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/or necessity:
“That, if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh let thy blessed sacrifice be mine,
And sanctify this altar to be thine.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.”
—William James (1842–1910)