© 2011 Santiago Rodríguez
© 2011 Urantia Association of Spain
Neither secularism nor religion | Luz y Vida — No. 27 — December 2011 — Index | News from Urantia Association of Spain |
In this second installment of “Convergences and Divergences” we will address a curiously controversial topic. In Document 36, “The Life Carriers”, section 2, THE WORLDS OF THE LIFE CARRIERS, UB 36:2, we can read, and I copy literally:
. . .There are also seven architectural types of life design, fundamental arrangements of the reproducing configurations of living matter. The Orvonton life patterns are configured as twelve inheritance carriers. The differing orders of will creatures are configured as 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and 768. On Urantia there are forty-eight units of pattern control—trait determiners—in the sex cells of human reproduction. (UB 36:2.11)
From reading this text, the first thing that comes to mind is that the Revelators (in this case a Vorondadek Son) are alluding to what today we commonly call “chromosomes”… or don’t you think so?
Let’s get closer to the concept of chromosome, let’s get down to business and the first stumbling block arises:
We know that the human species has 46 and not 48 chromosomes. Was the Vorondadek Son wrong, is our science wrong, or perhaps neither one nor the other and both turn out to be right? Let’s do a little historical summary and carefully read the text of the UB, to see if it is possible to reconcile this tremendous discrepancy. In a piece of information like this I think that approximations do not fit, as we could consider if we were to determine distances or talk about dates.
Consider that “The Urantia Book” appears published in Chicago in 1955, and see what the science of the time said.
There is an article that resolves the controversy on this subject in a very enlightening way:
Barcat, Juan Antonio. Chromosomes of the human species: 48, 47 and 46. Medicina (B. Aires), Apr 2007, vol.67, no.2, p.211-213. ISSN0025-7680
I suggest its complete reading to have a more objective vision, but in summary we can say that, in March 1954, to the question: How many chromosomes do human somatic cells have? The correct answer was: they have 48 chromosomes. This was supported by the histology and cytology texts of the time (De Robertis, Nowinski and Sáez, Buño, Maximow and Bloom, Bayley). However, after 1956 the correct answer was no longer 48 chromosomes but only 46.
That difference originated in part because of the interest that researchers had in finding differences between the different human races. On the other hand, there was the fact of the complexity of isolating the cells at the right moment to be able to count chromosomes in an unequivocal way.
Now the situation seems clear, but before 1956 it was thought that the number of chromosomes was 48 when in reality it is 46. If we also recall what is described on p. 1109 of the UB, section 4, “The Limitations of the Revelation”, we could settle the matter considering that just at that time the chromosome count gave 48 units instead of 46, and the Revealer did not want to anticipate that data, although we could hardly talk about anticipation since 1955 is the date of publication, and just the following year 46 chromosomes are definitively counted; it seems that the Revealer adjusted the dates in a surprising way. If the UB were to be published a year later, it would have already been born with a major error.
We could leave the reflection on this topic here, but I would like to go a little further…
Let’s emphasize the fact that the developer is not satisfied with giving us a single number and also apparently wrong (48), but also relates it to the 12 existing models of heritage in Orvonton.
What sense would it make to give us an erroneous data and take the error further, involving the falsified number with additional numerical relations and that presumably we will not be able to verify in a very long time? When will it be possible for us humans on Urantia to count the chromosome number of other beings on Orvonton? And all when they could have easily avoided it, mentioning for example that the number is proportional to the models carrying the Orvonton inheritance, without saying if we are talking about multiples of 12 or any other number.
Let’s keep in mind some dates to consider in time the study of chromosomes and their relationship with biological inheritance: (citations taken from Wikipedia in November 2011)
1841, chromosomes were discovered by Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli.
1869, Friedrich Miescher discovers DNA.
1889, Wilhelm von Waldeyer gave them the name chromosome which means colored body in Greek.
1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan described that they are carriers of the genes.
1943, Oswald Avery, C. McLeod and M. McCarty discover that DNA is the hereditary material.
1953, James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick discover the structure of DNA.
If at this moment we make an inventory of data, we find that we have the following panorama:
First, that the developer mentions “48 control units”, and does not use the word “chromosome”, despite the fact that it existed since 1889, and second, that if there are 46 chromosomes and not 48, his explanation of the multiplicity of the number 12 is meaningless.
It seems that either the developer fooled us by taking the falsehood beyond reason, or there are actually 48 units of control of the transmission of heredity, these being present only in the sexual cells, being 46 of the 48 units control, the chromosomes that we already know, and opening ourselves to the possibility that there should also be two other entities that science has not yet defined as such, and remain unknown. These two extra units should be present in the “sex cells of human reproduction.” Let’s remember that science currently understands that all cells have the same number of chromosomes, except for gametes (sex cells) that have half the genetic load so that when the egg and sperm fuse, they form a cell with again 46 chromosomes.
The UB is full of data, some of which we will comment on in this section. Have you considered what our position should be towards them? Does this mean that a priori the data provided by the UB may or may not be true and we have no way of discriminating when they give us correct data or when they are completely wrong?
Perhaps the way of not giving away or advancing knowledge is precisely to unsystematically intermingle correct data with inaccurate data, so that we cannot deduce anything definitive about physical reality from what is revealed?
In successive installments of this section we will have the opportunity to comment on opposite situations, that is, cases in which the developers propose a different theory from the one established at the time of the publication of the UB (1955) and which is now (2011) re-examined. consider as possible, which would apparently go against the limitations of disclosure, unless they have done so in such a way that we cannot trust the veracity of that data.
Neither secularism nor religion | Luz y Vida — No. 27 — December 2011 — Index | News from Urantia Association of Spain |