one thing i like about the urantia book is that it's the only divine revelation i know of that gives a detailed account of human evolution and how it unfolded according to god's plan.
How do you define "divine revelation"?
Obviously, lots of great books convey information on this very topic (of how God used evolutionary processes to diversify life on earth) without claiming "divine revelation" per se.
THE "PILTDOWN MAN" EPISODE WAS
ONE OF THE GREAT SUCCESS STORIES OF SCIENCE
...the urantia book makes no mention of the discredited piltdown man, even though it was widely accepted as evidence of common descent ......
If by "widely accepted" you mean "widely accepted by the mass media and others outside of the field of hominid paleontology", the general statement is fine. But upon researching this popular "belief" some years ago, I discovered that Piltdown Man was actually NEVER a part of evolutionary thinking among paleontologists working in that field of scholarship. Never, ever.
In fact, I discovered that within literally WEEKS of the Piltdown "discoveries", scientists who actually DID work in that field were balking at the claims and requesting access to the data notes and the finds themselves.
And because that access was NEVER FULLY GRANTED (a major violation of the scientific method), the skepticism of paleontologists grew exponentially.
Within just a few years (three or four, if I recall; academic peer-reviewed journals often had very slow and gradual processes), one of those QUALIFIED SCIENTISTS in the field of hominid paleontology published a peer-reviewed article basically SLAMMING the Piltdown "discovery". That same scientist returned to the topic many years later and along with others published more information to demonstrate that Piltdown was a likely ruse and fraud--- and not until then was the MEDIA sufficiently motivated to let the public know what the scientists had been thinking all along.
So Piltdown Man (1) NEVER played any role in theories of human evolution among the scholars of that field of study, even though "gentlemen hobbyists" who liked to dig for fossils in 1920's England and the media which reported on their activities loved the Piltdown story. And (2) evolutionary biology never incorporated the Piltdown discovery in any meaningful way [because it simply never fit and the "discoverers" were not scientists in that field and never cooperated with the rest of the field so their ideas could be scrutinized properly.]
Of course, some "creation science" fan will find a quote from some overly-excited scientist of that time who specialized OUTSIDE of that field -- and who liked to be interviewed by newspaper reporters and get his name in the paper--- and no doubt thought "Piltdown Man" was a hugely important discovery for his countrymen, because the British had felt "left out" after all of the key fossil discoveries had been coming from elsewhere. "Piltdown Man" was a "win for our team!" as far as many overly-effusive dabblers in amateur hobby-science and eager newspaper reporters for the London Times were concerned. (If one knows much about the history of the British Empire and the discouragement of that period of history, one can understand why many "gentleman fossil hunters" and anthropology enthusiasts wanted England to be the site of an important "early man" discovery.)
I had always assumed that "Piltdown Man" had fooled (and distracted toward a tangential path) the evolutionary biologists of the 1920's through 1950's ---but as I searched for what was ACTUALLY PUBLISHED in the peer-reviewed journals of the period, I discovered that because the scholars never got the necessary cooperation from the amateurish fraudsters and because other discoveries consistently made the Piltdown "data" [what little was released] insignificant and rather meaningless, paleontology and evolutionary biology continued to move forward without it.
The Piltdown find clearly NEVER MATTERED to the field even though it excited reporters and the general public.
I found NO EVIDENCE that any credentialed academic in the associated field from the time of the Piltdown "discovery" to the eventual full exposure of the fraud (by the same scientists who had questioned it immediately and thoroughly in a peer-reviewed journal shortly after the newspapers went crazy with claims about "Piltdown Man") thought that the find ever really mattered to the field.
So I consider "Piltdown Man" one of paleontology's greatest success stories ---and a demonstration of how the scientific method WORKS VERY WELL.
Why did it take several decades for initial skepticism and frustration over the lack of cooperation from the Piltdown "discoverers" to the definitive peer-reviewed article which fully exposed the fraud? My own research revealed these facts:
(1) Because the Piltdown find was so insignificant, scholars in the field just didn't have much interest in it. [Scientists don't look to the mass media and ignorant journalists for research priorities!]
(2) Other discoveries were FAR more significant and made far more sense, while "Piltdown Man" made no sense and was NEVER properly subjected to the scientific method by anyone in the field.
(3) Economic depressions and WWII made the topic an even lower priority.
(4) Not all that many trained paleontologists were working in the field in those days!
Thus, "Piltdown Man" is a reminder of a major weakness of getting one's "facts" from "creation science" and Young Earth Creationist websites and books: Besides the pseudo-science, dishonest quote-mining, and lack of peer-reviewed sources and citations, they tend to be distracted by the bogus claims of AMATEURS and JOURNALISTS LOOKING FOR SENSATIONALISTIC STORIES.
Bottom line: the "Piltdown Man" episode can teach us a lot about poor science journalism and what happens when amateurs and hobbyists without any credentials seize public attention and don't cooperate with real scientists in the specific associated field. And it demonstrates the VALUE OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD in separating facts from fiction (and from fraud.)
[Sorry, Ken Ham & Company, to shoot down one of your favorite anti-science taunts. But now that Piltdown Man is out of the way, how about we talk about the many infamous "creation science" fraudulent "discoveries" ---which CONTINUE to be promoted on a great many creationist websites and in their books even though they were exposed as frauds years ago. Why still use them when they are lies? How about Malachite Man? Moab Man? The Calaveras Skull? The Caldwell Track? And let's not forget all of those ever-entertaining Paluxy River human footprints-inside-of-dinosaur-footprints! (The creationists not only fail to admit and apologize for these, they still use them!)]
