Does Baba Have Any Idea What He's Talking About?

Does Baba really know anything?

Baba: there is no air one hundred miles beyond our earth. (LM 1873)

Fact: Earth's atmosphere is about 300 miles (480 kilometers) thick.*

Said in about 1934.

The evolution of the world began two billion years ago and evolution, which started from the nebula . . .   (LM p. 1872)

Said in 1935 before the age of the Universe was known. Even biological evolution on earth is 3.5 billion, but notice Baba means evolution as beginning with "the nebula." An earlier typed version that I saw in 1986 the number was "2 million" but David or Hermes changed it to sound more scientific.

“I will speak any day from February 15, 1942 to February 15, 1943, unannounced. It will be when all the world has gone to the dogs! And Maharaj will at the same time leave his body.” (NEW LM 2233)

Said in October 1941, Upasni actually died two months later, on Dec. 24, 1941.

“While there are many people in the Chinese communist government who are not good, Mao Tse-tung, himself, has a very good heart and is truly an idealist.” (LM 6319)

Really? An estimated 45 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with -- by execution, imprisonment or forced famine.

Saint Francis came to India in search of God, where he finally came in contact with a Hindu Master who gave him God-realization. After the complete Divine Upliftment, Saint Francis returned to his native place where he [eventually] had hundreds of thousands of followers. (p. 860 of Revised LM, 1927, to Ashram boys)

Compare to another version Baba told Ivy Duce in 1956.

Don asked, "Baba, you have explained in the Discourses, God Speaks and elsewhere that an individual cannot attain God-realization without the aid of a living Perfect Master. Since there was no Perfect Master in the West at that time, how did Saint Francis achieve Realization?"

Baba turned to Ivy and asked, "Have you heard of the ancient Sufi prophet, Khwaja Khizr?" She replied that she had heard Rabia Martin speak of him. Baba explained: "Khwaja Khizr now and then takes on a physical body if there is some spiritual situation that absolutely demands it. The Realization of Francis was such a case, because he had no Perfect Master to give him Realization. So on the night we read about on Mount La Verna, [near] Assisi, during which Saint Francis also received the stigmata [wounds of the Crucified Christ], Khwaja Khizr, in his temporary human form, gave this beloved Western saint the touch of grace which made him a Perfect Soul — a Sadguru or Perfect Master."

Meher Baba's Early Messages to the West, 2009, p. 178

My feeling is that all teachings that have to do with percepts, are helpful myths said in serious good humor. These are said to help people, in the Indian or Platonic tradition.
Those that have to do with metaphysics (or the operations of the mind that produce gross, subtle, and mental percepts) are true.
This includes things said in GS about the Avatar, the Hierarchy, Numbers of things, the Experiences (percepts) of the planes, powers of people on planes, and so on.
We can actually see the difference in several factors among such propositions. The ones about the operations have a distinct elegance and are consistent with what we know of Pythagoras, Kant, Plato, and Buddha.
See “of the realm of Reality” in God Speaks, p. 164 (or in 1973 ed, p. 175).

So there are two groups -- the causal, and the phenomenal. The causal statements are true and permanent, the phenomenal (effect) are quasi-true, utilitarian, temporary, and made for particular people in particular situations in particular periods of time.
II is almost entirely devoid of percepts --- prophesies, numbers of types of people, descriptions of experiences, evolutionary steps, numerology, precise powers, or anything phenomenal.

* However, it depends on how you define space and atmosphere.
Space is often defined as beginning at the lowest altitude at which satellites can maintain orbits for a reasonable time – which is approximately 160 kilometers (100 miles) above the surface. These varying definitions are complicated when one takes the definition of the word “atmosphere” into account. . .  Earth’s gravity does a fair job keeping most of our air in the troposphere, and from there the whole atmosphere generally describes a pressure curve that decreases with altitude — swiftly, & then more gradually with height, approaching but never quite reaching zero density.