Talk:The Urantia Book/Archive 7

Mercury/Moon Paragraph Sentence Diagramed
The article states:


 * "The book repeats the idea prevalent at the time of its origin that one side of the planet Mercury always faces the sun due to tidal locking. In 1965, radio astronomers discovered that Mercury actually rotates fast enough for all sides to see exposure to the sun.  In the same passage, the book states that tidal friction will slow the rotation of a planet or other orbiting body "until axial revolution ceases". However, current understanding is that revolutions do not cease, but stabilize such that the time to complete one revolution will become equal to the time needed to complete an orbit."

The paragraph in question reads:


 * "The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia. (657)"

A professional sentence diagram of the paragraph in question follows:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mercury-diagam.png Dogyo (talk) 16:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

“Which” is a relative pronoun introducing an adjective clause. Adjective clauses modify nouns. The statement “Which always turns the same face toward the Earth” is an adjective clause. In the statement "by planet Mercury and by the moon" are two adverbial prepositional phrases joined with the conjunction, "and." The relative pronoun “which” does not modify more than one noun construction. Therefore, grammatically speaking, the clause only modifies the noun directly preceding it (i.e., “moon”) and not both “moon” and “Mercury.”

It then is a reasonable conclusion that the current page is making an erroneous conclusion about how the text is to be interpreted when it states, "The book repeats the idea prevalent at the time of its origin that one side of the planet Mercury always faces the sun due to tidal locking." Grammatically speaking, the book only states the moon "always turns the same face toward the Earth." Dogyo (talk) 05:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That looks like a welcome clarification. 94.237.95.174 (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The point that stated “the planet Mercury always faces the sun” was misleading, therefore I decided to remove this paragraph. The text in the book states: “The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia”. This point was taken from Martin Gardner book Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery which is not always entirely accurate. Jaworski (talk) 16:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The book states that "...leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun ... as is illustrated by the planet Mercury ...". The sentence diagram above is misleading because it cuts out more than half of the sentence. The passage in the book clearly states that both Mercury and Earth's moon illustrates tidal locking.

When this book was written, it was thought that Mercury was tidally locked with the sun. See the Wikipedia entry on Mercury's Spin–orbit resonance. Radar observations in 1965 proved that the planet was not tidally locked with the sun. I vote that this paragraph be reinserted in the the article. Nursebhayes (talk) 14:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Understanding the functions of parts of the speech in a sentence and their relationship to one another can be very helpful. None of the omitted material changes the basic relationship of the relevant sentences. The simple grammatical fact is that the phrase in question is related to the moon, not mercury. That is relevant information when considering the question at hand. I vote to keep the article at least factually accurate based upon sound reasoning and data, and that is exactly what the sentence diagram provides: good data to evaluate the question at hand. Dogyo (talk) 04:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The phrase "which always turns the same face toward Urantia" of course isn't talking about Mercury but is about the moon. I don't imagine that anyone could read it otherwise, so I don't see what the diagram was meant to show. The paragraph from the book is about the general concept of planets slowing until one hemisphere is always turned to the sun:


 * "The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury"


 * Mercury is pointed out as the first and foremost illustration of what the paragraph says. That there then follows a secondary, non-planetary example -- "and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia" -- doesn't do anything to change the simple and clear prior statements about Mercury being a planet that illustrates planetary-axial revolution slowing until one hemisphere of that planet always is turned to the sun.


 * That a published, cited, WP:V, WP:RS source notes this and makes the further analytical point that this understanding of Mercury was the accepted scientific understanding at the time UB was published, but was later proven to be wrong, is fully valid to include in the wikipedia article. Wazronk (talk) 18:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph removed
Paragraph removed:

•	From Appendix 3, Section 3 in "Sadler, William S., Jr., Appendices to A Study of The Master Universe", the authors of The Urantia Book "postulate an additional and unrevealed creation" beyond this, "a possible never-beginning, never-ending universe of infinity".

The personal opinion and not the exactly quotation from The Urantia Book can be misleading. The original statement from the page 130 of the book says: “And there are those who maintain that the Infinite can never attain full expression short of infinity; and therefore do they postulate an additional and unrevealed creation beyond the fourth and outermost space level, a possible ever-expanding, never-ending universe of infinity”. The link: "Sadler, William S., Jr., Appendices to A Study of The Master Universe" doesn’t work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaworski (talk • contribs) 18:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

A touch too much
I'm wondering if this entire article isn't just rather long for a fairly NN sect/book/whatever. We don't need extensive quotes, since it is all online. We don't need an extensive list of its sci theory, etc, since that is all nonsense William M. Connolley (talk) 16:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I moved some stuff out of the history section into the science section. The reason is that the bits there - the book had foreknowledge of science - are dubious in the extreme, and not important to that section (that Native Americans were discovered by settlers is trivia in the great history of the world: the claim is in that section only to bolster the book) William M. Connolley (talk) 12:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the fact “that Native Americans were discovered by settlers is trivia in the great history of the world” but this article is not about history of the world. Jaworski (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Sentence removed
I have removed the sentence “It teaches ... that there are twelve planets in a Solar System rather than currently accepted eight” as this sentence not entirely clearly describes the issue. The Urantia Book uses classification of planets valid at the beginning of last century; another classification didn’t exist at that time. According to that classification, Pluto, now dwarf planet, was classified as a planet; Ceres was a member of asteroid belt, not a planet. Therefore, by adding to officially recognized in the last century nine planets, three new discovered, similar in size to Pluto ( Haumea, Makemake and Eris), we have twelve planets as described in the book. Statement of The Urantia Book is accurate according to definition of planet from the last century, when this book was received and published. Jaworski (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC) I don’t have any objection to today classification of Ceres as a dwarf planet. Classification of planets may change many times in the future, but I refer to the classification from the year of The Urantia Book publication (1955). If at that time Pluto was classified to planets (not dwarf planets) it is only logical that authors of the book categorized to the same group three then undiscovered planets behind Pluto, similar in size. Nobody has classified Ceres to a dwarf planet in 1955, since this classification was generally accepted in 2006 and authors of the book used then valid (not future) classification. If this sentence shall remain, it will be incorrect, until will be accompanied by long explanation, much extending scope of this article. Jaworski (talk) 00:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a better explanation of this is needed, but I don't think that the sentence should be expunged solely because you object to Ceres being classified as a dwarf planet and not as an asteroid. Additionally, there are several similarly sized objects that are dwarf planet and Plutoids candidates. Furthermore, I think that the Book teaches that that are 12 planets, ten are rocky and two are gaseous. This is clearly wrong, as there are four known gaseous planets in the solar system. Nursebhayes (talk) 15:03, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

