:

"I received a Special Commendation Certificate from the Soviet Ministry of Education for my services to the USSR (Armenia) in the cause of science, technology, and good will. I never hid my evangelistic intentions, and was able to use all my excess rubles for mission work being conducted in the ArmSSR. In spite of what we hear about clashes between Armenians and Azeris Christians in Armenia are leading Azeri Muslims to the Lord. Among the most active Christians are recent converts who are engineers and scientists, professors with influence in the Soviet society.

"I took with me five dozen copies of astronaut Jim Irwin's Christian testimony in Russian. Within ten days, all my copies were gone. We were able to duplicate several hundred more copies and I was told that the copies found their way to every major city in the USSR.

"My article on 'Renewable Energy for the USSR' was published and circulated widely within the USSR. It was providential that my lecture series on renewable energy came on the heels of the April 1986 Chernobyl accident. The Soviet society was ready to hear about alternate energy sources.

"One exciting outcome of my Fulbright visit is that we are now organizing an International Congress of Science & Technology between Soviet Armenian scientists and those in the Armenian diaspora, to be held in August 1989 in Los Angeles. I am co-chairing the Congress and will soon return to the USSR to complete exchange arrangements."

Since Ken wrote that, of course, Armenia has suffered from a terrible earthquake. Yerevan, the capital, was far from the epicenter, but Leninakan, a city of 290,000, was hit very hard. Some 250 people were trapped in the collapse of a computer institute building in Leninakan, where the death toll may have been as high as 100,000.

To Ken Touryan, the message is: "Go when you can." He hopes to go back to the USSR or to the Middle East---or wherever God wants him.

THE EDITOR'S LAST WORDS: 2

We seem to have filled up this issue without the obituary notices we said we would publish. The last thing an editor should do is promise to print something. Typos and missed deadlines already provide enough grounds for humility without needing to be forgiven for other kinds of slip-ups. For example, Lois Bohon graciously forgave an unforgivable typo in the SEARCH about her husband Bob Bohon (in the Dec 1988 Perspectives). After naming her correctly throughout the text, we captioned their picture "Bob & Betty." The glitch in our mental wiring probably came from knowing so many "Bob & Betty" couples, including the Herrmanns at ASA's helm.

It would be an editorial no-no to pooh-pooh such a lulu of a bubu, but at least we made the deadline for that issue of SEARCH. At the moment it's not clear that we'll make this one. One distraction was responding to what was said about ASA in the Fall 1988 issue of Scientific Integrity, a quarterly newsletter edited by William V. Mayer for the National Association of Biology Teachers. Mayer fisted ASA as "one of the many antievolutionist fronts that have been created as seemingly objective ,scientific' organizations." He said that ASA publications differ from those of, say, ICR, "in degree of sophistication and shrillness," but " the network is there for all to see. Behind their facade of science, the same small groups operate their antiscience ministries." That seemed to be more than a mere typographical error, so we took the time to try to help a fellow editor get his story straight.

Sometimes it's hard to budget enough time for the unexpected phone call. Once it was a former student from another country, asking if we had received his letter of a few months back about coming to see us. (We hadn't.) He was calling from Florida and they would arrive in Berkeley in a few days. He and his wife had both received Ph.D.s in my group twenty years before, so Ginny and I tried to do as much editorial work as possible before their arrival, then spent her birthday cleaning the house.

At the airport to meet diem, we got another surprise. For this "trip of a lifetime" to the U.S., their two adult sons had come along. We could barely cram all the people and luggage into our Toyota. Ginny found room for the overflow from our guest room and we managed to be more or less gracious hosts. Having lost her professorship because of increasing deafness, the wife was learning to read lips-in her native language, of course. By the end of their fiveday visit, my English was getting rusty.

In fact, that was just a few days ago, so there may be more errors than usual in this issue. Esa es la vida, no?

LOCAL SECTIONS

NORTH CENTRAL

We're not sure if ASAers in the Twin Cities think of themselves as functioning as a local section, but William B. Monsma, director of The MacLaurin Institute at the U. of Minnesota, serves as ASA "field representative" at least part of the time.

