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[edit] Mirovia and Urantia

McMenamin, Mark A. S. (1998) Discovering the First Complex Life: The Garden of Ediacara. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Reunite Rodinia!

The continental land drift continued; increasingly the ocean penetrated the land as long fingerlike seas providing those shallow waters and sheltered bays which are so suitable as a habitat for

marine life … [with] the further separation of the landmasses and, in consequence, a further extension of the continental seas … these inland seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution. -The Urantia Book3

--(McMenamin 1998: 173)

The last quotation in this chapter's epigraph describes the Proterozoic breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia. This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually appear in the scientific literature until many decades later. This unusual source is The Urantia Book.4 The name Urantia refers to planet Earth. (McMenamin 1998: 173)

The comments concerning Rodinia's breakup and its influence on animal evolution are found in part III, "The History of Urantia" in The Urantia Book. According to the first page of this chapter, "these papers were sponsored by a Corps of Local Universe Personalities acting by authority of Gabriel of Salvington." The critical section 8 of Paper 57, titled "Crustal Stabilization, The Age of Earthquakes, The World Ocean and the First Continent," is "presented by a Life Carrier, a member of the original Urantia Corps [who visited our planet hundreds of millions of years ago] and now a resident observer." The following Paper 58, "Life Establishment on Urantia," is attributed to "a member of the Urantia Life Carrier Corps now resident on the planet." (McMenamin 1998: 174)

Clearly we are not dealing here with an orthodox scientific treatise. Nevertheless, the anonymous members of the Urantia Corps hit on some remarkable scientific revelations in the mid-1930s. They embraced continental drift at a time when it was decidedly out of vogue in the scientific community. They recognized the presence of a global supercontinent (Rodinia) and superocean (Mirovia), in existence on earth before Pangea. From The Urantia Book:

1,000,000,000 years ago … [t]he first continental land mass emerged from the world ocean…. 950,000,000 [years ago] … presents the picture of one great continent of land and one large body of water, the Pacific Ocean.6

800,000,000 years ago … Europe and Africa began to rise out of the Pacific depths along with those masses now called Australia, North and South America, and the continent of Antarctica, while the bed of the Pacific Ocean engaged in a further compensatory sinking adjustment. By the

� McMenamin, Mark A. S. (1998) Discovering the First Complex Life: The Garden of Ediacara. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

end of this period almost one third of the earth’s surface consisted of land, all in one continental body.7

Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book. However, the concept of a billion-year-old supercontinent (the currently accepted age for the formation of Rodinia) that subsequently split apart, forming gradually widening ocean basins in which early marine life flourished, is unquestionably present in this book. (McMenamin 1998: 174)

Orthodox scientific arguments for such a proposal did not appear until the late 1960s, and a pre-Pangea supercontinent was never described until Valentine and Moores made the attempt in 1970. The Urantia Corps not only had the age of the formation of Rodinia approximately correct at 1 billion years, but they also were first to link breakup of Rodinia to the emergence of animals (even if the mode of appearance was implantation by extraterrestrials). Furthermore, they even got the timing of that approximately correct at 650 to 600 million years ago ("These inland seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution").8 (McMenamin 1998: 174-175)

This book was unknown to me until it was brought to my attention by J. J. Johnson in October 1995. I obtained a copy of the book from the Smith College library and noted the 1955 (eighth edition 1984) publication date. What could possibly explain such precocious insight from such an unexpected corner? Perhaps it has to do with a lively, unconstrained, but nevertheless informed imagination. John K. Wright has noted how outrageous hypotheses "arouse interest, invite attack, and thus serve useful fermentative purposes in the advancement of geology."9 But what about outrageous religions? (McMenamin 1998: 175)

I wrote back to Johnson on January 15, 1996, asking him whether he could confirm that the passages he had referred me to were indeed written in 1955. In a letter dated January 24, he replied that the section of interest was "put into the English language in 1934," making it even more ahead of its time than I had thought. (McMenamin 1998: 175)

