Henry F. Schaefer, III
Encyclopedia
Henry "Fritz" Schaefer III (born June 8, 1944) is a computational
and theoretical
chemist. He is the author of a large number of scientific publications, and was the 6th most cited chemist from 1981 to 1997 and the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry
at the University of Georgia
. Schaefer is often called a prominent proponent of intelligent design
. However, he has described himself as "sympathetic" to Intelligent Design, but primarily a "proponent of Jesus." He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute
's Center for Science and Culture
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
, Schaefer was once a fellow for the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, which is now defunct, and a signer of the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution
letter, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
.
, and was educated in Syracuse, New York
; Menlo Park, California
; and East Grand Rapids, Michigan
. He was awarded a B.S. degree in chemical physics
by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1966 and a Ph.D. degree in chemical physics from Stanford University
in 1969. He was professor of chemistry
at the University of California, Berkeley
from 1969 to 1987. In 1979-1980 he was Wilfred T. Doherty Professor of Chemistry and inaugural Director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry
at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1987 he moved to the University of Georgia
, where he is Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry
. He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
and for a long time was the chairman of WATOC (World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists). In 2004 he became Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, at UC Berkeley. His other academic appointments include Professeur d'Echange at the University of Paris
(1977), Gastprofessur at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochshule (ETH
), Zurich (1994, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010), and David P. Craig Visiting Professor at the Australian National University
(1999). He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
.
. His contributions to the field of quantum chemistry
include a paper challenging, on theoretical grounds, the geometry of triplet methylene as assigned by Nobel Prize-winning experimentalist Gerhard Herzberg
; the development of the Z-vector method simplifying certain calculations of correlated systems; and a wide body of work undertaken in his research group on the geometries, properties, and reactions of chemical systems using highly accurate ab initio quantum chemical techniques. Many of these papers have predicted, or forced a reinterpretation of, experimental results. He is the author of more than 1,300 scientific publications, the majority appearing in the Journal of Chemical Physics or the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
, London, with a citation that included "the first theoretical chemist successfully to challenge the accepted conclusion of a distinguished experimental group for a polyatomic molecule, namely methylene." In 2003, Schaefer received the American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry and the Ira Remsen Award of Johns Hopkins University. In 2004, a six day conference was convened in Gyeongju, Korea on the “Theory and Applications of Computational Chemistry: A Celebration of 1000 Papers of Professor Henry F. Schaefer III.” Schaefer was honored with the $10,000 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in 2005 by the University of Wisconsin's Theoretical Chemistry Institute, joining a distinguished list of some of the best-known scientists in the field. In 2011 he received the prestigious Ide P. Trotter Prize of Texas A&M University. Previous recipients of the Trotter Prize include Nobelists Francis Crick, Charles Townes, Steven Weinberg, and William Phillips. (http://www.science.tamu.edu/trotter/)
Schaefer is also an active Protestant Christian
educator who regularly speaks to university audiences (over 300 to date), Christian groups and the public on science/faith issues. In 2003, he published Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence?, a collection of essays and talks on the subject. He is a member of the Christian Faculty Forum at University of Georgia.
. It promoted Intelligent Design
and also implied the futility of belief systems other than Christianity as the way to God. This evoked a response from a group of students in the form of handbills.
The Discovery Institute prominently and frequently mentions the Nobel Prize
in connection with Schaefer, referring to him as a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize" despite the fact that Nobel Prize nominations remain confidential for fifty years. Intelligent Design critic Barbara Forrest
, Glenn Branch and Reed Cartwright allege that in elevating mere speculation to a fact, the Discovery Institute is inflating his reputation. The original source of the estimate that Schaefer has been nominated 5 times for a Nobel Prize is a December 23, 1991 cover article in U.S. News and World Report.
Computational chemistry
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
and theoretical
Theoretical chemistry
Theoretical chemistry seeks to provide theories that explain chemical observations. Often, it uses mathematical and computational methods that, at times, require advanced knowledge. Quantum chemistry, the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of valency, is a major component of...
chemist. He is the author of a large number of scientific publications, and was the 6th most cited chemist from 1981 to 1997 and the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry
Computational chemistry
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
. Schaefer is often called a prominent proponent of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. However, he has described himself as "sympathetic" to Intelligent Design, but primarily a "proponent of Jesus." He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
's Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
, Schaefer was once a fellow for the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, which is now defunct, and a signer of the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
letter, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
.
Early life and education
Schaefer was born in Grand Rapids, MichiganGrand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
, and was educated in Syracuse, New York
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
; Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
; and East Grand Rapids, Michigan
East Grand Rapids, Michigan
East Grand Rapids is a city in Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is a suburb of Grand Rapids and is located on the shore of Reeds Lake. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,694.-Geography:...
