If I could uninvent one thing…

…it would be carbon based life forms.

Without these lifeforms, would life as we know it be drastically different due to millions of years of evolution on Earth? Of course, there is the question of whether or not evolution constitutes invention. I believe it does for one simple reason: evolution and inventions are both making something new based on iterations of slow improvements. While not necessarily from a human hand it doesn’t pertain to that an ape using a tool does not count as invention to it. Not to mention inventing intelligent design which nature does, “innovation did not start with us humans, but began literally billions of years earlier, before man ever set foot on the earth, in fact, at a time when all life on earth was still microbial.” (Pross, 2021, 679). According to Pross, nature had innovation all the way back to microbial times, subsequently proving that nature is intelligent design according to Pross and I can uninvent carbon based life forms.

Without carbon based lifeforms, a lot of things on earth would be different compared to what we are used to a theory of what life could have been like is borane (life formed formed by boron and nitrogen) based life forms. While boron is rarer than nitrogen in the atmosphere it would be possible due to the fact that there is less pure oxygen gas on the planet at the time life was beginning (Cooper, 2016). Photosynthesis as we know it is carbon based, causing other evolutionary techniques needed to start life. This would lead to a much larger and physically slower life due to nitrogen having a higher enthalpy while this partly balanced by the boron’s low enthalpy; this leads to some similar properties of a carbon-carbon chain (Bissett et al., 2023). Now while these two types of bonds share many similar types of properties, the B-N bonds more often form lattices leading to more energy required to break and reform them. This extra energy requirement would lead to much slower metabolism and due to boron being more rare and less likely to gain boron from other lifeforms, all borane-based life to be much slower and likely to produce more carnivores.

These borane based life forms would be much smaller than we have now and would be much slower, like large sloths just hanging around, due to higher average ionization energies on the combined B-N than just C-C bonds (not to mention the fact that B-N bonds have a higher bond enthalpy than C-C [Pupim et al., 2018]). While the difference is small, when you add up all the reactions that your body does on a daily basis it adds up quickly, leading to slower life due to bigger animals having a slower metabolism.

Now, besides all of the challenges that life would have if humans somehow evolved again instead as these lifeforms, life would look significantly different. Whereas we evolved as distance runners, in this hypothetical we would most likely be more adapted to life in the trees. Another possibility is the increased development of fishing, due to agriculture and farming being reliant on fish instead of the people. This would most likely leave lots of big open spaces empty as places like the interior of Africa and the great plains. Due to its lack of slow, easy food sources and the B-N bonds working in the favor of sprinting predators (as the bond enthalpy is higher, it takes more energy to form bonds, and also lets the breaking of them to give more energy).

This all surmounts to a world with life not too different than ours, with bigger slower moving giants or fast nimble predators. But in this world humans as we know them could not exist. With a chemistry so different from humans they would never think to check if an oxygenated planet like ours as it would lead to an explosive result. Ultimately these are guesses based on what I know and can find, but hopefully with the passage of time I can find out more and see what it is like to uninvent carbon based life.

References

Bissett, K. M., Paetzold, P., & Thorne, L. R. (2023, May 3). 6.10: Boron Compounds with Nitrogen Donors. Chemistry LibreTexts. Retrieved October 2, 2025, from https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/Chemistry_of_the_Main_Group_Elements_(Barron)/06%3A_Group_13/6.10%3A_Boron_Compounds_with_Nitrogen_Donors
Carey, F. A., & Sundberg, R. J. (2007). Advanced Organic Chemistry: Part B: Reaction and Synthesis (F. A. Carey & R. J. Sundberg, Eds.). Springer. 10/2/25
Cooper, K. (2016, October 23). Was Life on the Early Earth Purple? NASA.gov. Retrieved October 2, 2025, from https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/was-life-on-the-early-earth-purple/
Pross, A. (2021, July 12). How Was Nature Able to Discover Its Own Laws—Twice? Life (Basel), 11(7), 679. 10.3390/life11070679
Pupim, C. F., Catão, A. J.L., & López-Castillo, A. (2018). Boron–nitrogen dative bond. Journal of molecular modeling, 24(283), N/A. 10.1007
Rampelotto, P. H. (2010, February 10). The Search for Life on Other Planets: Sulfur-Based, Silicon-Based, Ammonia-Based Life. Journal of Cosmology, 5, 818-827. ADS Harvard. 2010JCos….5..818R

SAM CORRADO

Senior Editor — Social Media Manager at The City Voice

Hello, my name is Sam Corrado. I am a science and opinion writer for the City Voice. I run our social media and contribute ideas for others. Some of my interests include electronics and science. I am planning to go to college for chemistry and enjoy baking in my spare time.