NEWSLETTER

of the 

American Scientific Affiliation & Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation

ASA Meeting Ends with a Flair

Monday, Aug. 4, the last day of the 52nd ASA Annual Meeting, the format changed to a roundtable discussion of the limits of naturalism in the morning, and an ASA Science Education Commission symposium in the afternoon.

Whitworth C. philosopher of science Steve Meyer started off the discussion of the topic, "Should Natural Science Bracket God?" by turning it around with his well-presented "DNA and the Origin of Information: When Science Must Bracket Naturalism." In this talk, Meyer presented arguments for the design of DNA and the Dembski-Meyer-Nelson (DMN) explanatory filter. The filter model proposes how science might be done and consists of three ordered questions about an event: Is it by law? Is it by chance? Is it by design?

According to Bill Dembski, who has heard Steve's talk several times before, this was the best presentation he has given yet. Bill said: "Not only was it masterfully polished, but it employed powerful insights from information theory to full effect." Phillip E. Johnson, who was on the panel following the talk, was also obviously pleased, commenting that he had never heard such a clear presentation on the origin of DNA.

During questions, Walter Thorson, a recently retired professor of chemistry from the U. of Alberta who has taught the science/faith course at Regent C. in Vancouver, BC, expressed a favorable disposition toward the notion of design but preferred to keep options vis-a-vis the explanatory filter open to possibilities other than the specific formulation given by DMN.

As presented in his own talk earlier, Thorson recognizes science as a legitimate activity distinguishable from theology, and that "naturalism" in this sense (as used by Robert Boyle, for example) has a long history of use among Christians in science without the present reductionist spin often placed on Darwinian theory.

A roundtable discussion followed, chaired by Oskar Gruenwald. On the panel, physicist Karl Giberson raised concerns that the intelligent-design approach Meyer offered would undermine science, and he questioned the value that philosophy could bring to bear on it.

Papers on science and Christianity by Giberson, Hans Schwarz and Thaddeus J. Trenn appear in Gruenwald's J. of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. IX, No. 1/2, 1997, available from IIR, 2828 Third St., Ste 11, Santa Monica, CA 90405-4150.

In the afternoon, historians of science had their opportunity. The Commission symposium came in two parts. The first was an introduction to the use of the history of science in science teaching. Historians of science Mike Keas, Ted Davis, Sara Miles and Jeffrey Russell were joined by Steve Meyer and Joseph Spradley on the panel. Russell, a UCSB prof. of history, pointed out that, contrary to the relatively recent myth spread by early American author Washington Irving, few medievals believed the earth was flat. The idea was apparently started in an attempt to discredit Christianity in an age of respect for science.

Geologist John Wiester covered the shift in geological thinking from geosynclinal theory to plate tectonics. Few geologists believed that the continents drifted before the 1970s, and he compared this shift to the possibility for a shift away from Darwinism in biology. John projected a quote from a geology textbook from the '60s claiming geosynclinal theory as the unifying principle of geology. John compared that to present claims about Darwinian theory.

Phil Johnson then talked about scientific naturalism in American education, showing the trend from methodological naturalism to an "established naturalistic worldview." To demonstrate, he displayed part of the National Assoc. of Biology Teachers' "Statement on Teaching Evolution," which begins with a neutralizing ploy ("Evolutionary theory, indeed all of science, is necessarily silent on religion and neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity or deities."), and then introduces (with statement #1) its own dogma: "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process ..."

Phil's critique is that this is just doubletalk:

Of course the claim that life is the product of an "unsupervised, impersonal process" of evolution has important religious implications, and of course it goes way beyond the empirical evidence. The bogus claim of "silence" on religion serves only to protect these anti-religious statements from the critical analysis they deserve.

Another panel followed Phil's presentation, this time including another historian of science, Mark Kalthoff, of Hillsdale C. in Michigan.

Intelligent Design featured prominently in the day's proceedings, and while it is certainly not the official position of the ASA, its place in the science/Christianity discussion nevertheless appears to be established. H Bill Dembski, John Wiester

Continued on page 3, Wiester on Radio

The Executive
Director's Corner

Have you already received many organizational appeals for Christmas giving just as I have? Many are trying to precede the Christmas rush. Just like all the other groups, we sincerely need those generous end-of-the-year donations that so many of you send. This year we lost some momentum in general fund gifts but gained over $20,000 for the Endowment Fund. Now we hope that others will stand in the gap before 1997 ends. We appreciate your faithful giving and ask each of you to seek the Lord concerning what more e would have you do for ASA this year.

