“When one ponders on the tremendous journey of evolution over the past three billion years or so, the prodigious wealth of structures it has engendered, and the extraordinarily effective teleonomic performances of living beings from bacteria to man, one may well find oneself beginning to doubt again whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at random. [Nevertheless,] a detailed review of the accumulated modern evidence [shows] that this conception alone is compatible with the facts.” FactsScienceChanceDoubtDesignEvolutionEvidenceBiologyNatural SelectionCompatibility Book:Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology Source: Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology
“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 modern biology is no longer one among many other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is ever likely to be revised. There is no scientific concept, in any of the sciences, more destructive of anthropocentrism than this one.” FactsScienceHopeChanceEvidenceTestsInnovationObservationBiologyHypothesisFactBiosphereAnthropocentrismCentral Concept Book:Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology Source: Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology
“Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually, as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.” PeopleThinkingMayMeanFactsAbleSocialTheoryEvolutionAspectScientistPhilosopherCuriousBiologyTheory Of Evolution Author:Jacques Monod
“Chance alone is at the source of every innovaton, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, only chance, absolute but blind liberty is at the root of the prodigious edifice that is evolution... It today is the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. Stating life began by the chance collision of particles of nucleic acid in the "prebiotic soup."” FactsTodayScienceChanceLibertyCreationSourceEvolutionPureRootsAbsolutesBlindSquaresSoleSoupTestedHypothesisParticlesAcidCollisionEdificeProdigiousBiosphere Author:Jacques Monod