Assuming for the moment that space voyagers are not responsible for life’s origin and history on this planet, one wonders how the Urantia Book authors arrived at the concept of a Proterozoic supercontinent, and the link between breakup of this supercontinent and the emergence of complex life in the ensuing rift oceans, 30 years before most geologists accepted continental drift and nearly four decades before scientists had any inkling that Rodinia existed. The anonymous authors responsible for the critical part of section 3 evidently possessed a high level of geological training, and while writing in the 1930s must have known of Wegener’s ideas on continental drift. Perhaps he or she was, or had contact with, an expatriate from Nazi Germany. Whatever the identity of the author, this person proceeded to speculate about the relationship between evolutionary change and the breakup of a Proterozoic supercontinent in an exceptionally fruitful way. Perhaps this was because the thought and the writing of this person were not fettered by the normal constraints of the (too often highly politicized) scientific review process. (McMenamin 1998: 175-176)

Cases such as this one (which is by no means unique) are an exercise in humility for me as a scientist. How can it be that discovery of Rodinia, plus a fairly sophisticated rendering of the evolutionary implications of the rifting of Rodinia, falls to an anonymous author engaging in a work of religious revelation decades before scientists find out anything about the subject? Perhaps this is an important aspect of religion-a creative denial of certain aspects of reality in order to access a deeper truth. (McMenamin 1998: 176)

I am not advocating an abandonment of a disciplined scientific peer review process, but I can’t help but wonder whether science would benefit by having scientists themselves or friends of science systematically scan the various nonscientific literatures for writings such as those appearing in The Urantia Book. Scientists would ordinarily ignore and dismiss such writings, but a discerning eye might pick up some gems. (McMenamin 1998: 176)

The concept of Rodinia therefore has a shockingly unexpected intellectual pedigree. When does the concept finally enter the conventional scientific channels? In articles published in the early 1970s, James W. Valentine and Eldridge M. Moores traced the geological history of the continents and spoke of a Precambrian supercontinent.10 This continent was subsequently called proto-Pangea, pre-Pangea, Pangea I, the Late Proterozoic Supercontinent, ur-Pangea, or simply the Precambrian supercontinent. While writing The Emergence of Animals, Dianna McMenamin and I grew weary of these cumbersome names and proposed the name Rodinia for the ancient supercontinent. The corresponding superocean also needed a name, and we decided to call it Mirovia. Here is the key passage from Emergence of Animals11:

Mirovia is derived from the Russian word mirovoi meaning "world or global," and, indeed, this ocean was global in nature. Rodinia comes from the infinitive rodit, which means "to beget" or "to grow." Rodinia begot all subsequent continents, and the edges (continental shelves) of Rodinia were the cradle of the earliest animals.

Curiously, The Urantia Book also refers to Mirovia, the "world ocean."12 Here are my notes regarding the name from p. 17 of my 1987 composition notebook:

5/12/87 This book would be a good opportunity to "name" "paleo-Pangaea" and "proto- Panthallasa" Majeston 16:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need to quote all of McMenamin's chapter 8? The most significant quote is: Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book. Quite simply, McMenamin blew it with that speculative bit - no clue why he decided to promote some new age religious nonsense in what was supposedly a serious popular account of Ediacaran fauna. See a review here. Whatever, we surely don't need to hype that religion or pseudoscience stuff in a geology article. Vsmith 01:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need a high school science teacher parroting every theory du jour instead of promoting truth honestly to our students of geology as Mcmenamin has insightfully done? Majeston 03:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

A few things to bear in mind

Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent all views (more at NPOV), instead of supporting one over another, even if you believe something strongly. Talk ("discussion") pages are not a place to debate value judgments about which of those views are right or wrong or better. If you want to do that, there are venues such as Usenet, public weblogs and other wikis. Use article talk pages to discuss the accuracy/inaccuracy, POV bias, or other problems in the article, not as a soapbox for advocacy.

If someone disagrees with you, this does not necessarily mean that the person hates you, that the person thinks you're stupid, that the person themself is stupid, or that the person is mean. When people post opinions without practical implications for the article, it's best to just leave them be. What you think is not necessarily right or necessarily wrong – a common example of this is religion. Before you think about insulting someone's views, think about what would happen if they insulted your religion. Also, always remember that anything that is written on Wikipedia is kept permanently, even if it is not visible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Majeston (talk • contribs) 04:03, 6 July 2007

"Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent all views" -- not true -- see WP:Undue_weight#Undue_weight -- Geologyguy 04:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)