By now most of you should have a copy of Walt Hearn's new book, Being a Christian in Science. Walt enthusiastically writes me about all the exciting contacts he has made through the book. Many people have also written us to compliment Walt's work and to thank us for sending it. We have hundreds of additional copies for sale and would be glad to fill your orders. There are good volume discounts so feel free to e-mail, call, or write for that information. Sale of the book helps the budget of the ASA. If you do not need to buy additional copies, please help us by publicizing the book whenever it seems appropriate.

Most of you have received the letter from our President, Ken Olson, and the materials for the British Isles trip * Registrations for the trip are already arriving. If you didn't receive the materials and would like them sent to you, phone, ax, or e-mail the office. We'll be happy to send them to you. Soon you will have the registration information for the joint 1998 annual meeting (Aug. 2-5) at Churchill College. in Cambridge, England. The scheduled mind/brain symposium has a new name"Portraits of Human Nature: Escaping Body-Soul Dualism." This title comes from a book that will be published sometime after the conference. It is expected that this symposium will have about nine speakers representing fields such as biology, philosophy, psychology, and theology. It should allow for a very exciting interchange of ideas.

Local section meetings are picking up this year. In October there were meetings in Minneapolis, MN; Washington, DC; and Portland, OR. Can I help you plan one in your area? Sometimes it is easy to plan them around another occasion of science/faith interest. A dinner before the meeting and/or a dessert afterwards, around which the lecture can be discussed, provides a relaxed and informal atmosphere. We can send you the names and addresses of ASA members in your area. You can also invite nonmembers to interest them in the affiliation.

Many of you signed up to recruit new members about one or two years ago. How are you faring? Do you need more ASA materials? Let us know by e-mail, telephone, FAX, or regular mail.

The ASA Listserver is really warm with epistles flying back and forth. Someone who found I 18 lined up on his computer called to ask how he could unsubscribe. We really do not want that to happen but one does have to be selective. I print and keep most of the articles thinking that someday I will need information in several of the areas. One can also download them from the archives. There is much wisdom expressed and the discussion of ideas is most illuminating to me. Perhaps many have strengthened their concepts through the interaction with fellow participants. It seems like there could be several possible books out of all the information flying around. If you want to join the ASA Listserver, send a first message line: subscribe asa    to: majordomo@calvin.edu

Most requests for mentoring are fulfilled. I am still looking for a few good men and women who can help me mentor science graduate students at various universities. The Christian Legal Society and the Christian Medical/Dental Society are matching the graduate students in law and medicine/dentistry. Thanks to the many Christian college and university contacts who took time to send names of their recent science graduates enrolled in graduate programs and also to InterVarsity and Campus Crusade for sending names of faculty who can serve as mentors. I hope to keep expanding the network of colleges and universities who send names.

In early October I had the privilege of attending the Christian Stewardship Association (CSA) meeting in Kansas City, MO. The CSA outdid themselves with excellent plenary speakers, the inspirational Ken Medema, and an incredible number of seminars. I learned much and had the privilege of meeting some old friends, and making some new ones who will be good ASA contacts. There were over 1,000 people attending. Some ASA brochures were strategically distributed and I hope we see several new members. It gave me a renewed and a more godly interest in raising money for the important missions of the ASA. Here is my question for you. Where is your money going when God takes you home? Can we help you with this? Call or write me anytime and I will get answers for you if you wish to support the ASA's mission with your legacy.

Below are listed the Templeton/ASA Lectures for the rest of 1997. If you are in the area, we hope that you can avail yourself of the opportunity to hear some of these speakers. These lectures are open to the public and free of charge.

Nov. 5, 1997 -Moravian C., Bethlehem, PA: Dr. Philip Hefner, "Between Evolution and Faith: A Proposal for Shuttle Diplomacy" - Collier Hall of Science, Dana Lecture Auditorium at 4:00 pm.

Nov. 6, 1997 -Allentown C. of St. Francis de Sales, near Allentown, PA: Dr. John Haught, "Theology in a Neo-Darwinian Context" - McShea Hall, McShea Commons at 7:30 pm.

