The Design of the Cosmos Part 9: The Late Heavy Bombardment - Preparing Earth for Life

Let's step back a bit from plate tectonic activity and the Earth's great oxygenation events to a time between 4.4 and 4.2 billion years ago, a time before the era dubbed The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) era.

During the LBH epoch which occurred around 3.9 to 3.8 bya, asteroids and comets continuously pummelled the Earth turning its surface into molten magma several hundred kilometers deep. This condition covered the entire surface of the Earth from shortly after its creation 4.5 bya (and therefore shortly after the impactor event which struck the Earth to create the moon) up until about 3.8 billion years ago.

New studies suggest that life on Earth may have appeared earlier than previously thought. Previously, science taught us that life first appeared on the scene shortly after the end of the LHB era, at about 3.8 bya, when the Earth began cooling from its molten state. New studies suggest through research done on ancient zircon crystals dating between 4.4 and 4.2 bya, that conditions on the Earth were not as hellish as previously thought, indicating that life may have existed at this time.

It's possible that life did exists prior to 3.8 bya and this has implications for RTB's creation model.

Here is what the Reasons To Believe (http://www.reasons.org/) creation model predicts concerning the origin of life (taken from an excellent article written by Dr. Fazale Rana PhD titled "Insight into the Late Heavy Bombardment and RTB's Creation Model":

1. 1 Life appeared early in Earth's history.
2. 2 Life appeared under harsh conditions.
3. 3 Life miraculously persisted under harsh conditions.
4. 4 Life arose quickly.
5. 5 First life on Earth was complex.
6. 6 Life in its minimal form is complex.

While Dr. Rana goes on to state that the life on Earth after the LHB era consisted of complex singled celled microbes such as archea and bacteria, it's now hard to determine if point 4 and point 5 in the above model can be proven due to the results from these zircon studies. The new research does not, however, remove the intractable problems remaining from a naturalistic origin of life scenario and the record of nature. It simply means that RTB has to refine points 4 and 5 of their model.

However, point 6 is a crushing blow to a Darwinian and/or naturalistic position on the origin of life, because it requires the intervention of a Designer. Here is Dr. Rana's perspective on life in its minimal form being complex, not simple:

"It is also important to keep in mind that work in genomics indicates that for life to exist independently in the environment it requires approximately 2,000 genes. And to exist as a minimal form, life needs about 400 genes. This intrinsic molecular complexity suggests that when life emerged on Earth, it had to appear in a biochemically complex form, which still satisfies our model's prediction that life in its minimal form is complex."

I just wanted you to be aware of RTB's efforts to remain faithful to the findings of science in the record of nature.

Amazingly, Genesis 1 still records the early Earth's conditions as being totally covered with water and unfit for life, and these zircon studies buttress what the Bible taught thousands of years ago:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶ And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

⁹ And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

I'll be finishing up this series on the Design of the Cosmos next time. I'm excited to begin a new series coming in December called "Darwin's Doubt".

Until then, may God bless you.


Cheers
Tom