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SCIENCE IN THE URANTIA BOOK: PROPHETIC OR PROBLEMATIC?
An ICO5 Presentation By RDickUBain
INTRODUCTION
There are areas of science and cosmology in The Urantia Book that some Urantians have found either prophetic or problematic. By prophetic, I mean concepts in The Urantia Book that were unknown or concepts that had been postulated but were unverified and not generally accepted at the time the papers were received. By problematic, I mean those scientific ideas or concepts in The Urantia Book that were generally accepted by the scientific community in the time frame of the 1930’s and 40’s, but have since been disproved or modified by science so the original concept does not agree with current scientific knowledge. Figure 1 below shows when changes could have been made between receipt of the Urantia papers and their publication.
Figure 1
Figure 2. Seafloor Spreading
Figure 3 shows how geologists believe Rodinia split apart.
Figure 3. Rodinia Divisions
Figure 5. Space Respiration Phases
Figure 9 M31, THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY
There is a real problem in designating science in The Urantia Book as prophetic. In the parlance of those investigating political wrong doing, we need to ask ourselves regarding the scientists of the 1930’s and 40’s, “What did they know, and when did they know it?” Through diligent detective work, Matt Block has shown that some science concepts in the book that many Urantians believed were prophetic had already been theorized at the time of the reception of the Urantia Papers in the mid-1930’s, though many were unproven. Furthermore, it appears that changes and additions to the Papers occurred as late as 1944. The plates for the book were made in about 1944, but the book wasn’t published until 1955. Since the plates were in the vault of RR Donnely from 1944 until 1955, it is unlikely that any changes were made to the text over that period of time. The time line in Figure 1 shows some of the relevant dates. Comparison of the texts of various printings shows that some small changes were made to The Urantia Book after the first printing. I tried to select items for consideration as prophetic that were either not known or not verified until after 1944 and that were not affected by any changes after that date. In some cases, the authors mixed ideas that seem prophetic with some that are problematic, thus complicating the selection process.The following are some of the ideas in the book that have been identified as either prophetic or problematic.
Ideas for part of this material came from several papers written by Dr. Ken Glasziou; most of these ideas appeared in the journal he once edited and published, Innerface International. Back issues can be viewed on The Urantia Book Fellowship website.
In the 1990’s Dr. Meredith Sprunger wrote the following in a piece referring to the way some people approach the Bible, titled “Demythologizing The Urantia Book.”
Students of the Fifth Epochal Revelation are now experiencing this same inclination to identify its scientific-cultural concepts with the enlarged and inspiring spiritual truths it presents. The historic dichotomy which our planet has experienced between science and religion no doubt inspired the revelators of the Fifth Epochal Revelation to present an integrated view of the relationships of science, philosophy, and religion in the universe. The mandates under which the revelators worked, in my judgment, are wise and spiritually sound. They were required to use contemporary scientific frames of reference which they acknowledged would soon be in need of revision. They were instructed to use concepts indigenous to our culture and only use their own formulations when they could not find a human expression that was relevant to their purposes. They tell us that they used thousands of the highest human formulations of truth. The research of Matthew Block is verifying these statements and showing us the ingenious ways they have improved these human sources.
I. PROPHETIC SCIENCEIdeas for part of this material came from several papers written by Dr. Ken Glasziou; most of these ideas appeared in the journal he once edited and published, Innerface International. Back issues can be viewed on The Urantia Book Fellowship website.
In the 1990’s Dr. Meredith Sprunger wrote the following in a piece referring to the way some people approach the Bible, titled “Demythologizing The Urantia Book.”
Students of the Fifth Epochal Revelation are now experiencing this same inclination to identify its scientific-cultural concepts with the enlarged and inspiring spiritual truths it presents. The historic dichotomy which our planet has experienced between science and religion no doubt inspired the revelators of the Fifth Epochal Revelation to present an integrated view of the relationships of science, philosophy, and religion in the universe. The mandates under which the revelators worked, in my judgment, are wise and spiritually sound. They were required to use contemporary scientific frames of reference which they acknowledged would soon be in need of revision. They were instructed to use concepts indigenous to our culture and only use their own formulations when they could not find a human expression that was relevant to their purposes. They tell us that they used thousands of the highest human formulations of truth. The research of Matthew Block is verifying these statements and showing us the ingenious ways they have improved these human sources.
