Astronomy’s impact on the fossil record

Our fossil record is missing if we don’t consider astronomical stuff contained in the asteroid belt (for collision history)

The fossil record is not at all the gradual, continuous progression that Darwin claimed.  It is filled with quantum jumps and interruptions.  Dramatic upsurge in the complexity of life following long phases or periods of no change, with relatively sudden mass extinction or mass speciation events.  Darwin himself was very upset when he witnessed evidence of mass annihilation in the fossil record, and “couldn’t believe in a God who would do such a terrible, wasteful thing.”

The jumps and interruptions defy a naturalistic explanation, and also mystify theists.

– Hugh Ross, in lecture “Astronomy’s Impact on the Fossil Record”