© 1998 Ken Glasziou
© 1998 The Brotherhood of Man Library
In detailing their account of life and land evolution on our planet in Urantia Papers UB 57, 58, 59 and 60, their authors have wholeheartedly embraced the concept of continental drift, an idea first touted by Alfred Wegener in 1910. Take away continental drift from these four Papers and they collapse as an irrational heap.
In a paper entitled The Science Content of The Urantia Book,[1] myself and my co-authors drew attention to the fact that, over the period in which the Urantia papers were received and published (1934-1955), the concept of continental drift was held only tenuously and by very few geologists. Antipathy to the concept was stated to have been particularly strong in the USA. This antipathy lasted through from the early 1920’s to well into the 1960 period.
In our view, if the Urantia Papers were fake revelation by human authors, it would have been quite strange for the postulated authors to go against the grain of prevailing professional opinion by making their story of life and land evolution so highly dependent upon the truth of the continental drift theory. In support of our view that opposition to the theory was extremely strong, we cited a recent book by science historian, H.E. Le Grand[2], as well as earlier criticisms of Wegener’s theory by eminent geologist, R.T. Chamberlin in which he listed 18 points that he considered were destructive of the hypothesis.
Gardner’s critique (“Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery”) of our continental draft account is an example of what Meredith Sprunger described as “the irrelevant conclusion fallacy.[3]” Gardner finds publications by a few European and South African geologists who thought Wegener’s ideas were worthy of consideration, rambles on about them, gives some details of various conferences and postulates, and then finishes with “The four Urantian authors also make much of two ancient supernova explosions.”
How this critique is supposed to demolish the apparently prophetic nature of some of the science content of the book is hard to see. Gardner plays another of the tricks of his trade as a professional debunker by ignoring those items for which he has no explanation or by diverting attention through his citation of comparative irrelevancies.
For the continental drift story of the Urantia Papers, the major “prophetic” item was the actual starting date for drift, given as 750 million years ago. In contrast, Wegener had suggested 200-300 million years ago, a view that remained dominant until the 1980’s when the commencing date was pushed back to 500 million years or more, and with a recent estimate[4] coinciding exactly with the 750 million years given in Paper 57.
[Note: Geological dating of this kind is by no means an exact science. The estimate of “750” probably means, “closer to 750 than to either 700 or 800 million.”]
A review of “plate tectonics,” the replacement name for “continental drift,” appears in the recent CDROM edition of Encyclopedia Britannica and states, “. . . disbelief (in Wegener’s continental drift) was so strong that it often bordered on indignation. One of the strongest opponents was the British geophysicist Sir Harold Jeffreys, who spent years attempting to demonstrate that continental drift is impossible because the strength of the mantle should be far greater than any conceivable driving force. . . .It was in North America, however, that opposition to Wegener’s ideas was vigorous to the point of excess and very nearly unanimous. . . .Wegener was attacked from virtually every possible vantage point, his paleontological evidence attributed to land bridges, the similarity of strata on both sides of the Atlantic called into question, the fit of Atlantic shores declared inaccurate, and his very competence doubted. . . .”—and much more.
As with his critique of continental drift, so with Gardner’s comments on supernova in which he takes advantage of the probable ignorance of his readers on this topic when he diverts attention from the critical points with irrelevant discussion.
The idea of large single stars collapsing to form a neutron star or a black hole was a supposition of astrophysicists with overly vivid imaginations until long after the Urantia Papers had been received and published. A good theoretical basis for the formation of a neutron star was not laid down until 1957. (Burbidge et al.[5]) However, proof of their existence did not come until 1967.
Illustrating the lack of good evidence in favor of their existence, in 1960 distinguished Russian astro-physicist Igor Novikoff wrote, “Apparently no searches in earnest for neutron stars or black holes were attempted by astronomers before the 1960’s. It was tacitly assumed these objects were far too eccentric. . . .”