The importance of Science in the Urantia Book
So how shall we deal with the science of the book? Should we ignore it? Should we downplay its importance? Should we accept it without question? I believe that these are all dangerous things to do, if for no other reason than that it will be examined by both new readers and critics of the book, such as Martin Gardner. As some of you may be aware, Gardner wrote a book called Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery a number of years ago trying to prove that The Urantia Book is a hoax. If there are science items that are questionable, I think it would be most useful to admit this rather than insisting that The Urantia Book is infallible and therefore science has to be wrong. I don’t believe that we should be like the Creationist scientists who judge the truth of everything by whether it agrees with their interpretation of the Bible or not. Science has been wrong from time to time, but there are many scientific concepts for which the evidence of their correctness is overwhelming, such as the age of the earth and plate tectonics.
The following are some of the ideas in the book that have been identified as either prophetic or problematic.
The following are some of the ideas in the book that have been identified as either prophetic or problematic.
Figure 2. Seafloor Spreading
Continental Drift: Continental drift is the concept that earth’s continents sit on large plates that move about on top of an inner molten layer. Although this idea was proposed as early as 1911 by Wegner, it was not accepted by most geologists until long after 1955. The theory is now known as plate tectonics and was not confirmed until the 1960’s when seafloor spreading was discovered. At this time, geologists realized that the explanation for seafloor spreading was that floating plates were separating under the sea, and that seafloor spreading was the result as seen in the slide. The illustration shows the magnetic stripes that led to the conclusion that the seafloor was spreading. The alternating polarity magnetic stripes resulted from numerous reversals of the earth’s magnetic field over millions of years. The discovery of these alternating magnetic stripes convinced scientists that the plates were moving. The authors of The Urantia Book tell us in paper 57:
“750,000,000 years ago the first breaks in the continental land mass began as the great north-and-south cracking, which later admitted the ocean waters and prepared the way for the westward drift of the continents of North and South America, including Greenland. The long east-and-west cleavage separated Africa from Europe and severed the land masses of Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Antarctica from the Asiatic continent.” 57:8.1
The super-continent has been named Rodinia by our scientists. Figure 3 shows how geologists believe Rodinia split apart.
Figure 3. Rodinia Divisions
The date given by the authors of The Urantia Book (750 million years ago) agrees with the 750 million years generally accepted by geologists as the beginning of the breakup of Rodinia. (1) Rodinia was succeeded by Pangea, which started breaking apart about 250 million years ago. The plate tectonic concept in Paper 57 is indeed validated by modern geology.
Supernovas and Neutrino Loss: In Paper 41, the authors tell us: “In large suns--small circular nebulae--when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, if 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.” 41:8.5
The phrase “tiny particles devoid of electric potential” is obviously referring to neutrinos. The collapse of supernovas due to neutrino out-flux was postulated in a highly speculative paper by Gamow and Schoenberg in 1941, but not confirmed until 1987 with the appearance of collapsing supernova SN1987. Neutrino detectors in two different counties-Japan and Canada-were able to capture enough neutrinos to confirm that SN1987 was the source. Astronomers estimate that when a star collapses into a supernova, 10 to the 57th power neutrinos are ejected, but only a few are detected by our scientific instruments.
Figure 4. SN1987 Supernova RemnantFigure 5. Space Respiration Phases
Dark Energy and Space Respiration: It has recently been discovered that not only is the universe expanding, but that the rate of expansion is accelerating. The idea that the universe is expanding was reported in 1924 by Edwin Hubble. He noted that the farther a galaxy is from us, the redder is the light we receive from that galaxy. This redshift of light is due to stretching of the light waves which is due to the expansion of the time-space continuum. The preceding Figure 5, illustrating space respiration as described by the authors of The Urantia Book, shows how the master universe and the space reservoirs above and below Paradise alternately expand and contract on a two billion year cycle.11:6.6 In another paper in The Urantia Book, the authors seem to be saying that the universe isn’t expanding, but a close reading reveals that this isn’t what the authors are really saying. In Paper 12, the authors say that it isn’t expanding at a rate “of more than one hundred miles a second for every million light-years increase in distance.” 12:1.3 That is close to Hubble’s original estimate, but today the accepted figure is closer to 12 mi/sec/MLY, so the authors were correct. (MLY is a million light years.) The paper on space respiration says that the universe really is expanding, but why would the rate of expansion be accelerating?
Figure 6 below shows how space respiration might progress.
