Jastrow Quotes & Sayings

Inventions become perfect by slow improvement, and each step is itself an invention. — Joseph Jastrow

The world is as large as the range of one's interests. A narrow-minded man has a narrow outlook. The walls of his world shut out the broader horizon of affairs. Prejudice can maintain walls that no invention can remove. — Joseph Jastrow

There is no explanation in the Big Bang theory for the seemingly fortuitous fact that the density of matter has just the right value for the evolution of a benign, life supporting universe. — Robert Jastrow

The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science; it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis. — Robert Jastrow

Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth's surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms. — Robert Jastrow

Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy. — Robert Jastrow

The scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities. — Robert Jastrow

Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation. — Robert Jastrow

What is the ultimate solution to the origin of the Universe? The answers provided by the astronomers are disconcerting and remarkable. Most remarkable of all is the fact that in science, as in the Bible, the world begins with an act of creation. — Robert Jastrow

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 mountains 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. — Robert Jastrow

The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms. — Robert Jastrow

The record of the rocks contains very little, other than bacteria and one-celled plants until, about a billion years ago, after some three billion years of invisible progress, a major breakthrough occurred. The first many-celled creatures appeared on earth. — Robert Jastrow

Of course, Jastrow's comment is exaggerated at best; theologians hardly predicted the Big Bang. If our universe turns out to be closed, hence with an end, this does not mean apocalyptic visions of the end of the world were on target. And even if a beginning for the universe is a successful prediction of one version of theism, this is still not that impressive. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The Big Bang becomes strong support for God only with an argument showing that such a beginning requires a Creator. — Taner Edis

The Universe is populated by innumerable suns, innumerable earths, and perhaps, innumerable forms of life. That thought expresses the essence of the Copernican revolution. No revelation more striking has ever come from the scientific mind. — Robert Jastrow

It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in. — Robert Jastrow

The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth's history. — Robert Jastrow

In that the wisdom of the few becomes available to the many, there is progress in human affairs; without it, the static routine of tradition continues. — Joseph Jastrow

Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion. — Robert Jastrow

Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact. — Robert Jastrow