Quotes from Jacques Monod

Man's destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.

The whole concert of animate nature arose entirely from annoying noises.

Man finally knows that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the Universe, from which he emerged by accident.

A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can even lead to vision itself.

Every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry.

Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance.

One of the great problems of philosophy is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is; values are what ought to be.

What I have tried to show is that the scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity - that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe.

Chance alone is at the source of all novelty, all creation in the biosphere.

The scientific attitude implies the postulate of objectivity-that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan; that there is no intention in the universe.

I would say that all traditional philosophies up to and including Marxism have tried to derive the 'ought' from the 'is.' My point of view is that this is impossible; this is a farce.

A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.

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.

A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can even lead to vision itself.

One of the great problems of philosophy, is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is; values are what ought to be. I would say that all traditional philosophies up to and including Marxism have tried to derive the 'ought' from the 'is.' My point of view is that this is impossible, this is a farce.

Everything comes from experience; yet not from actual experience, reiterated by each individual with each generation, but instead from experience accumulated by the entire ancestry of the species in the course of its evolution.

What is true for E. coli is also true for the elephant.

Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the wealth they owe to science, our societies are still trying to practice and to teach systems of values already destroyed at the roots by that very science. Man knows at last that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe, whence which he has emerged by chance. His duty, like his fate, is written nowhere.

the scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity—that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe. Now, this is basically incompatible with virtually all the religious or metaphysical systems whatever, all of which try to show that there is some sort of harmony between man and the universe and that man is a product—predictable if not indispensable—of the evolution of the universe.

The future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations, and there are two absolute requisites: We must aim at a stable-state society [with limited population growth] and the destruction of nuclear stockpiles. … Otherwise I don't see how we can survive much later than 2050.

All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even a part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its contingency.

Muchos espíritus distinguidos, aún hoy, parecen no poder aceptar ni incluso comprender que de una fuente de ruido la selección haya podido, ella sola, sacar todas las músicas de la biosfera.

Renunciar a la ilusión que ve en el alma una sustancia inmaterial, no es negar su existencia, sino al contrario comenzar a reconocer la complejidad, la riqueza, la insondable profundidad de la herencia genética y cultural, así como de la experiencia personal, consciente o no, que en conjunto constituyen el ser que somos, único e irrecusable testigo de sí mismo.

Todo ser vivo es también un fósil. Lleva en sí, y hasta en la estructura microscópica de sus proteínas, las huellas, si no los estigmas, de su ascendencia. Esto es más cierto en el Hombre que en cualquier otra especie animal, en razón de la dualidad, física e «ideal», de la evolución de la que es heredero.