A note from Daniel

Without carbon's innate talent for forming new complex molecules with other atoms, it is hard to imagine how the first organisms would have evolved. Those four valence electrons allowed the prebiotic earth to explore its own adjacent possible, sifting through the long list of potential molecular combinations until it hit upon a series of stable chemical reactions that blossomed into the first organisms. Without the generative links of carbon, the earth would have likely remained a lifeless soup of elements, a planet of dead chemistry.

Daniel Where Good Ideas Come From, page 48 · February 15, 2024 Save to shelf
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