Augustine Pamplany CST

Jennifer Wiseman is an American astrophysicist with deep Christian convictions. She is today a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. As a child she had a passion for space and she works with telescopes to study the formation of stars and planet. She is credited with the discovery of the comet Wiseman-Skiff in 1987 which is named after her and Brian Skiff. Not surprisingly, her sense of wonder and curiosity that she cherished as a child is still vibrant in her even as an advanced scientist. Jennifer today is the director of the special program on Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As for her, faith in God is a personal journey to be realized by the seeker and she considers her own faith journey to be a life-long process. Her science has taught her that God is one who loves life. Jennifer thinks that the conflict between science and religion is a recent phenomenon invigorated by the media’s need for drama. “When I talk to people I find that most people really realise that there are deeper questions of life that science can’t fully address, and they don’t really see why there should be any conflict.”

“Those of us who study astronomy can tell you the numbers and all of that, but comprehending it is something totally different.” Though science is a “wonderful tool for understanding the physical universe,” it is religious belief that gives the answers to the ultimate questions of philosophy. Those questions are related to the meaning and significance of humans. “In Christian faith, our significance is basically given as a gift of love from God, who’s responsible for the universe. I think it’s significant that we as human beings can actually investigate the universe, have a sense of our cosmic history, have a sense of our actual connection to the cosmos, and understand it. To me that’s a gift. God’s responsible for everything. So, by studying more of nature you’re… enriching your understanding of God.”

In addition to our physical connection with the universe in terms of atoms, she suggests, that we have deeper connection to the universe. It is the human quest for meaning that stirs our imaginations and our images of the universe. “I think it’s because there’s something in us that wants to know the bigger picture … that there’s something more to our existence than just our survival here on this planet.”

She is equally a sworn opponent of religious fundamentalism. She does not regard Bible to be a scientific work. Bible is to be read in the context in which it is written and the message meant to be conveyed, Bible is more important.