Improbable Planet

How Earth Became Humanity's Home

Hugh Ross

• Publisher: Baker Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780801016899
• eBook ISBN: 9781493405398
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Latest Scientific Discoveries Point to an Intentional Creator

Most of us remember the basics from science classes about how Earth came to be the only known planet that sustains complex life. But what most people don't know is that the more thoroughly researchers investigate the history of our planet, the more astonishing the story of our existence becomes. The number and complexity of the astronomical, geological, chemical, and biological features recognized as essential to human existence have expanded explosively within the past decade. An understanding of what is required to make possible a large human population and advanced civilizations has raised profound questions about life, our purpose, and our destiny. Are we really just the result of innumerable coincidences? Or is there a more reasonable explanation?

This fascinating book helps nonscientists understand the countless miracles that undergird the exquisitely fine-tuned planet we call home--as if Someone had us in mind all along.

---

1

---

Why Ask “Why”?

A few years ago I wrote a book called Why the Universe Is the Way It Is to show what the characteristics of the universe—its age, mass, dimensions, physical laws, and other physical features—tell us about humanity’s ultimate purpose and destiny.[1] I wrote it also as an appeal to those who reject the Creator on the basis that they, as mere humans, can conceive of a better universe than ours to reconsider their claim in light of new discoveries. My aim in that book was to demonstrate how our seemingly “imperfect” universe fits perfectly with what I describe as a two-creation model of reality. Rather than upholding Carl Sagan’s assertion that “the cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be,”[2] evidence supports the biblical assertion that this universe serves as a launchpad for the new creation to come—a reality more perfect than any of us can think of or imagine, one that fulfills all our greatest hopes and deepest longings.

In many respects the book in your hands is a sequel to that book—a necessary sequel, given popular notions about Earth as a not-so-special, often hostile, and, in a worst-case scenario, possibly replaceable home for humanity. Of all the things in life we tend to take for granted, our terrestrial residence and its resources might be one of the biggest. We don’t seem to be amazed and astonished by Earth’s beauty and treasures, its capacity to support more than 7 billion people and even more billions of other creatures.

Most people I meet, including scientists, acknowledge that Earth has undergone some changes since it first coalesced from the disk of gas and dust surrounding our star, the Sun, but few can even imagine how radically different it is today. Many suggest that Earth’s life-sustaining features are just “amazing coincidences” that somehow fell into place in a way that suits human needs and, at the same time, determines what life-forms exist.

Evidence and logic compel me to challenge such a notion. Ongoing research tells us that Earth has been shaped not only by an intricately orchestrated interplay of physical forces and conditions, but also by its vast abundance and diversity of life-forms. By means that no depth and breadth of scientific research can explain, life arose early in Earth’s history under anything but the benign conditions it would seem to require and somehow persisted through multiple mass extinction events, always appearing or reappearing at just-right times and in just-right forms to meet the needs and demands of the revised environment.

The more thoroughly researchers investigate the history of our planet, the more astonishing the story of our existence becomes. The number and complexity of the astronomical, geological, chemical, and biological features recognized as essential to human existence have expanded explosively within the past decade. The importance of this new information cannot be overstated. An understanding of what is required to make possible a large human population and advanced civilization has raised profound questions about life, especially about our purpose and destiny. In other words, discovering at this level of detail why the history of Earth looks the way it does impacts all discussion of why you and I are here. Are we simply the result of a colossal matrix of innumerable, narrow coincidences, against all odds, or is there a more reasonable explanation? And if the world is the handiwork of a divine Creator, why is it so full of misery and danger for so many of its inhabitants?

The reason most reviews of Earth’s history fail to arrest our attention and rivet our thoughts about humanity’s purpose and destiny may well reside in the cursory manner whereby the subject is typically addressed. We all know—or at least think we know—what Earth’s history looks like. A bunch of dust surrounding the newly formed Sun clumped together by gravity to form a seemingly random set of planets. One of those planets, the one we call Earth, was the “Goldilocks planet,” a just-right place with just-right conditions and ingredients for a simple life-form to pop into existence from a conglomeration of chemicals and somehow manage to stay in existence. We learned in school that over a very long time and despite some occasional setbacks, Earth’s environment allowed for and produced progressively more diverse and complex life. We learned that this extended process eventually gave rise to human beings, endowed with the resources and capacities to launch, develop, and perhaps sustain advanced civilization.

What most of us do not know, however, is how radically Earth has changed since it first formed into a more or less solid ball. What’s more, even those at the cutting edge of research are just now gaining a glimpse at how many and what kinds of physical steps transformed that lifeless ball into our fully animated orb, our home.

One reason we don’t know is that this research and its findings are so new. Another is that the puzzle pieces that would help us bring the picture into focus come from a diversity of scientific disciplines: cosmology, astronomy, geophysics, atmospheric physics, geology, physical chemistry, biochemistry, and the whole spectrum of the biological sciences. A third reason, and perhaps the most significant of all, arises from what my friend Kenneth Samples would refer to as the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. Through repeated misuses and abuses, scientific findings have lost much of their power to impact people’s view of reality and, thus, their thoughts about life’s biggest questions. While such questions are easy to postpone, they cannot be ignored. No matter how hard and how often we push them to the background, life has a way of propelling them to the forefront, often (but not always) in the face of life-altering and globally impactful events. So why wait? Let’s look together at the data scientists now have in hand and carefully consider what they tell us about how Earth, humanity, and civilization—and you and I—came to be. The story that emerges might just impact how you choose to live here and now.