A few sentences removed
They believe more of its science, if not all of it, will be proven correct in the future. However, interpretation of this claim is complicated by the delay between first use as "teachings" in 1935 and first publication in 1955. Science discovered during the two intervening decades can be perceived as prophetic by believers, while skeptics think such facts were added prior to publication. For instance, the catalytic role that carbon plays in the sun's nuclear reactions is described in the book. Hans Bethe's announcement of the discovery was in 1938, well before publication. Whether it was present in the original "teachings" cannot be verified.[4]

A few above sentences removed as not entirely correct. Today’s readers use only the date of first publication of book, the year 1955, as the base of search for prophetic science. http://www.ubthenews.com/Reports_List.htm (Jaworski (talk) 13:21, 28 May 2011 (UTC))


 * If that is the case, a published, reliable source needs to be cited. Also, it would then be more of case of adding further detail and nuance to the article rather than eliminating the currently sourced material. A website like the one you linked to, by the way, isn't considered reliable for wikipedia purposes (WP:RS), anybody can put up a website. Wazronk (talk) 18:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

This website uses many reliable sources and all it conclusions are verifiable and well documented. There is also The Urantia Book introduction, done by author of this site at Denison University.

Recently I have added to this article a few examples of prophetic science in The Urantia Book, information as short as possible but with links, that allow to verify all such findings, for example:

The book states about supernovae “the most recent of the major cosmic eruptions ... was the extraordinary double star explosion, the light of which reached Urantia in A.D. 1572. "Physical Aspects of the Local Universe" The fact that this was double star was discovered in 2004.

Unfortunately all those information were removed as well as link to the mentioned website, where they are discussed in details. Even the number of current translation of the book – fourteen – as stated on publisher website, was removed.

I have removed from critical section of this article only this material which was misleading or obsolete, explaining all such changes in discussion. Most of those paragraphs were now reinstated. The main source of criticism in this section is Martin Gardner book - Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery. Sandra Collins, SLIS, University of Pittsburg, wrote in the conclusion of her opinion about Martin Gardner book [Library Journal/April 15, 1995]: “Given the lack of scholarly distance from the subject, the patronizing tone, and the gross editoralizing, it would be difficult to recommend this book to any library”.

I find this article about The Urantia Book rather far from neutral point of view. Jaworski (talk) 08:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The neutral point of view policy (WP:NPOV) is that "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources."


 * The viewpoint that UB is prophetic (which isn't even accepted by sizable numbers of UB believers necessarily, see the Sprunger quote) is a tiny minority viewpoint that is already represented in the article descriptively, and with two specific examples from published third-party sources that do meet WP:RS. That's more than enough really (arguably too much), see WP:UNDUE.


 * This is quintessentially into the territory of an exceptional claim (WP:REDFLAG), that celestial beings provided prophetic science in a supposed revelational book. As wikipedia policy is clear in WP:V, "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources".


 * The website you cited falls short of being a reliable source for wikipedia purposes and a lot shorter for being an exceptional source. It's a self-published website of analyses by a non-scientist who is upfront about his purpose being UB promotion.  He's non-WP:RS both in the sense that he's not a professional, respected authority on the topics (unlike, say, McMenamin on geology) and in the sense of not publishing through a peer reviewed respected channel but rather on a website he owns.


 * I'll point out that the need to cite a reliable source for analyses like these cuts both directions. There was a WP:OR analysis someone put in the article that UB's cosmology was like the steady state theory. Lacking a source, and also in the interest of streamlining the "Cosmology" section, I removed it.


 * The other point you bring up... Is true I took out the specific mention of 14 translations. Originally this was in the article as 9 I think, and the citation is a 2006 document from the publisher. The update to 14 was made but without a new source to support it. There is only a need to bring a source to the article that supports 14, and it's fine. I wouldn't be surprised that there is more than 9 but I didn't want to look it up and since I figured 9 was possibly an old figure I changed it to "a number of translations". Wazronk (talk) 04:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

In this quote Sprunger didn’t say anything that he doesn’t believe in prophetic science in UB. Look at the end of quote. The opinion of one man can not be used as proof of what is accepted by sizable number of people. Scientific analysis of those subjects, published on the Truthbook and the Urantia Fellowship sites suggest, that it is belief of rather majority of UB readers.

In some way The Urantia Book itself is an unusual and exceptional source, difficult to classify, and many problems arise from this fact.

At the same time this article is full of one man - Martin Gardner – opinions. His opinions are quoted 12 times in various parts of this article WP:UNDUE He had bachelor degree in philosophy but his opinions on the subjects of astronomy, physics, biology etc. are regarded in this article as WP:RS. His findings are 16 years outdated and biased. Because lack of scholarly distance from the subject his book was not recommended to any library. All his biased opinions should be removed from this article except for fact, that he wrote critical book. Jaworski (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Dubious
Martin Gardner was intimately involved with TUB, and including his opinion as if he were an unbiased observer or scholar breaches NPOV (and also, in some twisted way, self-publishing/self-reference). This must be revised or removed: in any case, the extant statement is not referenced even as-is. JohnChrysostom (talk) 02:32, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello JohnChrysostom,

About 8 months ago you wrote above note. I agree with you. What do you plan to do with "Consideration as literature" section? Jaworski (talk) 06:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The sentence in the article that bothered JohnChrysostom was this:
 * "Martin Gardner considers Part IV to be an especially "well-written, impressive work", and says, "Either it is accurate in its history, coming directly from higher beings in position to know, or it is a work of fertile imagination by someone who knew the New Testament by heart and who was also steeped in knowledge of the times when Jesus lived.""


