BIOGRAPHIES OF SPEAKERS
SPRING 2000 LECTURE SERIES
Biography of Wallace SampsonWallace Sampson, MD is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (chemistry, zoology, 1952), and the UC San Francisco School of Medicine (1955). He is Emeritus Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, having formerly headed the Medical Oncology Division at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose'. He has taught the analysis of aberrant medical claims ("alternative medicine") at Stanford since 1979. He is Chair of the Cancer Advisory Council of the State of California, advisory to the Food and Drug Branch, and served for six years as Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Council against Health Fraud. He serves also as a consultant to the Medical Board and Attorney General of California.
Suggested Readings List:
We recommend the reading of several books and critical research papers: How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilovich, The Psychology of Anomalous Experience, by Graham Reed, How to Think about Weird Things, by Theodore Schick Jr. and Lewis Vaughn, any number of papers on belief perseverance by Lee Ross and others, Cults in Our Midst, by Margaret Singer, The Psychology of Transcendence, by Andrew Neher, Deception and Self-Deception, by Richard Wiseman, Memory and Eyewitness Testimony, by Elizabeth Loftus, and chapters by James Alcock and Barry Beyerstein in The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal.
Biography of Robert L. ParkRobert L. Park is professor of physics at the University of Maryland and Director of the Washington Office of the American Physical Society. His preparation for law school at the University of Texas was interrupted in 1950 by the Korean War. Ignoring his legal talent, the United States Air Force insisted he should be an electronics officer. On his return to the University of Texas in 1956, Park decided the Air Force might have been on to something. He switched to physics and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with High Honors two years later. In 1960 he became the Edgar Lewis Marston Fellow at Brown University, where he studied surface physics under the late Harry Farnsworth, one of the pioneers of the field. Park received his PhD in 1964.
In 1965 he joined Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, and in 1969 became head of the Surface Physics Division at Sandia. He was appointed Professor of Physics and Director of the Center of Materials Research at the University of Maryland in College Park in 1974. He became chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy four years later.
He is the founding editor of Applications of Surface Science and he is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society.
On his sabbatical year in 1982, he was asked by the American Physical Society to open an Office of Public Affairs in Washington D.C. His sabbatical still seems to be going on; he divides his time between the APS and the University of Maryland. He has served on more committees and panels than he chooses to remember. Park is the author of What’s New, a controversial weekly electronic commentary on science policy issues. He is also a regular contributor of opinion articles in major newspapers, and a frequent guest on radio and television news programs.
In 1998, he received the Joseph A. Burton Award of the American Physical Society for his contributions to the public understanding of issues involving the interface of physics and society. He is the author of the book, Voodoo Science.
Biography of Howard J. Van TillProfessor Howard J. Van Till will be the fifth speaker in the Old Dominion University College of Sciences Lecture series. His lecture, "Scientific Creationism: Science, Pseudoscience or Folk-Science?" will be delivered in room 104 of Batten Arts and Letters Building on the Old Dominion University campus at 8p on Thursday 16 March.
Van Till, a California native, obtained his B.S. from Calvin College in 1960 and his Ph.D. in physics from Michigan State University in 1965. While at Michigan State, he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of California-Riverside, he returned to Calvin as a professor of physics, served several years as chair of the department, and retired in 1998. In 1999, he was honored with the Faith and Learning Award, presented by the Calvin Alumni Association. This award seeks to thank Calvin professors who have truly demonstrated the college's aim to integrate religious faith and academic learning. The four selection criteria are: excellence in teaching; spiritual impact; concern for students; and lasting influence.
In addition to numerous publications in physics, Van Till has contributed significantly to the creation-evolution debate. He has taken a stand against the "creation science" perspective, and articulated his concept of the universe's formation, most recently in a book chapter The Fully Gifted Creation, in Three Views on Creation and Evolution, edited by J. P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), pp. 161-247. By fully-gifted creation, Van Till postulates that God brought the universe into existence at the beginning, in the Big Bang. As an expression of God's intention, the natural world then developed into what we view today. Put another way, Van Till proposes that God gave being to a universe fully equipped to evolve into the diversity of forms we see today. This stance has not endeared him to fellow Christians (and others) who believe in a literal six days of creation with living creatures spoken into present form by divine fiat.
His view is expounded in numerous other articles and book chapters. His book, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), deals with the nature and relationship of biblically-informed portrayals and empirically-informed scientific descriptions of the universe's formational history, with applications to the contemporary creation-evolution debate. He has coauthored two other books, including Science Held Hostage: What's Wrong with Creation Science, and Evolutionism, with Davis A. Young and Clarence Menninga (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), a critique of the exploitation and misrepresentation of science by the proponents of both "scientific creationism" and naturalistic evolutionism. Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World's Formation was written with Robert E. Snow, John H. Stek, and Davis A. Young (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). This work was the product of a year-long collaborative study at the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
On Wednesday 15 March, at 5:30 pm, Professor Van Till will be speaking on "The Fully Gifted Creation" to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the Chesapeake Room of Webb Center. On Friday 17 March, as part of the College of Sciences Lecture Series, he will present, "The Legend of the Shrinking Sun: A Case Study Comparing Professional Science and Scientific Creationism" in Room 200 of the Oceanography and Physics Building on the Old Dominion University campus.
Biography of Dave ThomasDave Thomas is a physics and mathematics graduate of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and is currently a senior scientist at Quatro Corporation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is vice president and communications officer of New Mexicans for Science and Reason.
Some references:
For Roswell, check the July/August 1995 Skeptical Inquirer; the article is also on the web, at http://www.csicop.org/si/9507/roswell.html
Thomas's Bible code article was in the Nov./Dec. 1997 Skeptical Inquirer, and is also online at http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/bible-code.html
You can read about Thomas's Roswell - Bible Code Match on the ABC News website, at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/WhosCounting/whoscounting991101.html in a fun article by mathematician/author John Allen Paulos. See also the Nov. 3rd 1997 People Magazine, if available.
And don't forget Brendan McKay's great Torah Code site, at http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/torah.html
Biography of Joe NickellJoe Nickell, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)
-- an international scientific organization-- and serves on the Committee's Executive Council and on the Editorial Board of its magazine, the "Skeptical Inquirer". He also writes a column for the magazine, "Investigative Files."A former professional stage magician (he was Resident Magician at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame for three years) and private investigator for a world-famous detective agency, Dr. Nickell taught technical writing for several years at the University of Kentucky before taking the full-time position with CSICOP at its new Center for Inquiry think-tank complex in Amherst, New York.
Utilizing his varied background, Nickell has become widely known as an investigator of myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called "the modern Sherlock Holmes", "the original ghostbuster", and "the real-life Scully" (from 'The X-Files').
Education: University of Kentucky, BA 1967, MA 1982, PhD 1987. Books: Author (or co-author or editor) of sixteen books.
Biography of Philip A. IannaPhilip A. Ianna is a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, and Associate Director of the Leander McCormick Observatory. Mr. Ianna received his BA and MA degrees from Swarthmore College, his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, and he joined The University of Virginia in 1968. His research focuses on the stars nearest the Sun; this includes searching for new nearby stars, measuring the distances to very low luminosity dwarfs, and determining the masses of nearby binary stars. Much of this work is done in Australia and Chile.
He teaches a course in science and pseudoscience at UVA, and is co-author with Roger B. Culver, of the book "Astrology: True or False", chosen by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific as one of the best ten books in astronomy for 1988. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, the International Dark-sky Association, and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.