---

2

---

The Way the World Is

We live on an amazing planet, a world like no other we know. The world that we know and enjoy is the result of a very long history of astronomical, physical, geological, chemical, and biological events. Without that long, complex history we would not have our present-day world, the world that is.

Preserved Record of the Past

Because of the way the world is, we have a fairly comprehensive record of how the planet got to be in its present state. Geological records throughout the world reveal Earth’s transition from a planet with only water on its surface to a realm where landmasses and oceans coexist. Thanks to these records, geologists possess a detailed understanding of the growth history of Earth’s islands and continental landmasses.

The Milky Way Galaxy, the Sun, the Moon, and the configuration of the solar system’s planets and asteroid and comet belts reveal how Earth obtained its unique stockpile of elements and minerals that enable Earth today to sustain such an enormous biomass and biodiversity. The fossil record, isotope records, geological layers, sediment cores, ice cores, and biodeposit (biological decay products embedded in Earth’s crust) inventories provide biologists and ecologists with a chronicle of Earth’s life.

Earth’s preserved record of past physical and biological events reveals an unanticipated synergy. While scientists expected that Earth’s physical history would play a role in determining life’s history, it was a surprise for them to recently discover that for the physical history of Earth to be the way it is, certain kinds and quantities of life must exist in just-right locations at just-right times.

The sheer abundance and diversity of life on Earth implies that a record of Earth’s past geochemistry and life has been preserved not only here but also on other solar system bodies. Asteroids, comets, and meteorites have bombarded Earth throughout its history. These collisions have resulted in over a million tons of Earth material, including the remains of embedded microorganisms, being deposited on the surfaces of the Moon, Mars, Venus, and other solar system bodies.[1]

Persistent Life

A remarkable feature of our world is the permanence of its life. Thanks to how long life has endured, global civilization is presently sustainable (as succeeding chapters in this book will show).

Fossils of Earth’s life date back to 3.47 billion years ago.[2] Carbon-13 to carbon-12 isotope ratio measurements (see ch. 8) indicate that life was present on our planet as far back as 3.83 billion years ago.[3]

Once life first appeared on Earth it persisted. While there is no geological period of life during which extinctions did not occur, and while occasional mass extinction events have wiped out more than half of all existing species, life nonetheless continued. There is no apparent time during the past 3.5 billion years when Earth became sterile.[4] How and why Earth never experienced a permanent sterilization event throughout the past 3.5 billion years forms the thesis for much of this book.

Abundance and Diversity

In spite of all the stresses and catastrophes it encountered throughout the past 3.8 billion years, life on Earth nonetheless has remained extremely, even maximally, abundant and diverse. This book will explore how and why that is. The biodeposit wealth within Earth’s crust alone testifies of the enormous past abundance of life. Similarly, the high oxygen and low carbon dioxide content in Earth’s atmosphere implies that photosynthetic activity must have proceeded with little or no interruption at virtually the maximum level the physical laws would permit. The fossil record testifies of exceedingly rapid recoveries from extinction events. Whoever or whatever is responsible for Earth’s life seems intent on keeping the planet as full of life as is physically possible.

The fossil record clearly exhibits a trend toward increasing diversity. Only recently have ecologists determined––with any degree of precision––the total number of species of life. That number is about 8.7 million eukaryotes: 6.5 million land species and 2.2 million marine species.[5] Not included are prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), unicellular species whose cells lack a nucleus. Estimates of the number of prokaryotic species range from 100,000 to 10 million.[6]

Considering Earth’s small surface area, 8.7 million eukaryotic species is an incredibly high number. As a team of six astrobiologists asked, “Of special relevance to astrobiology and central to evolutionary biology, we ask why there are so many species on Earth?”[7] Their question will be addressed in later chapters.

The fossil record is most complete for animals. It documents that animals first appeared shortly after 600 million years ago. From there until the present, the number of animal species existing per unit of time has increased. The strongest trend observed is for large-bodied animals.

Where the fossil record is less complete, paleontologists see the same trend. Whether they observe plants, fungi, lichens, eukaryotic unicellular life, or prokaryotic unicellular life, paleontologists note that species diversity increases with respect to time.

Simple to Complex

Previous to 600 million years ago it was impossible for the physical and chemical environment of Earth at that time to support animals’ existence. As later chapters will reveal, the physical and chemical conditions on Earth changed dramatically over the past 4 bi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Why Ask “Why”?
• 2. The Way the World Is
• 3. Essential Construction Materials
• 4. The Right Neighborhood
• 5. Site Preparations
• 6. Not Quite Ready
• 7. Ready for the Foundation
• 8. Construction Begins below Ground
• 9. Up to Ground Level
• 10. Air-Conditioning
• 11. Invisible Progress
• 12. Heating and Ventilation
• 13. The Structure Rises
• 14. Finishing Touches
• 15. Ready for Occupancy
• 16. Why We’re Here
• Appendix A: Why Not Life on a Moon?
• Appendix B: Are We Alone in the Universe?
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Back Ads
• Back Cover