 * I've added this comment after the quote to clarify Gardner's view and so removed the NPOV tag: "He assesses that in his view the narrative is consistent with human authorship." I also added a citation tag to Gardner's book, this is where it's from, no surprise.  The impression I have from JohnChrysostom's flagging of that particular quote, the brevity of JohnChrysostom dipping into this topic, and his claiming "Martin Gardner was intimately involved with TUB", is that this was a rather hasty misreading of Gardner's view by about 180 degrees.  Gardner wasn't "intimately involved with TUB", he wrote one book about it -- a deeply skeptical book -- out of a career of writing 50+ books. The quote above is notable coming from Gardner as an otherwise deep skeptic, as well as a professional writer who would be able to independently assess a piece of writing's quality in a WP:RS way for wikipedia purposes. Wazronk (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Copyright correction
Recently several paragraphs were removed from this Wikipedia page for the reason of copyright infringement. They have now disappeared completely. The URANTIA Book is not copyrighted, so this doesn't seem like a valid reason for removal. On the Wikipedia page for The URANTIA Book, it states: "In 2001, a jury found that the English book's copyright was no longer valid after 1983. The English text is a public domain work in the United States, and in 2006, the international copyright on the English text also expired." Can the information that was removed be re-posted? Thank you so much. (Chartruese (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC))
 * Copyright was not the only issue. Those sections were undue weight and original research.  We're just here to summarize what reliable sources have to say about the subject, not give a sermon on it.  Ian.thomson (talk) 23:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Comparing with the Book of Mormon
I think the line is inspired from Brad Gooch's book, but I don't think it is useful to compare the UB with the Book of Mormon's "popularity". First of all, the U book is much newer than the Book of Mormon. Secondly the latter is a book that people read because they belong to a church that espouses it. The book is intimately tied to a well established church and religion. Not many people are really 'into this book' without being part of the religion - with all the rewards and obligations involved. Outside the Mormon church, I believe the Urantia Book likely is 'more popular'. Also the book of Mormon is the only example of a new revelation given. There are tons of examples of ones that are no longer nearly as popular as the UB (for example in terms of book sales). It clearly has not exploded in combination with an organized religion as the Book of Mormon did, but compared to dozens of other books claiming to be from higher intelligences etc, it has had consistent sales etc since it was published. Some such books become hits or 'bestsellers' and then lose momentum, the UB did not do so but has proven to be a 'long seller' over the decades.184.96.39.201 (talk) 01:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Clarification of some paragraphs
1. "The book is strongly fideistic...."

The Urantia Book does not support fideism. It is difficult to determine the source of such statement, but even in this statement the supposed quotation from the book is distorted: “...neither science nor logic will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God” The UB states: “The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction”.

2. “...while also stating that its cosmology....” In the section “Cosmology” two parts of sentences were removed as the exact or very similar statements are in the section “Criticism of Science”. WP:UNDUE This section is written in such manner as it creates a considerable misunderstanding of cosmology and spiritual administration of universe as presented in the book. I try to correct this problem by adding a few words to this section.

3. I have added the section of “Science” as there exists in the article section “Criticism of Science” but no information what the book says about science. This section is based on text of the book. I also transferred from “Criticism of Science” to this section a few sentences which are not much critical but rather explanatory.

4. The Part IV – “The Life and Teachings of Jesus” is the biggest part of the book but hardly mentioned in Wikipedia article. To maintain proportion of the article I have added this section.

5. “The planets nearest the sun were the first....” In the “Criticism of Science” section the problem Mercury – Moon rotation is as controversial as it was questioned in the past by 5 editors as not entirely clear. To avoid the removal of this controversial section and to achieve the neutrality I have added the whole quotation from the book to allow any reader of this article to establish his own opinion about this subject.

6. “Most of the criticism of this book is based on Martin Gardner book: Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery.” There is some biased information in the article taken from Martin Gardner controversial book. Reader of this article must be aware that some criticism there is incorrect. The note is based on a reliable secondary sources WP:NOR

7. In the section “Plagiarism Allegations” there is information that authors use human sources in their work but no explanation why they are doing so. I have added one sentence from the text of The Urantia Book: "I well know that those concepts which have had origin in the human mind will prove more acceptable and helpful to all other human minds". I have removed the sentence from “Plagiarism Allegations” section: “Gardner found that at least one of the source book authors was quoted in earlier works by Sadler, and most of the books purportedly would have been available to Sadler or Forum members in Chicago prior to 1955.”

The fact that educated people possess various books does not prove that they use them to plagiarism. This is Gardner gossip or groundless speculation and it proves nothing. Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors regardless of their source. WP:IRS WP:NOT

8. On the bottom of section I have added Meredith Sprunger opinion on these matters from The UB Fellowship web site. Jaworski (talk) 12:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I took the liberty of numbering your points above for easier reference in replying:
 * 1. The source was Gardner, I've added it back.
 * 2. Yet, now you've also deleted the criticism of science material. Just as well that it was deleted in the "Cosmology" section, in looking at it against what the Urantia Book actually says, it seems that red shift is not considered to be from so-called "space respiration". I've reworded the section.
 * 3. The information that was added could really be summed up with just the one sentence, "The book attempts to synchronize religion, science and philosophy, and many statements about science appear in the text." The citation of a Urantia newsletter isn't a reliable source for wikipedia purposes. With that gone and the redundant quotes, there wasn't anything left here beyond what had been taken from the criticism of science section. The one sentence did seem reasonable to keep, so I kept it there.
 * 4. A lot overlapped with other sections, and overall it was written with non-encyclopedic language. I've streamlined it.
 * 5. I've added back this statement that you've since deleted for a second time. My comments about this are further below.
 * 6. This is only ad hominem and doesn't even touch on anything specific that is cited in the article.
 * 7. I've clarified the statement and added detail.
 * 8. So in #7 above you say "Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors regardless of their source." You write that, and yet consider this quote from Sprunger alright to be in the article?: "To accuse the superhuman authors of plagiarism is a bit far fetched, as they are not concealing the use of human sources and they deliberately avoided reference to specific human personalities—they do not want any St. Peter or St. Paul connected with the Fifth Epochal Revelation." Here is a man claiming to inform us about what invisible beings want or don't want.  Where does it come from?  Did Sprunger have it whispered in his ear?  Did a celestial being whisper it to another person and that person told Sprunger and now Sprunger is telling us? This isn't encyclopedic, this isn't even gossip, it's silliness. It for sure isn't WP:RS. Wazronk (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Source
Without a few exceptions, this cosmology is comparable with today astronomical observations.[according to whom?][citation needed]

The source of this statement is The Urantia Book which is the reliable source for own statements. This particularly applies to “Teaching” section. If any doubts, see another Wikipedia articles related to books. The system Paradise-Havona it the exception, rest of the cosmos is as seen today, even if the book gives specific names for some groups of galaxies. Jaworski (talk) 07:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually the cosmology in the Urantia Book is very different from what modern astronomy shows. And from the Urantia Book itself as a "reliable source for its own statements":  "...within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision" and cosmology specifically is emphasized as "not inspired" (italics in the original). Wazronk (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Change the name of section
The authors are not concealing the use of human sources therefore supposed plagiarism does not fit any definition of plagiarism. The authors avoided reference to specific human personalities as well as to Bible, since the book contains hundreds of quotations from Old and New Testament. This is the uniqueness of this book. Therefore the title of this part must be changed to: The Urantia Book and the use of published material. A few paragraphs from self-published Matthew Block paper were removed as inconsistent with Wikipedia WP:RS. Jaworski (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The authors of TUB do conceal who they borrowed from. As the article already says, "None of the material allegedly used from other sources is directly cited or referenced within the book." If a writer wants to think it's a simple matter at the beginning of any book of his to sweepingly say, "I'm indebted to others for their ideas and writings, thank you," and then go on to lift large passages from, say, a Harry Potter book, good luck with that and the lawyers.