Figure 6. Sine wave Expansion/Contraction CycleUnless we assume that the expansion goes from zero to full speed instantly, we have to assume that there is some sort of gradual acceleration which is then followed by a period of deceleration. This is shown as a sine wave function in Figure 6. In Paper 11, we are told that the universe is now in a period of the expansion of space and time, and we could very well be in a phase of the expansion where we either are or were accelerating. The text is: “Pervaded space is now approaching the mid-point of the expanding phase….” 11:6.0 As we look out in space, we are looking back in time, so therefore we might be looking back toward the time when the expansion of time and space was accelerating. It’s worth noting that the expansion pictured by space respiration is the same as that pictured by astronomers for our universe; the galaxies are not fleeing through space, space is expanding and carrying the galaxies with it. From The Urantia Book: “We do not know the actual mechanism of space respiration; we merely observe that all space alternately contracts and expands.” 42:7.2 Note in Figure 6 that when we look back in time, we would be seeing the velocity of the expansion accelerating. At the present time, the velocity of expansion is at a maximum, acceleration is presumably zero, and the expansion is halfway through its cycle. The acceleration will now reverse to slow the expansion rate to zero velocity at maximum universe size.
The next illustration is thanks to George Gamow, who used the raisin bread analogy in a book written in the 1940’s, One Two Three…Infinity. Notice that the raisins move outward with the dough, rather than through it just as galaxies move with the expansion of space.
Figure 7 Raisin Bread RisingAstrophysicists have decided that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is due to something called “dark energy.” They have no idea what it is, but some have called it an anti-gravity force. And who according to the Urantia Book has anti-gravity capabilities?The Infinite Spirit does. I suspect therefore that space respiration may be due to the action of the Infinite Spirit, though the authors do not say so. One obvious question arises when discussing the expansion of the universe: What about the Big Bang? What does The Urantia Book have to say about that? The scheme of universe building gravity force. And who according to the Urantia Book has anti-gravity capabilities? The Infinite Spirit does. I suspect therefore that space respiration may be due to the action of the Infinite Spirit, though the authors do not say so. One obvious question arises when discussing the expansion of the universe: What about the Big Bang? What does The Urantia Book have to say about that? The scheme of universe building described by the authors does not include a “Big Bang.” In the Big Bang scheme, all space, time and matter existed in an infinitesimal dot that began expanding to produce the universe and everything in it. In the Urantia Book scheme, the universe has been built up over time using matter transmuted from Paradise origin energy. While astrophysicists feel that they have good proof that there was a Big Bang, the scheme is not without its detractors and some problems that are yet to be solved.(7)
Tycho Brahe’s Supernova : The authors tell us this: “The most recent of the major cosmic eruptions in Orvonton was the extraordinary double star explosion, the light of which reached Urantia in A.D. 1572. This conflagration was so intense that the explosion was clearly visible in broad daylight.” 41:3.5 The concept of double star explosions causing supernovas was proposed in 1957 by Burbridge, Fowler and Hoyle. The double star hypothesis wasn’t confirmed until 1967 by data from the Einstein X-ray Observatory.
Dinosaurs as Ancestors of Birds: The authors tell us: “55,000,000 years ago the evolutionary march was marked by the sudden appearance of the first of the true birds, a small pigeon like creature which was the ancestor of all bird life. This was the third type of flying creature to appear on earth, and it sprang directly from the reptilian group, not from the contemporary flying dinosaurs or from the earlier types of toothed land birds.” 60:3.3 There has long been conjecture about the ancestors of birds. The preponderance of evidence now supports the dinosaur as precursor of birds. The evidence includes the wishbone feature found in both dinosaurs and birds,and the recently found dinosaurs in China with precursor feathers. Also, biologists have found some preserved soft tissue in dinosaur bones. One researcher mentioned that the cells in this tissue looked remarkably like cells from an ostrich. When paleontologist Herman von Meyer found well preserved fossils of the archaeopteryx in 1861, he believed that he had discovered primitive ancestor of the modern bird-notice the teeth in the illustration. This idea was accepteuntil late in the 20th century. In 1986, J. A. Gaither showed that birds sprang from coelurosaurian dinosaurs such as the Velociraptor, which did not have teeth.