However, the Urantia Book (1955) authors were undaunted, writing: “In large suns when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, and such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support for the outer gas regions, then a sudden collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes give origin to vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential, and such particles readily escape from the solar interior thus bringing about the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days. . . ” (UB 41:8.3)
The “vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential” that escape readily from the solar interior are now identified with the neutrinos which were not actually demonstrated to exist until 1956. But even the 1957 paper from the Burbidges’ group5 that laid the theoretical foundation for the understanding of neutron star collapse nevertheless failed to assign a role to the neutrinos in the explosive conduction of energy away from the core.
The number of people who, in 1955, would have had the faintest inkling of what the Urantia Paper authors meant by their statement that “such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support” could have been counted on one hand. And even taking 1955 as cut-off date, for the Urantia Paper authors to uphold the already discredited suggestions of Gamow and co-workers that “tiny particles devoid of electric potential” were the means of collapsing the star really must be recognized as being either truly remarkable foresight or else it is attributable to pre-knowledge.
The “opaqueness” the authors refer to is such that even the uncharged and mass-less photons of light take around a million years to move from the center to the perimeter of stars like our sun. Only a very strange, unknown, virtually undetectable, and almost totally unreactive particle could have possibly acted as energy carrier in the kind of stellar explosion the Urantia Papers’ authors describe.
The neutrino, a “tiny particle devoid of electric potential,” has now been confirmed to be that carrier, and to be responsible for transfer of more than 90% of the energy released in a supernova. Recall though, that the actual reality of neutrinos was not established until 1956, the year after the book’s publication.
I, personally, find it impossible to believe that someone with Martin Gardner’s reputation as a critic of advanced scientific concepts could be ignorant of the remarkable nature of these sections from The Urantia Book. Blind to them, yes, but not ignorant. His motives in failing to mention the detail of neutron star formation and items such as the commencing time of continental drift are known only to himself. Whatever else this reveals, it demonstrates that Gardner is no seeker after truth, at least not as that concept is used in the Urantia Papers’ terminology.
The question I again put to readers is why would hypothetical human authors of these Urantia Papers have included materials that were so highly speculative from a human viewpoint? Surely anyone attempting to add “prophetic” science in support of a claim to revelation would have avoided ideas that apparently had only a very slight chance of turning out to be correct.
Gardner’s attitude to “prophetic” materials in the Urantia Papers is that if the authors made enough guesses they would be sure to get some things right. We have previously pointed out 1 that, when dealing with hypotheses that have a slight chance of being correct, the odds become multiplicative. If two guesses are made, each with a one in ten chance of being correct, then the chances of getting both correct are one in a hundred.
The number of remarkable “guesses” in the Urantia Papers that are now known to be correct is far too great to be attributable to pure chance, even if they had been made by professional scientists in their own field of study. Gardner is a mathematician and must be aware this is so.
The mandate given to the revelators of the Urantia Papers disallowed the revealing of unearned knowledge but allowed for reduction of confusion by the elimination of error and the co-ordination of about-to be-known facts.
We have no idea of why the revelators chose to provide information on continental drift, neutrinos, neutron stars, etc., in the way they have, but can be quite certain it was not their intention that this “prophetic” material should be taken either as proof of the existence of God or as confirmation of the revelatory status of the Urantia Papers.
Among much else they state, “The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction.” (UB 1:2.7) They also inform us that, “Revelation is validated only by human experience.” (UB 101:2.8) But whatever the reasons for their mode of presentation may have been, the effect of their “prophetic” material upon the truth-seeker can only be transitory. Once faith in divine truth is established, the need for so-called “proof” diminishes to approach zero.
Bain, R., Glasziou, K., Neibaur, M., & Wright, F. “The Science Content of The Urantia Book.” (Brotherhood of Man Library, 1991) ↩︎
Le Grand H.E. “Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories.” (Cambridge University Press, 1988) ↩︎
Sprunger, M. J. “The Purpose of Revelation.” Innerface International Vol.3 No.1. (1996) ↩︎
Dalziel, I.W.D. Scientific American 272 (1) 38 (1995) ↩︎
Burbidge, E.M. & G.R., Fowler, W.A., and Hoyle, F. (1957) ↩︎