 * You say the "supposed plagiarism does not fit any definition of plagiarism". Well how about the very first definition from the very first result in a google search of "plagiarism definition":


 * "an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author"


 * How about the very first sentence of WP:PLAGIARISM:


 * "Plagiarism is the incorporation of someone else's work without providing adequate credit."


 * Strange that you remove a couple paragraphs that are from primary sources (direct quotes from Swann's book and TUB), which plainly illustrate this borrowing in TUB, and say you've removed it because it was noticed by Matthew Block and so isn't reliable, but then you didn't delete the quote from Matthew Block himself right underneath it with his personal musings about how wonderful the borrowing was. If you want to claim to be so concerned about WP:RS you should at least be consistent. I've deleted the quote. Fortunately Gardner also established that it is clear as far as he is also concerned that the UB borrowed from Swann in this passage (which anyone can also judge on their own with the comparison in the article).  I've clarified that with the re-insertion of the material. There also were two other lengthy quotes that weren't WP:RS, and could be summarized much more succinctly and in reference to WP:RS sources, which I've done. Wazronk (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The title of "Plagiarism allegations" is accurate and neutral: there are plagiarism allegations and by multiple reputable sources who are able to evaluate this. Gardner, a professional writer for over half a century, assessed and alleged that there was plagiarism.  Gooch, an English professor, also assessed and alleges that there is indeed plagiarism.  What is interesting is that the objection doesn't seem to be about whether material was pulled into UB from other sources -- that's being conceded as a given! -- but strangely whether this meets the definition of "plagiarism". As I point out above (but more importantly, as is from Gardner and Gooch's WP:RS professional and published WP:V assessments) of course it does. Wazronk (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of science section
Mercury-Moon

There is a long history of protest of many editors against inclusion into this article a controversial and open to multiple interpretations paragraph about Mercury and Moon: The book repeats the scientific understanding at the time of its publication that one side of the planet Mercury always is turned to the sun due to tidal locking. In 1965, radio astronomers discovered that Mercury actually rotates fast enough for all sides to see exposure to the sun. “The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia”. The problem lays in the interpretation of grammatical English language sentence structure. The list of editors who disagree that above statement constitutes error in science presented by The Urantia Book:

Hanely 15:18, 26 April 2006

Lone Stranger 02:53, 18 July 2006

BobKalk 06:10, 18 March 2007

Richiar 17:27, 19 March 2007

Majeston 08:17, 7 August 2007

Xaxafrad 05:28, 7 September 2007

UBtheNEWS 09:06, 3 December 2007

Uikku (talk) 21:19, 23 August 2009

Dogyo (talk) 16:04, 25 August 2010

94.237.95.174 (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2010

Jaworski (talk) 16:27, 16 December 2010

Editors who like to uphold this statement in article:

Wazronk repeatedly from the year 2006 to 2011

Nursebhayes (talk) once 14:33, 30 April 2011

There are a few Wikipedia policies that may be violated by pushing one or two people’s specific point of view against all other opinions:

Passages open to multiple interpretations should be precisely cited or avoided. WP:NOR

Repeatedly pushing a viewpoint that the consensus of the community has clearly rejected, effectively preventing a policy-based resolution. WP:STONEWALL

In some cases, editors have perpetuated disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has rejected it, repeating it almost without end, and refusing to acknowledge others' input. Often such editors continue to base future attacks and edits upon the rejected statement. Such an action is disruptive to Wikipedia. Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point is accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted. WP:ICANTHEARYOU

I believe the removal of this paragraph pointing to error in The Urantia Book science is the only option.

The age of universe

Removal of the sentence:

"The age of our universe is stated to be more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) years old and the universe is said to periodically expand and contract—respire—at 2-billion-year intervals. Current observations, however, suggest that the true age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years."

Such statement about “the age of our universe to be more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) years old” does not exists in The Urantia Book, which is the reliable source for own statements. It is highly misleading therefore must be removed, regardless of its source. I remove also rest of this sentence as space respiration is already discussed in the “Cosmology” section. WP:RS.WP:UNDUE

Consideration as literature

"Skeptic Martin Gardner, in a book otherwise highly critical of The Urantia Book, writes that it is 'highly imaginative' and that the 'cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me'"

This section is about literature not cosmology. Sentence removed.

By the way, Martin Gardner is wrong in his suggestion that the formation of our solar system as presented in The Urantia Book went according to the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal hypothesis. More close to the ideas of The Urantia Book is tidal or gaseous hypothesis created by James Hopwood Jeans to counteract some of the objections that had been raised to the planetesimal hypothesis. Such things would happen when a pseudoskeptic jumps to conclusion without the conducting of proper research. Jaworski (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * On the Mercury / Moon passage, I've added further the additional mistake in the Urantia Book in this passage. You mention, "I believe the removal of this paragraph pointing to error in The Urantia Book science is the only option." Well, no actually, citing a reliable, solid, independently published source that supports any different viewpoint is what you need to do. You say, "The problem lays in the interpretation of grammatical English language sentence structure."  No. The problem lays in the inability of yourself and the others you've mentioned to give any independently published, WP:RS, verifiable source that can be cited to support the much more involved and convoluted grammatical explication you think is so key.  The fact is, what is in the article is easily a valid and straightforward way to read the passage in TUB, and it's mundane that it's in the article. That you can't come up with a valid source for a POV that is more palatable to your beliefs isn't a problem with what's in the article and doesn't lead by any logic to a reason to delete the viewpoint which is properly cited from a published, WP:V, WP:RS source.  That several other Urantia believers also have wanted to do away with the information on the same shaky basis you're expressing, and sometimes also have deleted it as you yourself have done, is a good sign of its continuing relevance.