Figure 8 Archaeopteryx (Not Teeth)Dinosaurs as Ancestors of Birds: The authors tell us: “55,000,000 years ago the evolutionary march was marked by the sudden appearance of the first of the true birds, a small pigeon like creature which was the ancestor of all bird life. This was the third type of flying creature to appear on earth, and it sprang directly from the reptilian group, not from the contemporary flying dinosaurs or from the earlier types of toothed land birds.” 60:3.3 There has long been conjecture about the ancestors of birds. The preponderance of evidence now supports the dinosaur as precursor of birds. The evidence includes the wishbone feature found in both dinosaurs and birds,and the recently found dinosaurs in China with precursor feathers. Also, biologists have found some preserved soft tissue in dinosaur bones. One researcher mentioned that the cells in this tissue looked remarkably like cells from an ostrich. When paleontologist Herman von Meyer found well preserved fossils of the archaeopteryx in 1861, he believed that he had discovered primitive ancestor of the modern bird-notice the teeth in the illustration. This idea was accepteuntil late in the 20th century. In 1986, J. A. Gaither showed that birds sprang from coelurosaurian dinosaurs such as the Velociraptor, which did not have teeth.
Polynesians in South America:
In Paper 78, the authors of The Urantia Book indicate that a few Polynesians made the journey to South America.
In Paper 78, the authors of The Urantia Book indicate that a few Polynesians made the journey to South America.
One hundred and thirty-two of this race, embarking in a fleet of small boats from Japan, eventually reached South America and by intermarriage with the natives of the Andes established the ancestry of the later rulers of the Incas. They crossed the Pacific by easy stages, tarrying on the many islands they found along the way. The islands of the Polynesian group were both more numerous and larger then than now, and these Andite sailors, together with some who followed them, biologically modified the native groups in transit.
Many flourishing centers of civilization grew up on these now submerged lands as a result of Andite penetration. Easter Island was long a religious and administrative center of one of these lost groups. But of the Andites who navigated the Pacific of long ago none but the one hundred and thirty-two ever reached the mainland of the Americas.
A recent article has made this claim credible:
Study Reveals DNA Links Between Ancient Peruvians, Japanese
LIMA -- A study has revealed genetic links between people who inhabited northern Peru more than 1,000 years ago and Japanese, El Comercio newspaper reported Thursday.
Japanese physical anthropologist Ken-ichi Shinoda performed DNA tests on the remains of human bodies found in the East Tomb and West Tomb in the Bosque de Pomas Historical Sanctuary, which are part of the Sican Culture Archaeological Project, funded by Japan's government.
The director of the Sican National Museum, Carlos Elera, told the daily that Shinoda found that people who lived more than 1,000 years ago in what today is the Lambayeque region, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Lima, had genetic links to the comtemporaneous populations of Ecuador, Colombia, Siberia, Taiwan and to the Ainu people of northern Japan.
The studies will be continued on descendents of the Mochica culture, from the same region, who are currently working on the Sican Project and with people who live in the vicinity of the Bosque de Pomac Historical Sanctuary.
Peruvian archaeologist Luis Chero told El Comercio that "currently, the DNA results have great value because they can be understood to show that there were people who arrived in these zones from Asia and who then converted these zones into the great culture of the New World."
The results of the studies will be presented at an exhibit on the Sican culture that will be set up for a year at the Tokyo Museum of Science and Nature.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=325015&CategoryId=14095
II. PROBLEMATIC SCIENCE IN THE URANTIA BOOKFigure 9 M31, THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY
The Distance to M31, the Andromeda Galaxy: The authors tell us this about M31: “…Andromeda, which is outside the inhabited superuniverse, is very active. This far-distant nebula is visible to the naked eye, and when you view it, pause to consider that the light you behold left those distant suns almost one million years ago.” 15:4.1 Today, it is well known that M31 is more than two million light years distant. But until 1951, it was thought that M31 was no more than one million light years away from us. Edwin Hubble in 1924 reported that he calculated Andromeda to be about 750,000 LY distant, using a relationship between period and luminosity noted by Henrietta Levitt in 1908. (3) He was using variable stars called Cepheid variables to calculate the distance. Figure 9 is a chart of the distance from us to M31 as calculated by astronomers over the years.
Figure 9 The big jump in the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy in the 1950’s was due to an astronomer named Walter Baade. He discovered that Hubble had used the wrong population of Cepheid variable stars to do his calculation (Type I rather than Type II, see Figure 10) and determined that the calculated distance is doubled when the proper population of stars is used. Fred Beckner, in his IC02 presentation suggested that perhaps distances in the Urantia Papers were scaled so they would agree with the then current distance accepted by astronomers.
