The arbitrary plays an important role in the process of biological
evolution brilliantly introduced in Chance and Necessity. Written by the
geneticist and Nobel prizewinner Jacques Monod, it reveals the molecular
mechanisms of evolution and places it clearly in its philosophical context.
Monod also anticipates Dawkins’s idea of the meme, the abstract spreading power
of a unit of culture. First published in 1972, the book is now reprinted by
Penguin, £7.99, ISBN 0140256466.
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