 * On the removal of the sentence about the age of the universe according to TUB, I've added it back with clarification. See paper 57. As you say, the Urantia Book "is the reliable source for own [sic] statements."


 * On the "cosmology" comment: Why wouldn't you have moved it to the section titled "Cosmology" if that really was your concern? Your deletion doesn't follow from your rationale. And your rationale itself doesn't follow from what the quote actually says: "the cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me."  Gardner is of course talking about it as a piece of writing, which is the point of the section of the article where it's located. It's a legitimate POV, legitimately sourced, and so deletion doesn't make sense.


 * On your opinion about the formation of the solar system, you'll need to locate this analysis of yours of UB cosmology vs James Jeans' views in a published reliable source, otherwise it simply isn't relevant here. Wazronk (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Wazronk,

In your last message you wrote:

"On the removal of the sentence about the age of the universe according to TUB, I've added it back with clarification. See paper 57. As you say, the Urantia Book 'is the reliable source for own [sic] statements.'"

Paper 57 is about the origin of our solar system not the universe. The number 987 billion years is related to the decision leading to nebula creation in which our solar system took origin not to the whole universe. There is difference between nebula and universe. It resemble situation as if somebody describes earth population to be more than 10 million, having access only to the information of one city population. The Urantia Book does not present any number related to universe age. Your editing is fine example of original research.

On the Mercury/Moon controversial passage, please read once again the reason for the removal of this passage. This is a matter of consensus not the reliable source. Great majority of editors disagree with you.

I don’t understand why did you remove the opinions of people with PhD from this article, published in verifiable reliable sources? I am talking about the opinions of Philip Calabrese award-winning research mathematician from “Science” section; Sandra Collins, SLIS, Univ. of Pittsburg and Sarah Lewis, of the Univ. of Wales, from “Criticism of science” section and Meredith Sprunger from “The Urantia Book and the use of published material” section. You changed the name of section “The Urantia Book and the use of published material” to “Plagiarism allegation” which is false approach. Plagiarism which doesn’t fit any definition of plagiarism is not plagiarism at all and Meredith Sprunger quotation explained well this issue and I am surprised why you deleted it.

As long as obsolete, 17 years old, biased and inaccurate findings of Martin Gardner will find the way to this article as long there will be permanent editing problems. Below are opinions of scholarly community about Gardner book (also removed by you):

"Sandra Collins, SLIS, Univ. of Pittsburg, wrote in Library Journal: 'Given the lack of scholary distance from the subject, the patronizing tone and the gross editorializing, it would be difficult to recommend this book to any library'. Sarah Lewis, of the Univ. of Wales, stated: “Martin Gardner is one of the few people outside the Urantia Foundation who has undertaken research into the movement. His research is worth noting, although his position as a great skeptic does not allow his conclusions much academic credibility”."

In your edit from 24 May you deleted without explanation:

“Science” section based on quotation from the book.

From the section “Life and Teaching of Jesus” a paragraph about Jesus teaching.

A few paragraphs from “The Urantia Book and the use of published material”

Disputed neutrality tag inserted by editor JohnChrysostom in “Consideration as literature” section.

There is Wikipedia policy which requires an explanation for the removal. WP:EPJaworski (talk) 08:18, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You appear to have overlooked my comments further up on this talk page. My edits did touch on a number of issues, like you mention, but in writing my response in this section of the talk page, I limited it to the specifics you brought up only in this section.  The other topics you say weren't addressed are actually addressed up in these sections:
 * "Clarification of some paragraphs"
 * "Source"
 * "Change the name of section"


 * I've added some clarifying extra comments up there now too, based on what you've mention here.


 * For the specifics relevant to what you bring up here: No, the age of the universe issue isn't "a fine example of original research", it's an example of page 186 in Gardner's book. I corrected it though to include the more conservative number of 875 billion which Gardner used (the time point cited in the UB as when the "Androver nebula" as a "physical system" began). It isn't necessary to have an absolute age of the universe mentioned in the UB, and neither the article or Gardner have said there is. "At least 875 billion years old" in and of itself is way more than the 13.7 billion years science shows.


 * In terms of the Mercury quote, first of all, the list of people you mentioned are almost entirely people who have come onto wikipedia primarily or exclusively to edit this article (including yourself). User UBtheNews even self-identified (in his one and only edit on wikipedia) as the writer of the web article on this issue that was discussed as not being WP:RS.  When it's been explained to these new and inexperienced editors the requirements of wikipedia, that they have to have a reliable published third-party source, the point then has remained in the article (even UBtheNEWS acknowledged this).  It doesn't matter if 10 or 20 or more new people come by with a guess of an idea on a topic, if there isn't a reputable source that can be cited for the idea, then it's not for wikipedia. It for sure doesn't then become "consensus".


 * Secondly about Mercury, there is an altogether different error in the book aside from tidal locking that I also added from Gardner. It has nothing to do with the grammar interpretation that Urantia editors have talked about before, so doesn't even enter into the idea of "consensus" that you bring up.


 * On Calabrese and other sources from websites and Urantia newsletters, they really clearly don't meet wikipedia's policy for reliable sources. You've already even been informed of this by multiple other editors aside from myself on the Reliable sources Noticeboard here (though you tried to then delete it 4 times). I can understand why you would bring up Kary Mullis, I really do, but even for a notable scientist like him, WP:RS requires the analysis to be published by an independent third-party. What he puts up on his website isn't auto-encyclopedic, and this is especially true for WP:REDFLAG comments. About the "Plagiarism allegations" title, I address that thoroughly above in the section "Change the name of section".


 * On the quotes from Sandra Collins and Sarah Lewis, two problems. One is that these don't even address anything specific about The Urantia Book or any topics at all in the article. Which specific points in the article from Gardner become any different based on their quotes?  An ultimaton still doesn't exist according to modern particle physics. The UB still doesn't support the big bang theory. Etc.  (Your claims about Gardner's findings being "obsolete" actually don't hold up to be honest.)  Instead, the Collins and Lewis quotes are very general comments about Gardner and his book, not about topics in the article.  They're ad hominem.  The second problem is that all you've done is very selectively chosen only the most negative sounding reviews you can find to stick in there, though there are plenty of favorable quotes about Gardner as well.  It's just as pointless and unjustifiable to put favorable reviews in and praise for Gardner. Neither of these types of quotes are about points made in the article and there's nothing to be done but remove them. The quotes would be for a wikipedia article about his book if anywhere. Wazronk (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

You appear to have overlooked my comments further up on this talk page.