It is interesting to note that the authors of The Urantia Book extol the method of using variable stars to measure astronomical distances. They inform us: “In one group of variable stars the period of light fluctuation is directly dependent on luminosity, and knowledge of this fact enables astronomers to utilize such suns as universe lighthouses or accurate measuring points for the further exploration of distant star clusters. By this technique it is possible to measure stellar distances most precisely up to more than one million light-years.” 41:3.10 Now it is possible to measure out to as much as 100 million light years using the Cepheid variable stars as standard candles. [9]
Figure 10 Cepheid Variable PopulationsAge of the Universe: The Urantia Book references events that took place nearly one trillion years ago. Referring to the genesis of our local universe, Nebadon, the authors state: “987,000,000,000 years ago associate force organizer and then acting inspector number 811,307 of the Orvonton series, traveling out from Uversa, reported to the Ancients of Days that space conditions were favorable for the initiation of materialization phenomena in a certain sector of the, then, easterly segment of Orvonton.” 57:1.5 Since Orvonton is the youngest of the superuniverses, and Nebadon is a young local universe within Orvonton, the implication is that the Grand universe is trillions of years old. Current scientific thinking is that the universe is about 14 billion years old, based on red shift measurements of the most distant galaxies so far detected.
Life Appearance on the Earth: According to Paper 58, life was implanted 550 million years ago, yet scientists have found evidence of bacterial life and fossil stromatolites in Australia up to 3.9 billion years old.
Geologic Development of the Earth: The Urantia Book states that: “2,500,000,000 years ago the planets had grown immensely in size. Urantia was a well-developed sphere about one tenth its present mass and was still growing rapidly by meteoric accretion.” 57:6.7 According to Dr. Ken Glasziou, evidence from the moon material brought back by the Apollo astronauts shows the intense meteoric bombardment of the moon (and therefore also the earth) was over about 3 billion years ago. Furthermore, scientists have evidence of life extending back beyond 3 billion years. It is inconceivable that life could exist during a period of intense heat and pounding caused by intense meteoric bombardment and a molten earth. It is also inconceivable since the Life Carriers implanted life in bodies of water; such bodies could hardly have existed when the earth was only one tenth its present mass, super hot, and being bombarded by numerous giant meteors. However, we should note that the age of the sun given by the authors does agree closely with the age scientists give for it today. 57:4.4
Figure 11 Periodic TablePeriodic Table Problem: “This sevenfold persistence of creative constitution is exhibited in the chemical domains as a recurrence of similar physical and chemical properties in segregated periods of seven when the basic elements are arranged in the order of their atomic weights. When the Urantia chemical elements are thus arranged in a row, any given quality or property tends to recur by sevens. This periodic change by sevens recurs diminishingly and with variations throughout the entire chemical table, being most markedly observable in the earlier or lighter atomic groupings. Starting from any one element, after noting some one property, such a quality will change for six consecutive elements, but on reaching the eighth, it tends to reappear, that is, the eighth chemically active element resembles the first, the ninth the second, and so on.” 42:9.1 Today we know that the properties recur every ninth element, not every eighth. This can be seen from the preceding periodic table of the elements. [8]
Composition of the Atmosphere: Matt Block did an analysis of this section of the Urantia Papers titled “The Urantia Atmosphere.” His article can be found on the squarecircles.com website. He found what appears to be the human source of this information, a 1942 paper by Harlan True Stetson. Matthew points out some errors in Stetson’s article that are also found in section 2 of Urantia Paper 58.
Formation of Our Solar System: The Urantia Book claims that our solar system was formed when the Angona system, consisting of a large dark planet and its satellites, passed close to our sun and pulled out material that coalesced to form the planets. This concept of solar system origin is the same as that proposed by Sir James Jeans and Harold Jefferys in 1917. (5) This early theory of planetary formation was long ago discarded because of a characteristic of a system of bodies orbiting a larger body called the conservation of angular momentum. Astronomers claim that the angular momentum present in our system does not support the origin theory promoted by The Urantia Book. Most astronomers subscribe to the nebular hypothesis which says that our planetary system formed from a large disk of material surrounding the sun. In fact, The Urantia Book says that this is how most planets form; according to the authors, ours was the exception. But it is worth noting that it’s difficult to explain the retrograde rotation of Venus and Uranus using the nebular hypothesis.
Size of the Universe: There is a serious difference in the size of the visible universe our astronomers calculate and that implied by the authors of The Urantia Book. I infer from information given by the authors that the outer edge of the first outer space level is no more than 50 million light years from us. (6) 12:1.0 The next slide shows a partial view of the universe as portrayed in The Urantia Book. The authors also say that there is “activity” in the second outer space level that “presages” material creations, indicating to me that there are no material objects in the levels beyond the first one. 12:1.1 On the other hand, our astronomers have determined-using red shift measurements-that the edge of our universe is at least 30 billion light years distant. Unless our science is seriously in error, the universe is much larger than indicated in The Urantia Book. [10] It would be fair to note that there are those, such as astrophysicist Hal Arp, who feel that there is evidence for non-cosmological red shift, i.e., red shift not due to the expansion of the universe which would change the size we calculate for the universe. (2)
Consider that astronomers now estimate that there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in our universe. If the seven superuniverses and the first outer space level are what the visible universe consists of, then we have a serious problem. There is no way that you can fit 100 billion galaxies into the volume of the first outer space level or even in both the first and second levels. The sizes of the levels derived from the Urantia Book are shown in Figure 12. Each level is an elliptical torus.
