system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: if 60% of our weight is water, and we are 65% hydrogen and 10% oxygen, then why are we called carbon (18%) based life forms?
gpt
In the same way that a house consisting of over 80% air and 15% concrete is still called a wooden house if all the beams are wooden. In our body the water is not the complex molecules that define who we are and make us work, nor is it the fat or sugar. The complex molecules that actually do the work is the protein, DNA, enzymes, etc. And while these may still be made out of a lot of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms it is the carbon atoms that is at the center of their structures and defines their shapes and therefore their functions.