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More on Gardner' Goofs.
Ken Glasziou
In detailing their account of life and land evolution on our planet in Urantia Papers 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 Grand2, 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 estimate4 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.." (464)
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