Nov. 19, 1997 -Iowa State U., Ames, IA - Dr. Paul Croce, "If It's Certain, It Can't Be True: On the Evolution of Science and Religion in the Nineteenth Century" - 1414 Molecular Biology Building (Auditorium) at 8:00 pm.

Dec. 2,1997 -Monmouth C., Monmouth, IL: Dr. Owen Gingerich, "Dare a Scientist Believe in Design?" - HT Science Center, Room 109 at 7:00 pm.

Dec. 4, 1997 -Colgate U., Hamilton, NY: Dr. Ronald Numbers, "The Scopes Trial as History and Legend" - Persson Building, Room 27 at 8:00 pm.

Wiester on Radio, continued from page I
dictable, natural process ..." and asked John what ASA was doing about this indoctrination in the name of education. John responded:

I told him we were pushing the ASA resolution: defining evolution precisely with consistency of meaning, and asking that unsolved problems and unanswered questions be included along with supportive data. We were also trying to get people to understand the difference between science and ideology, a difference that the NABT obviously doesn't understand.

  John Wiester

ASAers Speak at Church-Hosted Conference

Robert C. Newman and David Wilcox both happen to be in the eastern Pennsylvania area, along with Michael Belie. They and others spoke at an apologetics conference over the Sept. 19-20 weekend, sponsored by Free Church of Hershey the Evangelical (Yes, that's the hometown of the chocolate company.) Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias was the featured speaker.

Bob, a prof. of New Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA, spoke on both "Fulfilled Prophecy" and "Astronomy and the Bible." Description of the latter read, in part: "Samples of pre-knowledge of astronomy in the Bible point to its author as Creator of the universe," Bob has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cornell U. and a M.Div.

Dave, a biology prof. at Eastern C. and current ASA past president, spoke on "Countering the Blind Watchmaker Curriculum" and "Toward a Biological Paradigm." The first talk addressed education. Dave posited that a "biblical counterpoint to the Blind Watchmaker conclusions of the theory of evolution can and should be given stage-by-stage to children in grades K-12." E Wendy Lloyd

Several ASAers have created science/Christianity websites. Craig Rusbult's site is on "Methods for Science and Design: Using Creativity and Critical
Thinking in Problem Solving." Check it out at: http://labweb.soemadison.wisc. edu/users/rusbult/

The Editor has discovered others. George Murphy, theoretical physicist and pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Tallmadge, OH, is at:www.imperium.net/-gmurphy/

George's home page shows a DNA double helix, a Feynman diagram, and a coupled "PX" (rho-chi) symbol. George's credentials are given along with a brief motivational statement for why Christians should relate Christianity to science and technology. George is available to speak and features several of his talks on the Website. He is located in Tallmadge, Ohio, near Akron.

Physicist Paul Arveson hits the reader with a "read the intro" notice, followed by an index of ideas "that have been found to fit in a dialogical form" on his website:

These include a variety of scientific and theological topics, such as "Physics: Form and Matter" and "Sovereignty of God: Transcendence and Immanence."

Geologist Keith B. Miller appears (in his element!) on his site at: www-personal.ksu.edu/-kbmill/

Charles Thaxton appears on the Leadership U. site of Campus Crusade at: www.leaderu.com/truth/I truth 17.html

His article, "Christianity and the Scientific Enterprise," appears there.

Earle Fox of Ambridge, PA has been setting an example of how to engage the Episcopal Church and the government education establishment. One quickly learns in dealing with schools that the issues are bigger than schools alone. Earle is helping to spiritually, morally, and socially rebuild the town of Ambridge, which is on record as having had the highest density of both churches Invoke: http://road.emmaus.org

Allan Harvey's paper, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Context of the Christian Faith" is found on Steve Schimmrich's abundant site at:

The Mere Creation Conference (see MAR/APR 1997 ASAN) is at: www.origins.org/mc/menus/index.html

And, of course, ASA's Website, managed by Terry Gray is at: http://asa.calvin.edu

Art Battson has been working on the Access Research Network Website: www.arn.org/arn/ t contains numerous categories of sci/Xny material.
ASA's British counterpart, Christians in Science, has a site at: www.totalweb.co.uk/csis

ASA listserver participant Glenn R. Morton has his "Foundation, Fall and Flood" site at www.isource.net/-grmorton/dmd.htm His book, a harmonization of Genesis and science, is outlined in some detail there.

