“It necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, and of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of… — Jacques Monod Copy Share Image
One of the great problems of philosophy, is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is;… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
Modern societies accepted the treasures and the power offered them by science. But they have not accepted - they have scarcely even heard -… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
The fundamental biological variant is DNA. That is why Mendel's definition of the gene as the unvarying bearer of hereditary traits, its chemical identification… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
In science there is and will remain a Platonic element which could not be taken away without ruining it. Among the infinite diversity of… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
One may well find oneself beginning to doubt whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
Even today a good many distinguished minds seem unable to accept or even to understand that from a source of noise natural selection alone… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
Every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the traces… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
Evolution in the biosphere is therefore a necessarily irreversible process defining a direction in time; a direction which is the same as that enjoined… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
“When one ponders on the tremendous journey of evolution over the past three billion years or so, the prodigious wealth of structures it has… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
The future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations, and there are two absolute requisites: We must aim at… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
The scientific attitude implies the postulate of objectivity-that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan; that there is no intention… — Jacques Monod Copy Share
There are living systems; there is no living "matter." No substance, no single molecule, extracted and isolated from a living being possess, of its… — Jacques Monod Copy Share