Bill Monsma (Ph.D. in physics) aids one campus group called the Christian Faculty-Staff Fellowship. Just before Christmas, that group placed a display ad in the U.M. Daily. The ad had a star symbol, the text of Matthew 2:10 ("When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy."), and the words, "The Christian Faculty-S Fellowship wishes you that same joy this Christmas." Bill says that on a secular campus so many Christians keep a low profile that students are often surprised to learn that there are any Christian faculty. The Christmas ad was an experiment. The group is planning to place a larger ad at Easter.

The MacLaurin Institute continues to draw students and faculty of many different perspectives to its public lectures. In October, Ron Sider, known especially for his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, presented Christianity as a firm basis for ethics in a shifting world. In November, philosopher Keith Yandell of the U. of Wisconsin argued that religious experience provides evidence for the existence of God. In something of a breakthrough, the U.M. Dept of Philosophy agreed to cosponsor Yandell's lecture, after declining to participate in the past. Monsma is pleased that the Institute has gained credibility with members of the department who have attended past lectures. Some department members were among the 50 who heard Yandell's lecture.

Because grad students "live" in their own departments, Bill has been fostering groups of Christian students in individual departments. In Chemical Engineering a faculty member started a group. In the English Dept, two grad students began a regular seminar on Christianity and literature, which some non-Christian professors have attended. Bill is nurturing other groups taking shape in Chemistry and in Physics, and reports seeds sown in other departments.

Such things don't happen overnight, but the experience at Minnesota shows that they can happen. ASA members could help them happen on other campuses as well.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY

A March 17 meeting at New College Berkeley was planned to attract grad students, with Stanford materials science prof Richard H. Bube giving his Pepperdine talk on "Crises of Conscience for Christians in Science."

Final meeting of the academic year is planned for May 6 at Irvington Presbyterian Church in Fremont. For information contact section chair John Wood at (415) 234-3850.

PERSONALS

Jack 0. Balswick is a professor of sociology at Fuller '17heological Seminary in Pasadena, California. In 1988 his book, The Inexpressive Male (Lexington Books) was published. With wife Judy, he finished writing A Christian Understanding of the Home, and with a colleague, Life in a Glass House: The Stresses and Strengths of the Minister's Family. Last summer Jack spent six weeks traveling in a half-dozen Asian countries, then joined Judy in Australia for six more weeks. He gave seminars for pastors, visited missionaries, and taught a two-week D.Min. class for Fuller in Adelaide; together they gave family seminars in four Australian cities.

Stephen Bell of quaint-sounding Newport-on-Tay, Fife, Scotland, continues to combine theoretical chemistry at Dundee University with experimental work done in the U.S. Last summer he spent six weeks working with Prof. Jim Durig's group at the U. of South Carolina. Columbia-on-Congaree is an easy drive to Athens-on-Oconee, Georgia, enabling Steve to visit Fritz Schaefer at the U. of Georgia. Some years ago Steve spent a sabbatical year in Schaefer's group at Berkeley-on-Hayward-Fault, California. Steve and wife Moira are both elders on Dundee Prebytery of the Church of Scotland.

Ronald W. Berry of Allegan, Michigan, is president of PRM International, an audio Scripture-recording mission that offers technical services stateside and abroad. Ron, who received his Ph.D. in physics from Michigan State in 1966, founded PRM in 1967 as Portable Recording Ministries.

James 0. Buswell is an anthropologist and dean of Win. Carey International University on the campus of the U.S. Center for World Mission. Last year Jim saw the culmination of more than ten years of effort to pay for the campus and the awarding of the third and fourth Ph.D. degrees at Wm. Carey. One dissertation was in Islamic studies, the other on cultural contextualization of curriculum at the ECWA Theological Seminary in Jos, Nigeria. Speaker at the school's 10th commencement was Dr. Lamin Sanneh of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions. In November, Jim participated in a meeting of 38 Christian anthropologists who are considering forming their own organization.

Laura Carr has returned to Amherst, Massachusetts, after 18 months in an isolated bush station in Zaire. She hopes to go back to sub-Saharan Africa someday as a medical missionary to set up a health program in some isolated community. She plans to go to medical school after first getting a Master of Public Health degree, covering both preventive and curative bases. Laura is currently applying to schools of public health.