ASA Engineer Website

For engineers, the Affiliation of Christian Engineers, a possible ASA affiliation in the making, is at:

Ruth Miller and Joe Carson have been heavily involved in its inception and possible ASA nesting site. The Website is maintained by Steve VanderLeest at Calvin C. (www.calvin.edu/-svleest). The list server at ces@calvin.edu is open to new subscribers. Send a first message line: subscribe to: majordomo@calvin.edu

(Engineers: any idea who Major Domo is?) If ASA is to have an engineering affiliation, now is the opportunity. Don Munro has put together a task force of ASA engineers, including Miller, Carson and Jack Swearengen. Joe has said of the effort that the hope is to use the Internet as the mechanism for reducing printing/mailing time and money costs. By the way, Ruth has her own Website at: www.eece.ksu.edu/-rdmiller/home.html

Books

Tired of creation/evolution? Then try some of these books!

Former ASA president Charles E. Hummel wrote a little booklet, Tyranny of the Urgent, that some of us remember. Well, he's back with the full story on how to manage our time and our lives in the IVP paperback, Freedom from Tyranny of the Urgent. Charlie previously had written The Galileo Connection.

"Our greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important ones." -Charles Hummel

"What we tune in and what we don't tune in does not make the nontuned-in nonexistent."
-Buckminster Fuller

Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart, Marvin R. O'Connell, Eerdmans, $16. This 210-page paperback by a Notre Dame history prof. describes Pascal, a man at odds with his time. Pascal rejected the rationalism that sought to discover a god of natural religion. For Pascal, the universe was full of mystery that went far beyond the powers of reason. H Perry Ginn

Numbers' Mega-Work Reviewed in Isis

Several ASA historians of science contributed to Ronald L. Numbers' ten-volume anthology, Creationism in Twentieth-Century America. Among them are Paul Nelson (Vol. 5: The Creationist Writing of Byron C. Nelson), Edward B. Davis (Vol. 6: The Antievolution Pamphlets of Harry Rimmer), and Mark A. Kalthoff (Vol. 10: Creation and Evolution in the Early American Scientific Affiliation). The mega-work was reviewed in Isis 88, no. I (March 1997): 60-2, by Mark Noll.

In particular, Kalthoff's ASA volume reprints 53 selections from 1941-1961. Noll says of it:

Almost as soon as it began, members of the ASA pushed beyond the simplistic "creationism" of [George McCready] Price, [Harry] Rimmer, Nelson, and [William Bell] Riley to serious grappling with religious and scientific issues. By the mid 1950s, the intellectual leaders of the ASA had all embraced mediating positions, sometimes labeled "progressive creation" or even "theistic evolution." ... debates in the ASA frequently featured rigorous, sometimes fresh, occasionally creative engagement of serious-minded belief with expertly articulated science. It is a comment on the wider political environments in which religion and science are discussed in the United States that the cosmologically contentious material in the other nine volumes is much better known than the intellectually rigorous material produced within the ASA.

But then, Mark Noll has said nice things about us before. In The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, ch. 7: "Thinking About Science," (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), he says:

Although the leaders of the ASA maintained strict views of biblical authority and defended the sovereignty of God over the natural world, almost all of them held to the older day-age or gap theories. Some even came to feel that divine revelation in Genesis and natural revelation from empirical investigation did not need to be harmonized in the ways that had been repeatedly tried, revised and tried again since the early nineteenth century. Internal debates on these questions have been interminable in the ASA.

[Editorial addendum: It's heartening to see capable and eager historians of science in the ASA. I was privileged to sit across from some of them at ASA97 banquet: Mike Keas, Mark Kalthoff, Ted Davis, and Sara Miles. Ted Davis

Dundas, Ontario, Canada L9H 6Y6; tel. (905) 627-4672;

Last issue, James Shapiro's talk at the symposium at Wheaton C. on April 24 titled "Information in the Living Cell-A Question of Design in Nature" was reported. This ayticle gives the rest of the story, adapted from Paul Nelson's report.

After dinner, Mike Behe took the podium. Mike began with a slide: ammonium cyanate -+ urea

In the early nineteenth century, when Frederick Wohler synthesized urea, a biologically-produced waste product, from the inorganic substance ammonium cyanate, the scientific world was forced to rethink its conception of "living matter." Urea was supposedly a substance produced only by organisms. This sort of question may explain, Mike quipped, why chemistry lectures dealing with the nature of life always draw a good audience, whereas the typical chemistry lecture does not.

