Chance and Necessity

Chance And Necessity


Chance and Necessity: Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (French: Le Hasard et la Nécessité: Essai sur la philosophie naturelle de la biologie moderne) is a 1970 book by Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, interpreting the processes of evolution to show that life is only the result of natural processes by "pure chance". It has been described as a "manifesto of materialist biology in the most reductivist sense". The basic tenet of this book is that systems in nature with molecular biology, such as enzymatic biofeedback loops can be explained without having to invoke final causality.

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Famous quotes containing the words chance and, chance and/or necessity:

    “There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.”
    —Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    “It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing ‘God.’”
    —Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)