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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." (24) They also inform us that, "Revelation is validated only by human experience." (1106) 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.
References
1. Bain, R., Glasziou, K., Neibaur, M., & Wright, F. "The Science Content of The Urantia Book."
(Brotherhood of Man Library, 1991)
2. Le Grand H.E. "Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories." (Cambridge University Press, 1988)
3. Sprunger, M. J. "The Purpose of Revelation." Innerface International Vol.3 No.1. (1996)
4. Dalziel, I.W.D. Scientific American 272 (1) 38 (1995)
5. Burbidge, E.M. & G.R., Fowler, W.A., and Hoyle, F. (1957)
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