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Quote by Jacques Monod

“In science there is and will remain a Platonic element which could not be taken away without ruining it. Among the infinite diversity of singular phenomena science can only look for invariants.”

Book:Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology

Work

Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology

This essay critically examines the concepts of chance and necessity in the context of modern biology. It investigates how these forces shape the evolution of life on Earth, offering a philosophical perspective on the natural processes that govern biological systems. more

Author

Jacques Monod

A renowned biologist and French Nobel laureate, Jacques Monod is known for his research in genetics and molecular biology. He made significant contributions to the discovery of gene regulation and the genetic code. more

“Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, inpregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children.”

Source: A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“Nature has but one plan of operation, invariably the same in the smallest things as well as in the largest, and so often do we see the smallest masses selected for use in Nature, that even enormous ones are built up solely by fitting these together. Indeed, all Nature's efforts are devoted to uniting the smallest parts of our bodies in such a way that all things whatsoever, however diverse they may be, which coalesce in the structure of living things construct the parts by means of a sort of compendium.”