Figure 12In the case of problems concerning both size and age of the universe, we should take note of the revelatory limitations the authors had to honor. At the time the papers were received, our astronomers had no settled idea of the size or age of the universe, so the authors would have violated their ground rules if they gave us advanced information.
The Architecture of The Universe: The cosmology of The Urantia Book portrays a universe centered on Paradise as you can see from Figure 12. Looking outward from our place in the Milky Way galaxy, we should be able to see the quiet zone lying between us and the first outer space level, and we should be able to see the outer edge of the first outer space level as we look outward with our telescopes. In the last few years, several groups of astronomers have been plotting the structure of the universe using red shift measurements to determine distance from us. One of these is the 2df Galaxy Red Shift Survey. (4) The other is the Slone Digital Survey (SDS.) Here is a slide of the 2df survey results which covers only part of the celestial sphere..
Figure 13 2df Galaxy Red Shift Survey SlideAs you can see, there isn’t much structure evident in this picture. The Sloan Digital Survey looks similar to the 2df Survey. Of course, the surveys only look at small parts of the sky out to about 2 billion light years, but the Sloan Survey will eventually cover one quarter of the entire sky when completed. The only answer I can see is that the first outer space level is immensely larger than the figures in The Urantia Book would indicate.
The 100 Element Problem: The authors of the Urantia Papers tell us this: “There are just one hundred distinguishable atomic materializations of space-energy in a dual universe; that is the maximum possible organization of matter in Nebadon.”42:7.6 “In Orvonton it has never been possible naturally to assemble over one hundred orbital electrons in one atomic system." When one hundred and one have been artificially introduced into the orbital field, the result has always been the well-nigh instantaneous disruption of the central proton with the wild dispersion of the electrons and other liberated energies.” 42:7.2 We know today that there are more than 100 elements, but this fact was probably not known in the mid-1930’s. In fact, the known element count was less than 100 at that time. The authors denote that it is not possible “naturally to assemble” more than 100 elements, and they are right; the elements above 100 are created by bombarding a target with high energy particles to create isotopes of the elements above atomic number 100. But concerning the lifetime of the higher elements, it is a fact that one of the elements above number 100 (Mendelevium, #101) has a longer half life (1.3 hours) than Californium, number 98 with a half life of 45 minutes. The half life of the other elements above Mendelevium is very short, varying from several seconds to less than a millisecond.
Figure 14 Recession Speed vs. DistanceThe Problem of “Speed of Recession”: Regarding the rate of expansion of the universe, the authors inform us, “By this method of reckoning, subsequent to the perfection of more powerful telescopes, it will appear that these far-distant systems are in flight from this part of the universe at the unbelievable rate of more than thirty thousand miles a second. But this apparent speed of recession is not real; it results from numerous factors of error embracing angles of observation and other time-space distortions.” 12:2.3 In fact, due to the expansion of time-space, the further a galaxy is from us, the faster it is receding from us. So some galaxy will be receding “at the unbelievable rate of more than thirty thousand miles a second.” Figure 14 shows how radial velocity (speed of recession) varies with distance from Earth.
CONCLUSIONDr. Meredith Sprunger: From “Preparing for Scholarly Evaluation of The Urantia Book”
Mature and intelligent students of The Urantia Book ought also to give up any "inerrancy" doctrine--hopefully many never have held such a view! The Urantia Book has errors or discrepancies in Biblical references, in scientific statement, in historical references, and in logic. I have never been much interested in these historical, scientific, and logical aspects of The Urantia Book because they are peripheral to the real purpose of the book--spiritual enlightenment. It is not primarily a book of history or science; it is a book of spiritual insight and guidance. I regard The Urantia Book revelatory for the same reason I so regard the Bible. It contains the highest quality of insight into spiritual truth and Reality of any book I know. It presents the most meaningful spiritual cosmology available on the planet. The best in Christian eschatology pales by comparison. It contains the most dynamic and spiritually uplifting picture of the life and teaching of Jesus available. It integrates science, philosophy, and religion more effectively than any other religious source. It is validated more completely by experience than any religious view with which I am acquainted. This is the important thing about The Urantia Book.