On 24 May 2012 you added your comments to my information from 15 March 2012. It is really difficult to check the whole talk section when answering the current comments.

No, the age of the universe issue isn't "a fine example of original research", it's an example of page 186 in Gardner's book. I corrected it though to include the more conservative number of 875 billion which Gardner used (the time point cited in the UB as when the "Androver nebula" as a "physical system" began)

On the page 186 of Gardner book there is nothing about the universe age. Gardner wrote: “The UB denies any big bang. Our galaxy, it says, came into existence 875 billion years ago....” The number 875 billion years ago, in Paper 57, is about nebula creation in which our solar system took origin not about our galaxy. This is Gardner blunder; he mistakes these two astronomic objects to discredit UB, writing on the next page: “Only a million suns in our galaxy? Astronomers count billions”. Why not use less specific number and say – the universe is hundreds billion years old? But in this case the source is UB not Gardner. In terms of the Mercury quote.... It doesn't matter if 10 or 20 or more new people come by with a guess of an idea on a topic, if there isn't a reputable source that can be cited for the idea, then it's not for wikipedia. It for sure doesn't then become "consensus".

Gardner states (page 196) “Mercury is described in the UB (657) as always keeping the same side toward the sun”. The Urantia Book states (page 657) “The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia”. This statement can be understood in many ways. For me only the Moon always turns the same face toward Urantia, for you Mercury too, somebody else can find it inconclusive. I have inserted the whole paragraph and leave this to the reader own judgement? UB is reliable source for it own statements. I see now you extended “Criticism of its science” section to the article space containing References.

On Calabrese and other sources from websites and Urantia newsletters, they really clearly don't meet wikipedia's policy for reliable sources. You've already even been informed of this by multiple other editors aside from myself on the Reliable sources Noticeboard here (though you tried to then delete it 4 times).

Nobody is perfect. And there is a problem. This article is based also on the sources from various websites and Urantia newsletters. However if these sources are supporting your POV they are RS if somebody else POV, they are not. See "Some Human Sources of The Urantia Book" self published private website and other the same category http://www.freeurantia.org/Chapter6.htm There are also many Urantia Foundation newsletters and some materials from UBfellowship as sources of this article. Therefore I don’t understand why the link to the article of award-winning research mathematician published on UBfellowship website and in Fellowship Herald should be not RS for somebody beliefs. Of course this article does not support Martin Gardner ideas and therefore can be a good counterbalance to them and achieve NPOV of article.

I can understand why you would bring up Kary Mullis, I really do, but even for a notable scientist like him, WP:RS requires the analysis to be published by an independent third-party.

Not always. Wikipedia states clearly:

“Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications”. WP:IRS

Kary Mullis is a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist and what he writes about the gene Microcephalin is in the relevant field. I did not use any other material from his site outside his field of expertise - biochemistry. (Your claims about Gardner's findings being "obsolete" actually don't hold up to be honest.) Instead, the Collins and Lewis quotes are very general comments about Gardner and his book, not about topics in the article. They're ad hominem. The second problem is that all you've done is very selectively chosen only the most negative sounding reviews you can find to stick in there, though there are plenty of favorable quotes about Gardner as well. These opinions are about Gardner book solely devoted to UB. They are expressed by scholars, experts in their field and published in reliable sources: in the Library Journal and in the book published by Cambridge University Press. If Gardner publishes such book he can expect criticism and these opinions should not be suppressed or deleted. They're not ad hominem. This is the criticism of Gardner work about UB not his person and is in the scope of this article. 1.	The source was Gardner, I've added it back.

I don’t know why you are so persisting in inserting in this article Gardner blunders or misleading information. The supposed quotation from the book is distorted: “...neither science nor logic will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God” The UB states: “The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction”. And this makes a big difference. Therefore I understand why you have removed science section from article as the quotations from UB about science contradict fideism.

2.	Yet, now you've also deleted the criticism of science material. Just as well that it was deleted in the "Cosmology" section, in looking at it against what the Urantia Book actually says, it seems that red shift is not considered to be from so-called "space respiration". I've reworded the section.

Your rewording is correct and also statement, that the universe is vastly older than current scientific theories state. This is in UB. But aside from the rewording you changed the whole section. You removed the statements which are important to understand that UB cosmology is not out of this word. I added them back.

You have removed without any explanation the paragraph about Lucifer Rebellion from the section “History and future of the world”. This material was inserted into article after discussion between (Chartruese (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)) and Ian.thomson (talk) 23:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC) If any editor wish to add some material well sourced and explanatory, the arbitrary removal of such material is not fair.

The information that was added could really be summed up with just the one sentence, "The book attempts to synchronize religion, science and philosophy, and many statements about science appear in the text." The citation of a Urantia newsletter isn't a reliable source for wikipedia purposes. With that gone and the redundant quotes, there wasn't anything left here beyond what had been taken from the criticism of science section. The one sentence did seem reasonable to keep, so I kept it there.

If the section “Criticism of its science” is in the article it is only logical that there should be also information what this book says about science. Criticism of science alone looks weird if the information about science is not provided. I put this section there to balance such criticism and achieve NPOV. Professor Mark McMenamin writes something opposite to the criticism of UB, at least in his field of expertise, and this text shouldn’t be in the “Criticism of its science” section. A lot overlapped with other sections, and overall it was written with non-encyclopedic language. I've streamlined it.

I’ve streamlined it too, removing overlapping material including sentence about the sources of information which is described in different section of article. If the biggest section of the book has a title “Life and Teaching of Jesus” why only life should be presented in this article not the teaching?

3.	I've added back this statement that you've since deleted for a second time. My comments about this are further below.

I did already commented this a few paragraphs above.

4.	This is only ad hominem and doesn't even touch on anything specific that is cited in the article.

I did already commented this a few paragraphs above.