"In science," said Mike, commenting on the paucity of evolutionary explanations for complex molecular systems, "imagination is a good place to start, but a terrible place to end." With current evolutionary explanations for complexity, imagination is the ending place: maybe it happened this way, for lack of another scenario; who can say? But design can be strongly inferred from the evidence, Mike stressed, despite our inability, on the basis of only the systems in front of us, to answer the "who, what, where, when and why questions."

Mike went through the main objections presented by his scientific reviewers, noting that, almost without exception, the reviewers conceded Mike's scientific critique. Their objections, again, almost without exception, were philosophical: design forecloses the quest for naturalistic mechanisms, we need to leave some puzzles for our grandchildren, and the like.

The mission of science, however, Mike concluded, is to follow the data wherever they lead. The seemingly short list of research projects generated by intelligent design in biology may reflect only the infancy of the idea. Let the baby grow a bit. When it learns to walk, it may lead us in interesting directions.

Paul Nelson couldn't resist jumping in on this. The design group doesn't want to prove God's existence, he said (as if God needed any help from us). Rather, we want to understand the world, making use of all the evidence and possible causes available to us. As far as "proving" God's existence is concerned, he concluded, any one of the Gospels would do a better job than the biochemical evidence we had just considered.

Hull didn't respond to this, so Paul asked Shapiro a question, by beginning that he liked his phrase, "the watchmaker's toolbox." But I have a toolbox at home, Paul said, with ratchets, hammers, rulers, and the like. These tools themselves came to be via other tools; and those other tools via yet still other tools, and so on. Eventually this regress must have a terminus. Organisms have a basic core set of functions which they require for their very existence. In other words,

Welcome, New Members: August -September 1997 

Abraham, Esther -Beamsville, ON Canada       Agol, Eric -Santa Barbara, CA

Beavers, Ashley -New Concord, OH      Bingley, Mary -Chico, CA

Ratliff, Tom -Manhattan, KS   Ridgeway, George -Parris Island, SC Rossilli, Anthony -Santa Barbara, CA Szeto, Andrew -San Diego, CA

van der Breggen, Hendrik -Waterloo, ON Canada   Way, Baldwin -Los Angeles, CA Ween, Jon Erik -Attleboro, MA  Williams, Wayne -Mesa, AZ

Witte, Arvel -Rolling Hills, CA

can the basic biological toolbox explain itself? Nelson thought not (with the unstated but clear implication that there must be an exogenous, or ontologically distinct, designer).

"Well, I don't know," said Shapiro. "Must intelligent design be outside the natural order?" He discoursed for a bit on ambiguities in the terms "intelligence," "natural," and "design," with the thrust that he wanted to see what case could be made for a designer within the natural order. In any case, Shapiro stressed, we should always remember that science is provisional. Its theoretical constructs, while necessary for progress, are yet likely or even certain to fall with the growth of knowledge.

David Hull replied to this with characteristic bluntness. "Oh, sure, that's what scientists say for public consumption, but not when I interview them. Provisional? Hell no!" He banged the table with his hand. "I don't know any scientist who would say, 'Hey, I've been working on this theory for 40 years, but maybe I'm wrong.-

The discussion moderator, Rob O'Connor, read some questions from the audience. One of these prompted Shapiro to talk about the prospects for intelligent design as a genuine theory. He said:

Let's see what intelligent design theorists (meaning Belie, et al.) can find. I'm interested in looking at a variety of theories. Perhaps what we need is a more "multicultural" approach to these scientific questions. By all means, if they can come up with something fruitful, that would be great.

Paul had said earlier that nature talks back to us, so if intelligent design theory was wrong, eventually we would learn that. Shapiro picked up on this point. What do we have to fear from considering alternatives to Darwinism?

Hull was entirely unconvinced, saying to Mike that "it sounds like your theory is only negative." He also said that it was hard to find anything corresponding to a "theory of neo-Darwinism." This prompted Paul's skeptical reply that, of course, there was such a theory: otherwise how could we possibly be discussing its merits and shortcomings? Hull said later that currently there was not one theory of evolution, but as many theories as there were investigators.