Just as the Bible has been subjected to objective scientific study, so The Urantia Book must be critically analyzed if it is to become a reliable source of spiritual guidance for humanity. Errors or discrepancies of fact or logic should be pointed out and examined. Philosophical and spiritual truths should be studied and evaluated. We must understand, however, that such objective study cannot prove or disprove spiritual realities; it cannot determine what is or is not revelatory. It can be an important tool in helping the individual and society make evaluations and judgments regarding such truths. It is generally assumed by religious scholars that spiritual reality does not contradict scientific fact or the authentic aspects of human experience.
REFERENCES AND APPENDIX OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONURL of cosmology questions & answers:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#H0
(1) I. D. Dalziel, “The Earth before Pangaea,” Scientific American vol. 272 (1) 38, 1995
(2) Halton Arp, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, Aperion, Aug, 1998
(3) From the internet: “Dr. E. Hubble definitely established the great spiral as an extra-galactic object, and derived a tentative distance of about 900,000 light years. Hubble's discovery was announced at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington D.C. in December 1924, and dramatically ended the long controversy over the nature of the Ifspiral nebulae". Further studies, still using the pulsating cepheids as distance indicators, caused a revision of the distance to about 750,000 light years, and until rather recently this remained the most accurate estimate possible.
In 1925 Hubble published a paper in which he announced his discovery of Cepheid variables in two nearby spiral nebulae, M33 and M31. Using Shapley’s distance calibration curve, he estimated these two nebulae to be about one million light years away.”
Cepheid variable stars are one class of the so-called standard candles that can be used as measuring rods for cosmic distances. In these stars, the more rapid the variation in luminosity (brightness,) the brighter the star is at maximum brightness, and the maximum brightness is the same for all stars with the same period of variation. Henrietta Levitt was the person who discovered this relationship. After the distance to a few of these stars was determined by methods such as parallax, then the relationship of brightness to period of variation could be used to calculate the distance to Cepheids even further away. This is just what Edwin Hubble did for the Andromeda galaxy.
(4) The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey is a joint UK-Australian project, and was one of the main motivations behind the design of 2dF. The goal was to carry out a large redshift survey of 250,000 galaxies (selected from the APM Galaxy Catalog) to make a 3D map of the Southern Sky. 2dFGRS observations are now finished (April 2002), with over 220,000 galaxy redshifts obtained.
The next illustration shows the segments of the celestial sphere that the survey covers. The earth is at the center of the sphere. Each square is one square degree of the sky; a circle on the celestial sphere encompasses 360 degrees.
Figure 15 3D View of the 2df Galaxy Redshift Survey(5) JEANS-JEFFREYS TIDAL HYPOTHESIS (1917)—Sir James Jeans and Harold Jeffreys worked out an alternate "tidal theory" while World War I was in progress. A passing star is supposed to have pulled out a long strand of gaseous material from the sun, and it soon looked like beads on a string. These then formed themselves into our nine planets.
Spitzer's 1939 tidal theory refutation brought down the Jeans-Jeffreys' hypothesis also. As World War II boiled into action every major cosmological theory had been disproved. It was time for something new.
A full 99.5 percent of all the angular momentum in the solar system is concentrated in the planets, yet a staggering 99.8 percent of all the mass in our solar system is located in our sun! To an astrophysicist this is both astounding and unexplainable. There is no known mechanical process which could accomplish this transfer of momentum from the sun to its planets.
Jupiter itself has 60 percent of the planetary angular motion. Evolutionary theory cannot account for this. This strange distribution was the primary cause of the downfall of the nebular hypothesis. To satisfy the theory, the sun would originally have had to spin at an extremely high speed. But instead, it rotates slowly.
Both Uranus and Venus rotate backwards to that of all the other planets. Seven of the nine planets rotate directly forward, in relation to their orbit around the sun. Why then does Venus rotate slowly backwards, and Uranus rotate at a 98° degree angle from its orbital plane, even though its orbit inclines less than that of any other planet? Uranus is literally rolling along!
