This is an alphabetical listing of all the scholars and professionals who have favorably reviewed one or more of the reports. To "Favorably Review" a report means that the person has found the report to be reasonably accurate and scholarly in its presentation of material, given the context in which UBtheNEWS reports are written. (If an individual (co)authors a report or is listed with “special thanks,” their name will not be repeated on the Favorably Reviewed line.)

UBtheNEWS reports are intended to do nothing more than present information that is noteworthy and intriguing regarding the credibility of The Urantia Book. The reports focus on assertions made in The Urantia Book about science and history that were generally rejected by, not widely known about or accepted by, or simply unaddressed by science and scholarship at time of its publication in 1955. The reports are not offered as proofs regarding The Urantia Book's claim of superhuman origin. Nor are the reports claiming that now science and scholarship “agrees” with The Urantia Book. Indeed, most of the scientific and scholarly community knows little to nothing about The Urantia Book.

UBtheNEWS reports present scientific and scholarly material that is generally harmonious with, correlates to, runs parallel with, corroborates, and/or verifies assertions in The Urantia Book. If the majority of the scientific and scholarly community had beliefs that were specifically opposed to an assertion in The Urantia Book at the time of publication, then a report will not be written on that subject until the majority of the scientific and scholarly community now agrees with the assertion. If an assertion was not widely accepted or known about amongst scientists and scholars in that field, then a report may be written that indicates The Urantia Book's assertion is gaining favor and is not seriously contested by scientists and scholars. When The Urantia Book makes an assertion that was unaddressed by the scientific and scholarly community at the time of publication, then a report may be written as soon as a discovery is made that supports the assertion, even if it is not yet widely accepted and may remain suspect within the scientific and scholarly community.

Obviously, in order for a book to exhibit this type of credibility, it must start out with material that is in conflict with or not widely accepted by the scientific and scholarly community when it was published. Even though an emerging pattern of credibility does seem to be emerging, much of the scientific and historic material in The Urantia Book continues to remain in conflict with and/or without general acceptance by scientific and scholarly community.

To favorably review a report is not a statement about the credibility of The Urantia Book as a whole. It is only a statement about the credibility of the particular assertion(s) related to the report. As well, credibility in this context has a range of meaning because of the various reasons (listed above) that justify the writing of a UBtheNEWS report.

There is an ongoing effort being made to encourage favorable review of these reports by scholars and professionals no matter what that person's beliefs about The Urantia Book may be. Lending one's name to the “Favorably Reviewed By” line of a report should not be taken as an indication of a person's beliefs or opinions about The Urantia Book. Those who favorably review a report are simply offering their opinion that the scientific and scholarly material presented reasonably correlates to, corroborates, or is harmonious with the related assertions in The Urantia Book and that information in the report is being accurately presented and fairly represented.

Chris M. Halvorson, Ph.D.

Reports:
Galaxies: Who's Counting, Inner Ionosphere, Mercury's Rotation, Sierra Mountains, Tycho's Nova

Education:
Ph.D. in physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 1991
B.S. with physics and mathematics majors, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, summa cum laude, 1982

Professional Experience:
Associate Scientist, Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1991 to present
Research Assistant, High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1987 to 1991

Honors and Awards:
Phi Beta Kappa, arts and sciences academic honor
Bausch & Lomb Honorary Science Award

Phil Calabrese, PhD

Reports:
Galaxies: Who's Counting, Inner Ionosphere, Magnetic Sensitivity, Mercury's Rotation, Pangaea to Plate Tectonics, Tycho's Nova

Education:
1963, 1965, 1968: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. in Mathematics, Illinois Institute of Technology

Professional Experience: (partial list)
2000-present: Mathematical Research & Engineering dba Data Synthesis
1999-2004: Senior Scientist, Department of Defense (SSC-SD)
1990-1993: Senior Research Associate, National Research Council, NOSC, San Diego
1980-82: Adjunct Professor, and part-time Lecturer, Mathematics Dept., SDSU
1979-82: Senior Staff Engineer, Decision Science, Inc. (subsidiary of Titan Systems Inc.)
1975-79: Lecturer (Mathematics Dept.) & Director of the Alternative Energy, Interdisciplinary Studies Division, Humboldt State University, Arcata California.

Mathematical Research Accomplishments:
Invention of a successful 4-operation system of Boolean fractions – conditional events – to faithfully represent and manipulate uncertain conditional information
Development of a) the theory of these generalized events and b) their applications to diverse areas of information, most recently to provide a more natural expression of the logic of quantum measurements.

Honors and Awards: (partial list)
Reviewer for American Mathematical Association's, Mathematical Reviews, 2006 –, in subject areas:
Conditional events as part of “other algebras related to logic” (003G5),
Quantum logic as part of algebraic logic (03G12),
The logical foundations of quantum logic (81P10) , and
Quantum measurement theory (81P15)].
National Research Council Senior Research Associateship, 1990-93

Mathematical Research Publications: (partial list)
“The logic of quantum measurement in terms of conditional events”, in press, Logic Journal of the IGPL, Oxford University Press.
“Toward a more natural expression of quantum logic with Boolean fractions”, J. Philos. Logic 34 (2005), no. 4, 363–401. MR2181132
“Reflections on logic & probability in the context of conditionals”, in Conditionals, Information, and Inference, G. Kern-Isberner, W. Rödder, and F. Kulmann (Eds.): WCII 2002, LNAI 3301, pp. 12–37, Springer-Verlag 2005. (Invited talk and refereed paper)
“Operating on functions with variable domains”, J. Philosophical Logic, Vol. 32, No. 1, Feb. 2003, 1-18.
“Deduction with uncertain conditionals”, Information Sciences 147, 2002, 143-191.
“A theory of conditional information with applications”, IEEE Transactions of Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Vol. 24, Number 12, Dec. 1994, 1676-1684.
“Deduction and inference using conditional logic and probability”, in: Conditional Logic in Expert Systems, I. R. Goodman, M.M. Gupta, H.T. Nguyen and G.S. Rogers, eds., (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1991) 71-100.
“Reasoning with uncertainty using conditional logic and probability”, in: Proc. First International Symposium on Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis, IEEE Computer Society, (1990) 682-688.

Halbert Katzen, JD/MBA

Reports:
Adam and Eve, Early Migration to the Americas, Galaxies: Who's Counting, Garden of Eden, Inner Ionosphere, Magnetic Sensitivity, Mercury's Rotation, Pangaea to Plate Tectonics, Tycho's Nova

Education
Brandeis University, Class of 1992; Bachelor of Arts: The Nature and Development of Religious Experience
University of Colorado at Boulder, Class of 1996; Juris Doctor, Master of Business Administration

Author
The Logic of Love: Finding Faith through the Heart-Mind Connection
Peace on Earth Begins at Home: Conversations that Create Cooperation

Work Experience
Creator of and writer for UBtheNEWS
Public speaker and educator
Attorney (no longer practicing)