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Science and Archaeology in the Urantia Papers.
Matthew Block
"Let me weigh in with the opinion that archaeological studies should be included with the new booklet. Sure it deals with minutiae, but it is not trivial and there must be room in the movement for microanalytic research (it's not surprising that I should be saying this!). Your booklet should be published as you originally envisaged it an investigation of a broad range of topics treated in appropriately different ways.
"We are still in the early stages of (Urantia Book) science research. My work on the human sources for the Papers will fill an important gap. But that is not enough. Our goals should be:
to track down all the direct and indirect human sources of the science material.
to become thoroughly familiar with the history of the science of the 20th century, decade by decade.
"Ultimately, then, we will be able to classify the science statements in a four-item typology embracing:
statements that reflect mid-30's science and are still supported by contemporary science.
statements that reflect mid-30's science that are no longer held (charting when and why science discarded the theories in question).
statements that were not held by the mid-30's science but are held today (i.e. "prophetic" or "about-to-be-known" facts (1109) and observations.
statements that were not supported by mid-30's science and are still not considered tenable.
"We will also be able to tag every science-related sentence and/or paragraph and/or section in the book according to whether it:
is direct superhuman information or commentary, unmediated by humanly derived references.
is directly based on specific human source materials.
is an assemblage of humanly known information probably culled and distilled from a variety of unspecified sources.
is a composite of revealed and unrevealed information.
I agree that the "mixed bag" nature of the book's science ("about-to-be-known" facts interspersed with obsolete statements and with surprisingly unconventional assertions) is somewhat baffling. But actually, it won't be as baffling once the Papers are subjected to a thorough comparative analysis with human sources. Patterns will probably emerge (actually are already emerging), shedding light on the intentions of the Revelators.
"For instance a recurrent motif in the first five papers of Part 111 is sudden speciation. The Revelators are so intent on emphasizing this that they expressly gloss over (ignore) contraindications of transition species cited by Chamberlin and Schuchert. As a case in point, both Chamberlin and Schuchert maintain that placental mammals derived from insectivorous non-placental mammals, and were already in evidence in the late Mesozoic. But the Revelators say no such thing, stating rather that the placentals sprang directly from an earlier line of mammal-like reptiles, emerging only at the beginning of the Cenozoic. Why the divergence? I don't know exactly...but it does tie in with the Revelators' previous statements about the life-modification experiment involving mammals. The mammals, especially the placental ones, had an unusual emergence on this planet, somehow tied in with the purposeful plans (and failed experiments) of the Life Carriers. So the Revelators' surprising statement about the emergence of he placental mammals is not so wild and unaccountable after all.
"Martin Gardner's jaundiced and harsh review of the book's science has given us an indication of what to expect from the skeptics. We'll never be able to sell agnostic scientists on the book by the science alone. (I realize that's never been your hope.) ...What we can hope to expect is that the science of the book will be respected by scientists as an important element in the whole revelatory presentation, which is primarily an attempt to portray a synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy. One must already appreciate the philosophic excellence and spiritual beauty of the Papers to give the science its proper due. Papers 41-42 and 57-61 (as well as some other science-related ones), for all their errors and obsolete information, are still beautifully written and conceived. I'm so impressed by how the Revelators distil hundreds of pages from geological textbooks into 50 scintillating pages, interweaving humanly derived observations with revelatory insights, and showing the glory of the evolutionary prcess in a cosmic, transplanetary context. There's really nothing like these papers in the human literature. Nevertheless, they definitely contain some little mistakes and outdated information."
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