(6) On page 130, the author of Paper 12 has this to say about the second OSL: "Still greater activities are taking place beyond these regions, for the Uversa physicists have detected early evidence of force manifestations more than fifty million light-years beyond the outermost ranges of the phenomena in the first outer space level. These activities undoubtedly presage the organization of the material creations of the second outer space level of the master universe." From this wording, it is unclear whether the "force manifestations" are visible or not, though the statement "presage the organization of the material creations" seems to indicate that material creations (galaxies) have yet to appear in the second OSL. To further confuse matters however, on page 134 the author says, "It appears that the second outer universe of galaxies, like the seven superuniverses, revolves counterclockwise about Paradise.” Perhaps the author meant that after galaxies form in the second outer space level, they will rotate counterclockwise.
(7) The things supporting the Big Bang are: a) The percentage of the light elements hydrogen, helium and lithium in the early universe agree with predictions based on the Big Bang. b) The CMB (cosmic microwave background) shows small variations that could have evolved into galaxies. The CMB is supposedly the light from the beginning of the Big Bang that has been shifted down to microwave frequencies by the expansion of the universe. But critics have pointed out three problems with the Big Bang theory: 1) the horizon problem, 2) the flatness problem and 3) the inflation problem. Put “Big Bang problems” into your search engine if you wish to see sites that give an explanation of these problems. Inflationary theory was proposed to explain away these problems, but inflationary theory has a few problems itself. Inflationary theory proposes that the universe underwent a period of very rapid expansion just after the Big Bang. There are several other problems with the Big Bang theory as well. A so-called “Great Wall” of galaxies exists in space that is hundreds of millions of light years long and wide. Critics claim that the universe isn’t old enough to have allowed such a massive structure to form. Also, some galaxies out at the edge of the observable universe seem too old to have been formed only 14 billion years ago. And in a recent edition of Scientific American, an article tells of patterns in the CMB that don’t conform to Big Bang theory predictions. Only time and lots more observations will tell what the true architecture of the universe is.
Notes From The 2005 International Conference
[8] It was pointed out during the conference that the phrase “eighth chemically active element” is relevant to the statement in The Urantia Book since the eighth column of the periodic table consists of chemically inert elements. If the eighth column in the table is excluded, then the statement in The Urantia Book is correct.
[9] Someone at IC05 said that the one million year distance to the Andromeda Galaxy could be incorrect because of the uncertainties associated with the Cepheid variable star method. However, by using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to extend the parallax measurement method as far as the Andromeda galaxy and determine that it is indeed over 2 million light years distant. The figure below shows how the various standard candles of the astronomers have been extended by using the HST. The scale on the right side of the chart is in light years.
Figure 16[10] If our superuniverse is comprised mainly of the Milky Way Galaxy as the authors seem to indicate in Paper 15, then there is a great disparity between the size of the universe indicated in The Urantia Book and that calculated by our astronomers. If however the Milky Way Galaxy is actually a minor sector as contended by Irwin Ginsberg and John Causland, and a superuniverse is a super cluster of 1000 galaxies, then the size of the first outer space level and of Orvonton indicated by the authors is far too small, but the size of such a superuniverse would be more in line with the size universe our astronomers have calculated. The authors seem to tell a tale of two cosmologies. In 15:3.1 and .2, Orvonton seems to be composed mostly of the Milky Way galaxy. But in 15:3.3, .4, .7 and .8, the authors seem to be saying that Orvonton is composed of many galaxies. As in the case of Mercury’s rotation around the sun, the authors apparently sometimes made their statements ambiguous so that we could re-interpret them when our knowledge of the universe increased.
File:IC05 Urantia Book Science Pres W Pics21.doc
File:IC05 Urantia Book Science Pres W Pics21.doc
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SCIENCE IN THE URANTIA BOOK
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| workman34 | Science Finds God Part 1 | 4 | Mar 20 2009, 2:59 AM EDT by cosmic_citizen | ||
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Thread started: Mar 19 2009, 10:57 PM EDT
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I found this article on “Newsweek” I thought I would quote a small segment. “In 1977 Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas sounded a famous note of despair: the more the universe has become comprehensible through cosmology, he wrote, the more it seems pointless. But now the very science that ""killed'' God is, in the eyes of believers, restoring faith. Physicists have stumbled on signs that the cosmos is custom-made for life and consciousness. It turns out that if the constants of nature--unchanging numbers like the strength of gravity, the charge of an electron and the mass of a proton--were the tiniest bit different, then atoms would not hold together, stars would not burn and life would never have made an appearance. ""When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see,'' says John Polkinghorne, who had a distinguished career as a physicist at Cambridge University before becoming an Anglican priest in 1982, ""that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.'' Charles Townes, who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the principles of the laser, goes further: ""Many have a feeling that somehow intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe.'' . |
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