Paul pointed out that the Darwinian Revolution was (citing one of Hull's papers) "as much concerned with promoting a particular view of science as it was a theory of the origin of species." That view of science was naturalism. Hull agreed. Yes, Darwin did make naturalism the standard, he said, "which was not always the case." But Hull hoped that naturalism "would continue to be dominant."

Shapiro was, interestingly, uneasy with this. "Let's not tie ourselves to any particular philosophy or narrow view," he said. E Paul Nelson

The John Templeton Foundation has been encouraging a greater understanding of the relationship between science and religion by providing funding to those who develop and teach courses on this subject. Funding is in the form of prizes to winners of the Science and Religion Course Program. Winners include the following ASAers, with course titles:

John A. Bloom, Biola U.: "Christianity and the Sciences"

Richard F. Carlson, Fuller Theological Seminary: "Discipleship, Doctrine, and Darwin-Points of Intersection Between Science and Theology For the Ministry of the Local Church"

Paul H. Carr, U. of Mass. at Lowell: "Creativity: Integrated Science and the Sacred"

  Roy Clouser, C. of New Jersey, "Science and Religion"

Gary B. Ferngren, Oregon State U., "Science and Religion: Tensions and Compatibilities"

David A. Humphreys, McMaster U., "Frontiers of Science/Christianity"

Richard B. Parker, Western Evangelical Seminary, "Science and the Spiritual Life"

Jean Statme, U. Interdisciplinaire (de Paris), "Incompleteness: A Way to Humility in Science and Theology"

In addition, past ASAer in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sergei Grib of the Orthodox Theological Academy was also a winner.

Congratulations to the winners! And may your efforts bear the spiritual fruit of truth and goodness in the lives of your students.

The article begins on a questionable note, quoting I Tim. 6:20 as one of the causes of "2000 years of antagonism between scientific inquiry and spiritual conviction-a history of strife stretching from the religious persecution of Baruch Spinoza and Galileo ..." The article improves on recent history, quoting from Charles Townes, inventor of the laser, and astrophysicist George Smoot.

Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and co-director of the team that found the gene for cystic fibrosis, is prominently featured, with photograph and quote:

When something new is revealed about the human genome, I experience a feeling of awe at the realization that humanity now knows something only God knew before.

Collins attributes "the standard assumption that anyone who has faith has gone soft in the head" to the widespread awareness of young-earth creatiom . sm by scientists.

Nay-sayers Richard Dawkins, Leon Lederman, Stephen Hawking, and James Larrick, director of the Palo Alto Institute of Molecular Medicine, were given their say, though Dawkins has now transcended to decline interviews about religion because he finds it "very boring and not worth talking about." One might get that impression from some of the comments in the article.

For example, geneticist Francisco Ayala of U.C. Irvine believes science and religion can coexist, not because religion has anything true to offer but because a friendlier position toward religion may help protect science jobs by preserving "the good will of the body politic that values religion. We are not wise to have the body politic seeing science as antagonistic to spiritual commitment."

British biochemist Arthur Peacocke explains the antagonism of academic science to religion by its nineteenth century struggle to break free in its funding and hiring decisions in universities, most of whom were closely affiliated with churches.

While much of the emphasis of the article was on a rather wide accommodation of views from both communities, the patterns f or relating science and faith seemed to favor science over religion when substantive issues are involved. The most extreme expression, from Larrick, is classic:

Just as people came to understand that God does not cause lightning, gradually society will understand that consciousness and other things attributed to the almighty arise naturally, too.

When Christianity relates to science, it does so by accommodating science without reciprocity. The article states: "Seeking adherents from a progressively better educated populace, mainstream faith must show it can accommodate scientific thought." Fuller Theological Seminary will be publishing a book demonstrating (rightly or otherwise) such one-way flow of influence, "acknowledging a natural origin for the human family tree."

Some quotes concede that science at least does not justify antitheistic views. Molecular biologist and 1974 Nobelist, Christian de Duve of Belgium, said:

    Many of my scientist friends are violently atheist, but there is no sense in which atheism is enforced or established by science.

Or, consider what 1958 Nobelist, evolutionary biologist Joshua Lederberg, says:

Nothing so far disproves the divine. What is incontrovertible is that a religious impulse guides our motive in sustaining scientific inquiry. Beyond that, it's all speculation.

    It is tautological to say that you do not find the divine when you test for the physical.

