Monod and the spirit of molecular biology

Michel Morange (1)

1 La République des savoirs : Lettres, Sciences, Philosophie

The founders of molecular biology shared views on the place of biology within science, as well as on the relations of molecular biology to Darwinism. Jacques Monod was no exception, but the study of his writings is particularly interesting because he expressed his point of view very clearly and pushed the implications of some of his choices further than most of his contemporaries. The spirit of molecular biology is no longer the same as in the 1960s but, interestingly, Monod anticipated some recent evolutions of this discipline.

Mots clés: Darwinism; allostery; Max Delbrück; finality; Karl Popper; symmetry; Modern Synthesis

Domaines: Histoire; Philosophie; Sociologie; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Biochimie, Biologie Moléculaire

Michel Morange. Monod and the spirit of molecular biology. Comptes Rendus Biologies, 2015. ⟨hal-01359097⟩