The driving force of is thermodynamics. ...[I]n this context ...the chemical need to react (to dissipate energy) in the same way that water needs to … - Nick Lane

became the study of how... simple molecules were interconnected one into another. ...The [simple] molecules ...containing ...up to about twenty carbons, but most ...have fewer than ten.

The information encoded in DNA spells out the molecular structure of s. This, said Crick, is the 'central dogma' of all biology: genes code for proteins.

The inner logic of ... Much of it is imposed by thermodynamics; some is facilitated by catalysts. Some is refined by genes. And part stems from the vicissitudes of life itself, which forced evolution down improbable paths, while transforming our geologically restless globe from a sterile, anoxic planet into the living, high-octane world of today.