Robert Jastrow

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Dr. Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) was an American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Views on controversial issues

[edit] Intelligent design

He attracted criticism due to some of his statements which have been picked up and championed by the intelligent design movement to support their cause.

His expressed views on Creation were that although he was an "agnostic, and not a believer",[1] it seems to him that "the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future"[1] due to "the circumstances of the big bang-the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past".[1]

[edit] Moon landing conspiracy

When asked about his views on the Moon landing hoax, shortly after the Fox Network broadcast its first speculative documentary on the subject, Jastrow vehemently denied this possibility. He said that such a premise would have involved deceiving thousands of expertly trained NASA employees, including himself, and that he saw no such evidence of this during his work on the Apollo program or his 20 year directorship of NASA's Goddard Institute.

[edit] UFOs

Open to the possibility of extra-terrestrial life in the universe, but skeptical of the proposed alien origin of UFO's due to a lack of strong physical evidence that would support this hypothesis.

[edit] Awards

  • NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement
  • Arthur S. Fleming Award for Outstanding Service in the U.S. Government.
  • Columbia University Medal of Excellence
  • Columbia Graduate Facilities Award to Distinguished Alumni
  • Doctor of Science degree (honorary) from Manhattan College

[edit] Selected television appearances

[edit] Quotes

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

"There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgements to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science, it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the universe, and every effect must have its cause, there is no first cause...

This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control...

Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, what cause produced the effect? Who or what put the matter and energy in the universe? Was the universe created out of nothing, or was it gathered together out of pre existing materials? And science cannot answer these questions".

[edit] Selected publications

[edit] Books

[edit] Periodicals

[edit] Maternal biography

  • Marie Jastrow, Looking Back: The American Dream Through Immigrant Eyes, 1907-1918, (1986), W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-02348-6

[edit] References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  1. ^ a b c Leader U. "Message from Professor Robert Jastrow"
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