Chemistry and Biodiversity

Complex structures produced by noncatalyzed multi‐step chemical processes must have highly probable origins and assembly routes. Within any frame of reference, life is easily the most‐complex self‐assembled structure known to man. It is not possible to calculate a finite time for biogenesis by statistical mechanics, but the abundance of life makes it reasonable to propose an accelerating principle of nature that naturally shortened the time for cell formation to a billion years or less. This hypothetical principle, which I have called valence‐orbital bias, is thought to be responsible for the discrepancy between statistics and observation, and carries with it, as a conditio sine qua non, multiple origins of life.