. He was awarded a B.S. degree in chemical physics
Chemical physics
Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of chemistry and physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical processes from the point of view of physics...
by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in 1966 and a Ph.D. degree in chemical physics from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1969. He was professor of chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
from 1969 to 1987. In 1979-1980 he was Wilfred T. Doherty Professor of Chemistry and inaugural Director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry
Theoretical chemistry
Theoretical chemistry seeks to provide theories that explain chemical observations. Often, it uses mathematical and computational methods that, at times, require advanced knowledge. Quantum chemistry, the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of valency, is a major component of...
at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1987 he moved to the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
, where he is Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry
Computational chemistry
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
. He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
The International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science is an international scientific learned society covering all applications of quantum theory to chemistry and chemical physics. It was created in Menton in 1967. The founding members were Raymond Daudel, Per-Olov Löwdin, Robert G. Parr, John...
and for a long time was the chairman of WATOC (World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists). In 2004 he became Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, at UC Berkeley. His other academic appointments include Professeur d'Echange at the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
(1977), Gastprofessur at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochshule (ETH
Eth
Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese , and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line through the vertical stroke...
), Zurich (1994, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010), and David P. Craig Visiting Professor at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
(1999). He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
.
Research and books
Research within the Schaefer group involves the use of computational hardware and theoretical methods to solve problems in molecular quantum mechanicsQuantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
. His contributions to the field of quantum chemistry
Quantum chemistry
Quantum chemistry is a branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics in physical models and experiments of chemical systems...
include a paper challenging, on theoretical grounds, the geometry of triplet methylene as assigned by Nobel Prize-winning experimentalist Gerhard Herzberg
Gerhard Herzberg
Gerhard Heinrich Friedrich Otto Julius Herzberg, was a pioneering physicist and physical chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1971, "for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals". Herzberg's main work concerned...
; the development of the Z-vector method simplifying certain calculations of correlated systems; and a wide body of work undertaken in his research group on the geometries, properties, and reactions of chemical systems using highly accurate ab initio quantum chemical techniques. Many of these papers have predicted, or forced a reinterpretation of, experimental results. He is the author of more than 1,300 scientific publications, the majority appearing in the Journal of Chemical Physics or the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Awards and honor
Schaefer was awarded the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry in 1979 "for the development of computational quantum chemistry into a reliable quantitative field of chemistry and for prolific exemplary calculations of broad chemical interest". In 1983 he received the Leo Hendrik Baekeland award for the most distinguished North American chemist under the age of 40. In 1992, he was awarded the Centenary Medal of the Royal Society of ChemistryRoyal Society of Chemistry
The Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences." It was formed in 1980 from the merger of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new...
, London, with a citation that included "the first theoretical chemist successfully to challenge the accepted conclusion of a distinguished experimental group for a polyatomic molecule, namely methylene." In 2003, Schaefer received the American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry and the Ira Remsen Award of Johns Hopkins University. In 2004, a six day conference was convened in Gyeongju, Korea on the “Theory and Applications of Computational Chemistry: A Celebration of 1000 Papers of Professor Henry F. Schaefer III.” Schaefer was honored with the $10,000 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in 2005 by the University of Wisconsin's Theoretical Chemistry Institute, joining a distinguished list of some of the best-known scientists in the field. In 2011 he received the prestigious Ide P. Trotter Prize of Texas A&M University. Previous recipients of the Trotter Prize include Nobelists Francis Crick, Charles Townes, Steven Weinberg, and William Phillips. (http://www.science.tamu.edu/trotter/)
Schaefer is also an active Protestant Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
educator who regularly speaks to university audiences (over 300 to date), Christian groups and the public on science/faith issues. In 2003, he published Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence?, a collection of essays and talks on the subject. He is a member of the Christian Faculty Forum at University of Georgia.
Controversy
On January 25. 2008, he presented an invited lecture titled 'Big Bang, Stephen Hawking and God' at the Indian Institute of Technology BombayIndian Institute of Technology Bombay
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay , popularly known as IIT Bombay or IITB, is a public research university located in Powai, Mumbai...
. It promoted Intelligent Design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
and also implied the futility of belief systems other than Christianity as the way to God. This evoked a response from a group of students in the form of handbills.
The Discovery Institute prominently and frequently mentions the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in connection with Schaefer, referring to him as a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize" despite the fact that Nobel Prize nominations remain confidential for fifty years. Intelligent Design critic Barbara Forrest
Barbara Forrest
Barbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She is a critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute.- Biography :...
, Glenn Branch and Reed Cartwright allege that in elevating mere speculation to a fact, the Discovery Institute is inflating his reputation. The original source of the estimate that Schaefer has been nominated 5 times for a Nobel Prize is a December 23, 1991 cover article in U.S. News and World Report.
Publications, books, lectures
- Science and Christianity : Conflict or Coherence? Apollos Trust, (2003) ISBN 0-9742975-0-X
- Scientists and Their Gods (2001)
- Quantum Chemistry: The Development of Ab Initio Methods in Molecular Electronic Structure Theory Dover Publications (February 20, 2004) ISBN 0-486-43246-7