François Jacob > Quotes

“What man seeks, to the point of anguish, in his gods, in his art, in his science, is meaning. He cannot bear the void. He pours meaning on events like salt on his food.”
― Francois Jacob

“Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer. It works with what is already there and takes the path of least resistance.
It is not always the most efficient solution, but it is the dumbest solution that works”
― François Jacob, The Logic of Life: A History of Heredity

“To produce a valuable observation, one has first to have an idea of what to observe, a preconception of what is possible. Scientific advances often come from uncovering a hitherto unseen aspect of things as a result, not so much of using new instruments, but rather of looking at objects from a different angle. This look is necessarily guided by a certain idea of what this so-called reality might be. It always involves a certain conception about the unknown, that is, about what lies beyond that which one has logical or experimental reasons to believe.”
― François Jacob

“هناك الكثير من التعميمات في البيولوچيا، لكن النظريات القيمة قليلة. وضمن هذه النظريات تعد نظرية التطور من أهمها بكل المقاييس، لأنها تجمع معًا عددًا هائلًا من الملاحظات من مصادر شديدة التنوع، والتي لولا هذه النظرية لظلت منعزلة، وهي توحد كل فروع البحث المتعلقة بالكائنات الحية معًا، وهي ترسي ترتيبًا بين التنوعات غير العادية في الكائنات وتربطها برباط وثيق مع بقية ما في الأرض، وباختصار فإنها تقدم تفسيرًا سببيًا للعالم الحي ولعدم تجانسه.”
― François Jacob

“Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer.”
― Francois Jacob