5.	I've clarified the statement and added detail. So in #7 above you say "Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors regardless of their source." You write that, and yet consider this quote from Sprunger alright to be in the article?: "To accuse the superhuman authors of plagiarism is a bit far fetched, as they are not concealing the use of human sources and they deliberately avoided reference to specific human personalities—they do not want any St. Peter or St. Paul connected with the Fifth Epochal Revelation." Here is a man claiming to inform us about what invisible beings want or don't want. Where does it come from? Did Sprunger have it whispered in his ear? Did a celestial being whisper it to another person and that person told Sprunger and now Sprunger is telling us? This isn't encyclopedic, this isn't even gossip, it's silliness. It for sure isn't WP:RS. Wazronk (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC) The authors of TUB do conceal who they borrowed from. As the article already says, "None of the material allegedly used from other sources is directly cited or referenced within the book." If a writer wants to think it's a simple matter at the beginning of any book of his to sweepingly say, "I'm indebted to others for their ideas and writings, thank you," and then go on to lift large passages from, say, a Harry Potter book, good luck with that and the lawyers. You say the "supposed plagiarism does not fit any definition of plagiarism". Well how about the very first definition from the very first result in a google search of "plagiarism definition": "an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author"[1] How about the very first sentence of WP:PLAGIARISM: "Plagiarism is the incorporation of someone else's work without providing adequate credit."

You told that Lewis criticism of Gardner is ad hominem What about your criticism of Sprunger. Is not the same? Sprunger probably based his statement on the information provided by Dr W. Sadler (see history section of the Urantia Foundation web site). This article is about religious text and human beliefs. Its purpose is to describe this text and these beliefs not to prove for any price the human authorship of this text.

What about the Wikipedia definition of plagiarism, not the “very first sentence” WP:PLAGIARISM:

1)	to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own 2)     use (another's production) without crediting the source.

According to Meredith Sprunger only point 2 of this definition can by true in this case.

“As we mentioned earlier, the authors of The Urantia Book clearly state that they have used human sources and why they are using them. The use of these human sources is often handled in such a way as to arrive at a position differing from that of the human author. To accuse the superhuman authors of plagiarism is a bit far fetched, as they are not concealing the use of human sources....” If this fact will be not explained very clearly in the article the endless problems will continue.

Jaworski (talk) 18:08, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources
Hi Wazronk,

As I see you have deleted some paragraphs as supposedly not based on reliable sources. These deleted paragraphs explained TUB followers beliefs (this was clearly stated in the text) and their sources were the websites of The Urantia Book organisations, which are publishing the material supporting their beliefs. This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religious texts. For some religions there is a wealth of academic sources, arising from a long history of theological study. If there is only a website, then that is what should be used. Websites of religious organisations are widely used in Wikipedia religious articles as the sources of people religious beliefs. Websites of various other organisations are used in thousands of diverse articles as the source of such organisation opinions, ideas or beliefs. This is easy to check. Unfortunately, as I see now, you are judging the reliability of sources by how well they support your desired viewpoint. Many of these websites (particularly UB Fellowship) that you declared as non reliable are used for years in this article as long as they do not contradict your POV. This article will never reach NPOV as long as viewpoints that oppose the criticism of TUB will be deleted as based on non reliable sources. I restored these paragraphs.

Karry Mullis is a Nobel Price winning biochemist and the information about him has an importance in the case of using his private website as source, which is allowable by Wikipedia rules quoted in my message from 14 June 2012. WP:IRSYou have shortened this paragraph and this is not bad. The link which you added to Wikipedia article about Adam and Eve in various religious traditions is misleading as there is nothing about the story of Adam and Eve as presented in TUB. I have redirected this link to the specific TUB paper. "The variant is thought to have arisen sometime between the broad range of 14,000 - 60,000 years ago actually with ~37,000 only being the midpoint of the confidence interval" I agree with your speculations that 37,000 can be the midpoint of confidence interval but such statement, about midpoint, doesn’t exist either on Mullis website as well as in the “Science” article and this can be original research. The confidence intervals are not always symmetric. To make it safe I used the formulation from the page 1718 of “Science”.

The source of Meredith Sprunger opinion added by you is on the page 362 not 355 and I can’t find there any information that Sprunger agrees with Gardner. I corrected it.

Jaworski (talk) 19:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is on pg 355, at least in the edition of the book I have.


 * The paragraphs I removed on 14 July 2012 aren't "supposedly not based on reliable sources", they definitely aren't reliable sources. You've been told this not only by me but by multiple other editors at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, though you then tried to hide their assessments by unsuccessfully deleting them four times.  There isn't anything in regards to this article being about a religious text that does anything to change that it still needs to conform to WP:RS. Calling something a "belief" doesn't then lower the standard. How about all the people who believe the Urantia Book is satanic? There are plenty of websites to cite to add that belief to the article as well. If you've found sloppy use of unreliable sources in other articles, then you should delete them and the material associated with it, it's no justification for making use of invalid sources in this article.


 * I've now deleted other links to less-than-reliable websites and sources from this article, it's perfectly fine that you pointed these out for removal. The fix for there being non-reliable or borderline sources isn't to add more unreliable sources like you're advocating weirdly, it's to either replace them with WP:RS or remove them. There is a big difference though between these extra ones I've deleted now, which it's true haven't really been of concern to me in general, and the latest ones you keep wanting to insert. These ones that didn't bother me were only for very trivial and unexceptional pieces of information in the article, and often the links were in actuality just pointing to accessible web versions of the exact same information in WP:RS WP:V publications (for example Sadler's Mind at Mischief appendix), but yours are for huge claims of WP:REDFLAG issues, like insinuations based on Kary Mullis' personal website about a paper in Science somehow corroborating the story in UB about the whole genetic history of modern humans. That's the difference, it has nothing to do with a "POV" from me.


 * For example I've deleted the link to the Matthew Block article. You complained toward me on June 14 2012: "However if these sources are supporting your POV they are RS if somebody else POV, they are not. See "Some Human Sources of The Urantia Book" self published private website and other the same category." And now you've said: "Unfortunately, as I see now, you are judging the reliability of sources by how well they support your desired viewpoint. Many of these websites (particularly UB Fellowship) that you declared as non reliable are used for years in this article as long as they do not contradict your POV."


 * Not in the least, have you actually read the Block article? On the topic of the plagiarisms in UB, it is about the most positively slanted article you can have about how wonderful the UB celestial beings were. The only sentence in the entire UB wikipedia article this was used as a citation for is this one plain factual statement: "In 1992, a reader of The Urantia Book, Matthew Block, self-published a paper that showed nineteen possible examples of The Urantia Book utilizing material published earlier." What is the "POV" of mine in this sentence that is supposedly being pushed?  It is completely fine by me and always has been that the link to his article be removed, I've done so now.  Both Gardner and Gooch professionally and WP:RS assessed the topic independently in more depth and it's their material that is used to build up this topic in the article, not Block. Block has only ever been there as the initial amateur of the story.  Removal of the link makes no difference to the text in the article because the same background information is covered in Gardner's book, it just means that a redundant source giving a believer POV is removed. There isn't a complaint from me about it being taken out of the article.