The patterns of relating science and religion in the article include complementarity, wherein the role of religion is to provide meaning or merely "warm fuzzies." Astronomer Alan Dressier puts it sociologically:

Many scientists seem on a crusade to run down human worth, because they think this will destroy the arrogance that leads to religious intolerance. But it also makes science soulless. Much of the antiscience mood in the country today stems from the perception that by venerating meaninglessness, science has become inhuman.

To his credit, Easterbrook points out that intolerance toward religion exists, referring to the 1990 affair when Scientific American turned down an otherwise qualified Forrest Mims after learning that he had religious doubts about evolution.

The article exposes another misconception when it makes clear that a creationism "which attempts to deny both evolution and the basic findings of geology" is a "sideshow" in Christendom. The 1981 National Academy of Sciences statement placing science and religion in "separate realms," the article says, "was, by many accounts, mainly made as a preemptive strike against [young-earth] creationism."

In this same vein, former physicist and now chancellor of the U. of Mass. at Amherst, David Scott, is quoted to have said: "In postmodern academic culture, the majority of scientists think that to be taken seriously they must scoff at faith."

The article ends on an uphill note, quoting Scott again about deeper connections between the two enterprises: "The two leading disciplines that still look to truth as the essence of the human quest are science and religion." The article ends by observing that "Perhaps the fact that the two schools of thought have so often been at each other's throats stems from mutual recognition of their linked destinies."

This article would be good to use as a student exercise in a course on science and religion, for it provides many examples of different ways of relating our two valued enterprises. M Tim Chen, Walter Hearn, Paul Nelson

AAAS is located in Washington, DC, and ASA Communications Commission member Paul Arveson is also in the area. He represented ASA at the first AAAS "Web summit" of leaders of science/religion organizations last May 19. It was largely an organizational meeting put on by the AAAS program of Dialogue Between Science and Religion (DBSR), chaired by Jim Miller, senior program associate.

Paul described ASA's background and religious orientation. He said in a list server post on the meeting (23 May 1997) that "The ASA apparently has a good reputation among these [sci/rell groups; I heard names of past ASA leaders such as Bob Herrmann and Jim Neidhardt mentioned as influences in some of these organizations."

The group leaders, who were all from Christian or post-Christian backgrounds, introduced themselves. The only funding group, Paul noted was the Templeton Foundation. The common need of the groups was, of course, financial backing. Other issues discussed were revenues from products, copyrights (such as getting permission from journal authors to also publish their articles on the Web), and products needed: book reviews, white papers for teachers and students, frequentlyasked question lists, definitions of common terms, search tools, CD-ROMs and links to related sites.
Some additional related Websites are:

Paul's additional Website: www.his.com/-bridges/ASA/
IRAS: www.iras.org
ITEST: http://itest.slu.edu/
CTNS: www.ctns.org
Templeton: www.templeton.org
Blackwell (Zygon): www.blackwelipublishers.co.uk AAAS Sci/Rel: www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/dbsr/dbsr.htm
Paul reports general agreement that the meeting was useful, and they wish to
meet again. He is taking the initiative to get to know the AAAS people and discuss issues with them personally. Paul ended the report with:

I encourage each of you to think about the role that ASA should play in relation to other groups, and to AAAS. We are all aware of the wide spectrum of viewpoints represented; but that in itself need not cause us to compromise our beliefs one iota. To the contrary, as Camus said, "What the world expects of Christians is that they continue to be Christians." On the other hand, I see this as a much needed opportunity for ASA to step closer into the "public square" that many say is needed in this society. ... I hope that we can truly serve as a bridge of understanding and service in the future. Paul Arveson, Timothy, Chen, Oskar Gruenwald

Personals

Timothy Chen was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Assoc. He was also elected as the coming president of the International Chinese Statistical Assoc. Timothy lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Bernie Piersma is on sabbatical from Houghton C. in western New York. He is spending the year as "Distinguished Visiting Professor" in the chemistry dept. at the U.S. Air Force Academy, teaching two sections of the general chemistry core course and doing research, probably on nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Davis is a historian of science whose release of a modernized text of Robert Boyle's Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature (co edited with British scholar Michael Hunter, Cambridge U. Press) has been out for about a year. In this work, Boyle argued that the "vulgar" (i.e., popular) notion of nature as an intelligent, wise being that does nothing in vain, abhors vacuums, heals diseases, etc. was inferior, both scientifically and theologically, to the mechanical notion of nature.

