"If [the emergence of the human species] was unique, as may perhaps have been the appearance of life itself, then before it did appear its chances of doing so were infinitely slender. The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Monod, Jacques (1971). Chance and Necessity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 180. ISBN 0-394-46615-2.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacques_Monod
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Jacques Monod
Jacques Lucien Monod (9 February 1910 – 31 May 1976) was a French biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with and "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis".
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Jacques Monod →
Related Quotes
"The first scientific postulate is the objectivity of nature: nature does not have any intention or goal."
"Anything found to be true of E. coli must also be true of elephants."
"The universe is not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. ... Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfe…"
"What I consider completely sterile is the attitude, for instance, of Bertalanffy who is going around and jumping arou…"
"One day, almost exactly 25 years ago - it was at the beginning of the bleak winter of 1940 - I entered ’s office at t…"
"From then on I read avidly the first publications by the "phage-church", and when I entered Lwoff’s department at the…"
"There is in science, however, quite a gap between belief and certainty. But would one ever have the patience to wait …"
"We might begin with Jacques Monod. Monod was a great figure whose scientific work I much admire, and was, essentially…"
"Jacques Monod... published a paper entitled "Genetic Regulatory Mechanisms in the Synthesis of Protein." Using bacter…"
"Jacob and Monod found that in bacteria, genes are switched on and off by other genes. This led them to distinguish be…"