Chance and Necessity
Encyclopedia
Chance and Necessity is a 1970 book by 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 by Nobel Prize
winner Jaques Monod is that systems in nature with molecular biology
, such as enzymatic biofeedback loops can be explained without having to invoke final causality.
In this book, Monod adopted the term teleonomic to permit recognition of purpose in biology without appealing to a final cause.
According to the introduction the book's title was inspired by a line attributed to Democritus
, "Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity."
The scientific condemnation of the predeterminism
Appendix
Jacques Monod
Jacques Lucien Monod was a French biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and Andre Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis"...
, interpreting the processes of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
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 by Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Jaques Monod is that systems in nature with molecular biology
Molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
, such as enzymatic biofeedback loops can be explained without having to invoke final causality.
In this book, Monod adopted the term teleonomic to permit recognition of purpose in biology without appealing to a final cause.
According to the introduction the book's title was inspired by a line attributed to Democritus
Democritus
Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
, "Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity."
Summary
Preface- 1. Of strange objects
- 2. VitalismVitalismVitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
s and animismAnimismAnimism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
s
The scientific condemnation of the predeterminism
Predeterminism
Predeterminism is the idea that every event is caused, not simply by the immediately prior events, but by a causal chain of events that goes back well before recent events...
- 1. The demon of Maxwell
- 2. Microscopic cyberneticsCyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
- 3. Molecular ontogenyOntogenyOntogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...
- 4. InvarianceInvarianceInvariance is a French magazine edited by Jacques Camatte, published since 1968.It emerged from the Italian left-communist tradition associated with Amadeo Bordiga and it originally bore the subtitle "Invariance of the theory of the proletariat", indicating Bordiga's notion of the unchanging nature...
and pertubation - 5. EvolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
- 6. The boundaryBoundary (topology)In topology and mathematics in general, the boundary of a subset S of a topological space X is the set of points which can be approached both from S and from the outside of S. More precisely, it is the set of points in the closure of S, not belonging to the interior of S. An element of the boundary...
- 7. The Kingdom and darkness
Appendix
Biography
- Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology by Jacques Monod, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1971, ISBN 0-394-46615-2