This important treatise on the doctrine of creation has not been published since the 1772 edition of Boyle's works. It has long been one of Ted's dreams to bring this work to modern readers in a suitable form. Boyle's mature style, Ted points out, can be difficult to wade through, so it needed significant cleanup.

Ted also won a Templeton Exemplary Paper prize for the essay upon which his ASA97 talk was based, recounting the story of the famous debate between Harry Rimmer and Samuel Christian Schmucker at the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia in 1930. It is published in the Summer 1995 issue of Religion and American Culture.

Kenneth A. Feucht, a surgical oncologist, published an article in the Portland Oregonian and Seattle Times (May 19, 1997, opinion page) opposing euthanasia, with coauthor and family physician Michael R. Jackson of Portland. They represent the Washington state chapter of the Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation. The article says, in part:

Killing, however dressed up, is ultimately an expedient. It is always cheaper, quicker and even emotionally easier to choose to believe one is doing the right thing by "ending the suffering." In reality, true compassion sits at the bedside, struggles through difficulties as they arise, and works to alleviate pain as it comes. This requires the kind of care for the individual that actually maximizes the dignity of those at the end of their lives.

My position is simply that since Scripture does not require that God break the chain of cause and effect to accomplish his will (especially in his work in creative history), that we cannot a priori dismiss that cause-and-effect processes will be found for any given event. Thus as a scientist, I must devote myself to uncovering those processes. If such processes are presently unknown for a given event, that is all that can be said scientifically. Keith B. Miller

The Caring Research Awards are the brain child of Walter Hearn, who was impressed with the empirical research done by amateur scientist and engineer, Forrest Mims, as reported at ASA92 in Hawaii.

This year, the $100 award in the "Caring for Earth" category went to Steven G. Hall, a Cornell U. graduate student in agriculture and biological engineering. Steve's winning paper was on his experiments with the stability and control of composting systems and its implications for a biblical ly-based ethic of stewardship. He thinks that studies like this may help clarify issues in environmental stewardship, such as the amount of energy worth expending to prevent or reverse environmental damage.

Taking the "Caring for Science" award was Wheaton C. biology prof. Nadine C. Folino, with her work on "Assessing Water Quality Using the Colonial Hydroid Cordylophora." She was judged the winner because of the way she drew undergraduate students into the actual research. The invertebrate marine organism studied is one of the few of its phylum (Cnidaria) that can grow in fresh water. Nadine's group is documenting its distribution in Illinois, Virginia, and New Hampshire. While it clogs filters and pipes of electrical power stations, Nadine believes the organism might be useful for monitoring environmental changes and the ecological health of bodies of water. Her group is growing cultures in the lab under differing conditions to determine the effects of the organism's growth. She says that students not only gain research experience but also develop a heightened sense of stewardship of water resources.

The "Caring Research" award went to biologist Paul K. Chien, prof. at the U. of San Francisco. His paper, coauthored by USF colleague Xuanli Yao, reported on early Cambrian fossils discovered near Cheng,jian, China, in 1984 by palentologist X. G. Hou. The rich faunal assemblage found by Hou was reported in Chinese journals read by few western scientists. Paul read about the discovery in the People's Daily, and arranged with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to organize a 1995 trip to China to examine the fossils. Distinguished paleontologist James W. Valentine of U. C. Berkeley joined the visiting group.

The find is important because the last assemblage of early Cambrian fossils (dated 530 million years ago) was found in the Burgess shale in Canada in 1909. The Chinese discovery includes the earliest chordate fossil ever found. Paul was allowed to bring home several dozen fossils found at the site. He believes the Cambrian "explosion" of new life-forms in a relatively short geological time period will revolutionize conventional Darwinian theories.

Paul also appeared on the front page of The Real Issue (March/April 1997), published by Christian Leadership Ministries. The article, "Explosion of Life," reveals details of the Cambrian explosion, "a biological puzzle that confounds the Darwinists." Paul is interviewed about the Chinese site and gives some background to his becoming a Christian.

ASA Executive Director, Don Munro, said of the Awards, "We would like to see ASA's small awards program begin to infuse a spirit of caring back into research. Jesus said to do good works, so that those who see what we do will glorify our heavenly Father."

The Awards program is the last official function of the now defunct Committee for Integrity in Science Education. Walt will be submitting a report of the fiveyear experience for the ASA Council to review and evaluate. Walt Hearn