““Complexity is a delicate business. Chemical and molecular bonds require a particular range of temperature in which to operate. Liquid water exists over a mere one hundred degree range on the centigrade scale. Even Earth-based life is concentrated towards particular climatic zones. The temperature at the Earth's surface keeps it tantalizingly balanced between recurrent ice ages and the roasting that results from a runaway greenhouse effect. Very slight differences in the size of our planet or its distance from the Sun would have tipped the scales irretrievably towards one or other of these fates. That such a delicate balance, which is essentially the outcome of those random symmetry-breakings that we discussed in Chapter 6, should be so crucial suggests that natural complexity may be a rather rare thing in the Universe.””
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