Gordon J. F. MacDonald

Who was Gordon J. F. MacDonald?

Gordon James Fraser MacDonald was an American geophysicist and environmental scientist, best known for his principled skepticism regarding continental drift, and later work on possible non-anthropogenic causes for global climate change. While often on what would turn out to be the "wrong" side of scientific issues, MacDonald was admired for his creative mind, and his ability to connect scientific issues and matters of public policy.

MacDonald was born in Mexico of a Scottish father and American mother. A childhood bout with polio only sharpened his competitive instincts. He applied to Harvard for a football scholarship and graduated summa cum laude at the age of 20. Remaining at Harvard, he became a Harvard Junior Fellow, then received his Ph.D. in geology in 1954. MacDonald was a faculty member at MIT, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Dartmouth and UCSD.

Outside of academia, MacDonald served on the original Presidential Council on Environmental Quality. President Nixon remarked at the time, "I have three members of the Harvard class of 1950 on my staff, all summa cum laude." The reference was to Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, and MacDonald. MacDonald chaired the CIA's MEDEA Committee, a group of environmental scientists convened by the CIA to study whether data from classified intelligence systems could shed light on global environmental issues. He was awarded the CIA's Agency Seal Medallion in 1994. MacDonald was Chief Scientist and Vice President of the MITRE Corporation from 1983 to 1990.