R. David Cole is professor of bigdwaiis1ry__aL U.C. Berkeley. In 1989 he begins a two-year Lerm as chair of the Division of Biological Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. The Division will participate in the April 9-14 ACS meeting in Dallas and the December 17-22 International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies in Honolulu. (Tough duty!-Ed.) Dave says he's been trying to catch up ever since he and wife Thelma returned from a wonderful 1987-88 sabbatical year at Oxford in England.

Susan E. Cross of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a psychology grad student at the U. of Michigan. This winter she married Richard D. Vigil, a grad student in chemical engineering at Michigan and also an ASA member. That's not the first marriage "within ASA ranks" but it seems to be the latest one. (Susan semed happy. We don't know if she'll remain Cross.-Ed.)

Jack Hay of Nashua, New Hampshire, has begun to work for The Mitre Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts, as an environmental & safety engineer. Jack hopes to continue his studies on environmental matters and ethics and write some papers for ASA Annual Meetings and Perspectives.

Wil Lepkowski of Reston, Virginia, continues to impress this Weary Old Editor (WOE is meEd.) with his superb reporting of the aftermath of perhaps the worst tragedy in industrial history, the 1984 methyl isocyanate disaster in Bhopal, India. As news editor of Chemical & Engineering News, Wil described in the 28 Nov 1988 issue the complex litigation that had reached India's Supreme Court. Cross-cultural misunderstandings complicated an already massive legal situation, with the Indian government tallying about 3,100 dead, possibly up to 40,000 people injured for life, and an untold number with lesser injuries. More than 500,000 residents of Bhopal filed damage claims (in both India and the U.S.). The Indian government's suit against Union Carbide called for $1.3 billion in damages. In February a settlement was reached, with Carbide paying $470 million in exchange for all claims being dropped.

Keith B. Miller of Central, South Carolina, is now a visiting assistant professor in the Earth Science Dept at Clemson University. He and wife Ruth moved to Clemson from the U. of Rochester in New York, where Keith completed his Ph.D. in geology in May 1988 and where Ruth hopes to defend her dissertation in electrical engineering this spring. Keith is teaching invertebrate paleontology and historical geology. He and Ruth are trusting God to open up tenure-track positions for them somewhere, but meanwhile want to serve the Christian community at Clemson. Keith's training gives him a unique perspective on God's active role in His creation, so he can help students reconcile Christian teaching with what they learn about scientific evidences for evolution and the age of the earth.

Gordon C. Mills retired on March I from the U.T. Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas, after 33 years as a professor in the Dept of Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics. At a departmental minisymposium in his honor on February 22, Gordon gave the Mary Huling Edens Lecture in Medical Genetics. In his long research career Gordon discovered glutathione peroxidase and its role in hemoglobin breakdown in human erythrocytes, studied the enzymes of purine metabolism in children with immunodeficiency disorders, and explored novel techniques for separating nucleotides.

David 0. Moberg is professor of sociology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We've noted that he co-edits the annual Research in the Scientific Study of Religion. He also writes most of the book reviews for the Christian Sociological Society Newsletter. Last year he gave the inaugural Frederick A. Shippey Lectures in the Sociology of Christianity at Drew University's Theological School in New Jersey, on "Spiritual Well-Being and Wholistic Christianity." Dave wrote the preface for Religion, Health, and Aging, a book he thinks should be in every good library because it so thoroughly covers research on the relation between religion and health in later fife. Published in December 1988, its authors are Harold G. Koenig, M.D., Mona Smiley, and To Ann Ploch Gonzales (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.; $42.95).

Stanley W. Moore is the professor of political science who did such a marvelous job planning and hosting the ASA Annual Meeting at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, last August. At about the same time, Stan was being appointed to the California Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution, which will organize celebrations around the Bill of Rights in 1990 and 1991. in February he once again took Pepperdine students to the California Legislative Seminar in Sacramento. In his own Ventura County, Stan serves on both the Air Pollution Control Board and a county long-range planning commission.