 * Kary Mullis' website is not WP:RS for all the many well-articulated reasons in the archives here and here, and then some, (eg generally lack of credibility in embracing astrology and pseudoscience, see "Bright Scientists, Dim Notions" and his wikipedia article). As user Doug Weller noted, it is open and shut. There is quite a bit more I could say on the topic. It's really not necessary to but I will tell you what, if you read the archive links I've included, and re-read WP:SPS, and are still minded that the Mullis personal viewpoint on his website of a "coincidence" is so appropriate and so striking, say so here or on my talk page, and I'll post plenty more on your talk page about it. It is good by the way to hear that you are looking up the sources we are discussing, that is excellent and the way it should be. Wazronk (talk) 21:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

In your removal of supposedly non reliable sources you acted very selectively and removed the information based on Urantia Foundation bulletin from the year 2010, about 14 translations of TUB, but you left UF bulletins from the year 2006 and 2012. I wonder it is because I have inserted such information or because the popularity of this book bothers you? It is a big mystery for me why did you remove the information based on private websites together with the information from the websites of UB organisations.

The sentence I used in my answer dated 18 July 2012 is from Reliable Sources Noticeboard:

"“For some religions there is a wealth of academic sources, arising from a long history of theological study. If there is only a website, then that is what should be used.”"

Another sentence from the same Noticeboard:

"“So much depends on exactly what the source is being used to support. For a statement as to the religious beliefs of the authors, the source is reliable. It might be reliable for a statement as to the beliefs of a specific group of people. It would not be reliable for a statement as to scientific fact, or to 'counter' a statement of scientific fact.”"

I do not use Urantia organisations websites to support any scientific facts but only the adherents beliefs. My question on Reliable Sources Noticeboard was wrong formulated and I admitted my mistakes on my user talk page.

In the links to the archives you provided I found some interesting sentences:

“This is supposed to be a coincidence with a passage from the Urantia Book describing Adam and Eve time-travelling back to 37,848 years ago and "uplifting" humans.” “First of all, the Urantia Book passage is quite vague about the details of the uplift -- it says nothing about what, specifically, was improved in human stock thanks to the uplift.”

There is the sentence from the book which supposedly “says nothing about what, specifically, was improved in human stock thanks to the uplift” "“The result of the gift of the Adamic life plasm to the mortal races is an immediate upstepping of intellectual capacity…”"

Such things happen if somebody not very familiar with the text of the book attempts to edit this article.

Nobel Price in chemistry and development of polymerase chain reaction "“does not make him an expert in DNA research and analysis of DNA related data and statistics”."

This is nonsense. I’ve got the message - expert in DNA is not expert in DNA.

Kary Mullis opinions about astrology, global warming or AIDS are not subjects of this article. I use only the information from his field of expertise.

I restored most of the information based on UF organisations websites and publications according to the guidance from Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Jaworski (talk) 05:24, 30 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, a biochemist like Kary Mullis is not a geneticist, the person in the archives was exactly right. An example of a PhD program in biochemistry can be found here, an example of a PhD program in genetics here. Same school, Stanford. Different disciplines. Different skillsets. An expert in one field is not an expert in the other. The point about his AIDS denialism, belief in astrology, and other extremely dubious views is that he is not even close to being above reproach in his opinions to the degree that anything he wishes to self-publish on his website becomes automatically encyclopedic.


 * And you're bothered about an editor in the archives evaluating him as non-WP:RS though not fully knowing details from UB, when the dubious website post of Mullis himself you're using as a reference shows an even more obvious lack of familiarity with the UB. Below in a new section I will add more to this point when I edit the article again.


 * But do you really believe that the one comment on the RS Noticeboard, cherry picked out of the 2008 archives from one person, overrides the WP:SOURCES policy of wikipedia? And both your links to noticeboard discussions are for comments plucked from the middle of discussions, where later commentators didn't even agree with those comments. At most this type of website sourcing is for cases of "group beliefs", and yet the external links you're using in the article are not even for describing these, your link for example is to one guy named Tallqvist (whose article even starts by saying "In my opinion...").  It's purely WP:WEASEL and original research to take this one person's speculations and claim it's meaningful as being representative of "some readers". Which is the same point people were saying in the noticeboard, even one of the very selective quotes you pulled above!


 * The other WP:EL links you've added to point to Urantia believer website articles (yet again) not only are still as non-WP:RS as they've always been, they don't even serve as citations needed for anything in the article. The exact same points are already covered by actual WP:RS citations in the article. This is nothing more than spam linking.


 * The larger issue that really is overdue to be discussed about the pattern of edits to this article for now the past year and the past 3-4 months especially will need to be addressed elsewhere though I feel. Wazronk (talk) 16:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

"Yes, a biochemist like Kary Mullis is not a geneticist, the person in the archives was exactly right. An example of a PhD program in biochemistry can be found here, an example of a PhD program in genetics here." I am not going to check a PhD program in biochemistry or genetics. I rather stick to the decision of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Kary Mullis received his Nobel Price for his work in the field of genetics for the development of polymerase chain reaction which enables researchers to produce millions of copies of a specific DNA sequence in approximately two hours. Mullis worked as a DNA chemist for seven years. I don’t understand your persistence in deny the obvious facts. You can check these facts on Wikipedia.

The information about religious sites as reliable source for any particular religious group beliefs are not cherry picked. The comments I quote don’t override any Wikipedia policy but they are in accordance with the policy: "Websites and publications of political parties, religious groups, anti-religious groups, or any other partisan group, may exhibit bias and should be treated with caution. Neither political affiliation nor religious belief stated in these sources are in themselves a reason not to use them, as these websites can be used to present the viewpoints of these groups, if properly attributed. Such sources should be presented alongside references from other sources in order to maintain a neutral point of view. WP:RSEX" Because you have created quite extensive critical section of this article the NPOV is already achieved.

Jaworski (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Kary Mullis
I'd already spotted that he doesn't seem to know his history of hominids - Neanderthal man didn't exist 800,000 years ago for a start. See for a short critique. I wouldn't expect him to know the history of geology, and he clearly doesn't. See also. We wouldn't use him as an expert on AIDS either. Dougweller (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I don’t use and I never intended to use Kary Mullis ideas about Neanderthals, history of geology etc in TUB Wikipedia article. I concentrate only on the ideas from his field of expertise useful in this article. Jaworski (talk) 02:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)