What Darwin Didn't Know - Part 8: The Late Heavy Bombardment

I left off last time telling you that not only was a naturalistic explanantion for the origin of life without prebiotics, it was also without adequate time.

The Late Heavy Bombardment is the reason why. Also known as the Hadean Era (where we get our word Hades - descriptive of a hellish environment), the late heavy bombardment occurred between 3.8 and 3.9 billion years ago. This was an era of intense asteroidal and cometary bombardment to the planets of the inner solar system (Mars, Earth, the Moon, Venus, and Mercury). Earth was pummeled by these large objects, striking it with enough energy to melt the Earth's surface - no solid rocks, liquid water, conceivable life forms, or even basic prebiotic molecules could have survived the molten state of the Earth during this period. Here's a quote from Dr. Fazale Rana's book, "Origins of Life", from page 81.

"The conditions of this era explain why no Earth rocks or marine deposits older than about 3.85 billion years have ever been located. Violent conditions lasted until 3.5 billion years ago, explaining why no earlier fossils (and few older rocks) have been found."

Here's an excellent audio clip from chapter 9 of Dr. Ross' book, More than a Theory.

If life existed prior to the Hadean, then presumably the late heavy bombardment would have terminated it, which means that life would have had to have "restarted". On the other hand, if life didn't exist prior to the Hadean period, then how did it get its start so quickly after the late heavy bombardment? For instance, if the late heavy bombardment ended at 3.9 billion years ago, how is it that complex microbial life "appears" instantly thereafter, if only a naturalistic explanation is considered? Certainly any prebiotics would have been vaporized by the hellish conditions resulting from this period, and all naturalistic orign of life models contain prebiotics. In fact, 4 conditions must all be met for a naturalistic origin of life model to be considered, as written in an article by Hugh Ross titled, "Late Heavy Bombardment Intensity and the Origin of Life"

All naturalistic models for the emergence of life possess four essential requirements:

1. a large, concentrated prebiotic soup;

2. prebiotic sugars that are 100 percent right-handed;

3. prebiotic amino acids that are 100 percent left-handed;

4. adequate time for the sugars and nucleotides to naturally assemble into the necessary RNA and DNA molecules and for the amino acids to naturally assemble into needed proteins.

But the late heavy bombardment period leaves a gap of time in only 50 million years for all four of these conditions to be realized. While life may be able to survive under extreme temperatures and conditions such as the LHB, life cannot originate under such conditions. Hugh Ross goes on to state in the article that Ribose, a vital component in RNA and important life building block, will break down under extreme temperatures:

"High temperatures are especially catastrophic for evolutionary models. The higher the temperature climbs, the shorter the half-life for all the crucial building block molecules. For example, at an ideal neutral pH, neither acidic nor alkaline, a sample of ribose (a five-carbon sugar and crucial component in every nucleotide in RNA) will break down, losing half of its molecules in 44 years at 32° F (0° C). At 212° F (100° C–the boiling point of water) ribose's half-life drops to just 73 minutes.⁹ Such a drastically low half-life guarantees that the concentration of ribose will remain too low to sustain any hope of a naturalistic pathway for RNA assembly. (The same could be said even for the longer half-life of 44 years)."

At the end of the late heavy bombardment, as soon as the Earth's crust cools and solidifies from its motlen state, life appears in the fossil record of those rocks dating from the end of this era. I believe God was "brooding" over His first life as depicted in Genesis 1:1

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Please take notice of the word "hovering", or rahap in the original Hebrew. The only other time this word is used in the entire Bible is in Deuteronomy 32:10-11 where the Spirit of God is protecting the wandering nation of Israel. Here it is for your reference:

Deuteronomy 32:10-12 (New King James Version)

¹⁰ “He found him in a desert land
And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;
He encircled him, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.

¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,
Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up,
Carrying them on its wings,

¹² So the LORD alone led him,
And there was no foreign god with him.

So we can infer that in the Genesis passage above, "hovering" depicts a loving God protecting His first life creation on the early Earth. Prior to it describing God "hovering" (rahap) over the waters, the Genesis passage also describes the Earth as a desolate wasteland, void of life (Hebrew tohu) just as the Israelites were wandering in a desolate land (also from the Hebrew tohu) further linking these two verses of scripture.

My belief is that the Bible accurately portrays the early Earth as formless and void due to the effects of the late heavy bombardment. (Science also has discovered that the early Earth was covered with water entirely before any continental land masses appeared.) Here's another article from Dr. Rana: Origin of Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation which puts my thoughts together for you.

The late heavy bombardment is yet another fingerprint of the God of the Bible in His ability to prepare the planet for first life. This yields no natural explanations for just how life could appear so quickly and in such complexity of design after such an extraordinary event.

So what's the bottom line? A naturalistic explanation for the origin of life on Earth can't happen without a prebiotic soup and without sufficient time. So where do naturalists look today for answers? They turn to outerspace.

Tune in next time as I talk about panspermia. Could life have been planted on Earth from space aliens from outer space? I think not.

God Bless,

Tom