H. Miriam Ross of Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, is a professor of anthropology and a former missionary nurse. In May she and another Acadia professor will lead a three-week study tour to Bolivia. In August, Miriam plans to give a paper on "ne World's Children" at the 1989 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at INDIANA WESLEYAN. (Have you made your plans for August yet? -Ed.)

Frank H. Wilbur became professor and chair of Biology at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, last fall. He is also advisor to the health professions at Asbury. Frank
thoroughly enjoys teaching a course on "Modem Scientific & Religious Thought" that encourages students to struggle with integrating "the facts of science with the faith of Christianity." He spent eleven years in the Dept of Biology at Oral Roberts University and before that had been a diagnostic clinical mycologist and parasitologist in a Virginia hospital, where he also taught medical technology students. Frank has published papers in developmental cellular biology and in science education.

Leland H. Williams now works in the Office of the Associate Director of Research for Strategic Planning of the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C. His title seems to be "Computer Resources Architect." Leland is responsible for developing and maintaining an Integrated Computer Resources Plan for the whole NRL. When we heard from him, he was still hunting for housing in D.C. and commuting back to Durham, North Carolina, on weekends. Durham has been home for Leland and wife Cornelia for the past 18 years while he was at the Triangle Universities Computational Center (not counting five years of grad school & postdoctoral work at Duke before that). In April 1988 he resigned as president of TUCC and in July 1988 began consulting for NRL's Research Computation Division, a line-organization providing Cray XMP/24 service. Now Leland has a position in an NRL staff-organization. TUCC has since announced that it will terminate its services after June 1990. 

POSITIONS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE, for fall 1989. King: Ph.D. or ABD in organic chemistry for Presbyterian school, 525 students, with strong record of preparing students for graduate work in the sciences. Contact Dr. Louis E. Mattison, Chair, Dept. of Chemistry, King College, Bristol, TN 37620 (Dean of faculty is ASA member Douglas Boyce). Whitworth: two persons with school experience and doctorates in education, one for department chair. Contact Education Search Committee, Personnel Office, Whitworth College, Spokane, WA 99251 (closed 3/10/89, but call 509-466-3202 to check). Fuller: doctorate with training experience in family therapy to become associate dean for marriage & family programs, directing M.A. & Ph.D. programs. Contact Dr. Archibald Hart, Dean, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, 180 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, CA 91182. Wheaton: Ph.D. in experimental physics or E.E. to teach electronics, other courses as asst prof of physics. Contact (ASA member) Dr. Dillard Faries, Chair, Physics Dept., Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. The King's: positions in computer science and biology. Contact Dr. Rex Rogers, VPAA, The King's College, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510; tel. 914-941-7200 (from ASA member Wayne Frair, Biology Chair). LeTourneau: experienced Ph.D. in engineering to replace retiring division chair; ABET-accredited B.S. program emphasizing E.E., M.E., welding E. & related technology areas. Contact Donald Connors, Chair, Engineering Search Committee, P.O. Box 7001, LeTourneau College, Longview, TX 75607. Bartlesville Wesleyan: mathematics. Contact (ASA member) Dr. Richard L. Daake, Chair, Div. of Science & Mathematics, Bartlesville Wesleyan College, Bartlesville, OK 74006. Hong Kong Baptist: 3-yr contract in physics, teaching & research. (Closed 3/20/89, but contact Personnel Office, Hong Kong Baptist College, 224 Waterloo Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, to see if filled.) Taylor: one tenurL-track, another 9-month temporary position in Information science. Contact Dr. Richard J. Stanislaw, V.P. for Academic Affairs, Taylor University, Upland, IN 46989 (from ASA member Wally Roth). LeTourneau College: chairperson, Div. of Engineering & Engineering Tech, Requirements: earned doctorate in engineering, exp. teaching in engineering program accredited by ABET, record of scholarly achievement, research, admin. experience. Position resp. to V.P. for Academic Affairs. Position available July 1. Send nominations or applications and resumes to: Mr. Donald Connors, Chairman, Engineering Search Committee, P.O. Box 7001, LeTourneau College, Longview TX 75607.