Book Review

Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biol- ogy by Jacques Monod. New York: Knopf, 1971. 199 pages. $6.95

This book tackles difficult issues with fresh viewpoints and lucid style. In it the principles of science are extended into the domain of natural philosophy with in- sight into the condition of man. This book surely deserves the attention and appre- ciation of all whose interests stretch toward both the future and past of man and his societies. The translation into English from French by Austryn Wainhouse is graceful and effective.

The book presents three major themes: (1) the principles of molecular biology (with selected details in brief but clear appendices) as they bear on the origin and nature of living processes, including microscopic cybernetics and molecular onto- genesis; (2) the extension of these principles into an explanation of evolutionary trends; and (3) the nature of man and his predicament with a suggested resolution. In the first chapters Monod emphasizes that nature is objective and not projective but that it must encompass living beings that without exception are objects en- dowed with a purpose or a project which they exhibit in their structure and carry out through their performances. Objective science assures us that living systems are projective, and we cannot escape the full significance of this property, one of their outstanding characteristics, referred to as "teleonomy." Two additional characteristics distinguish living beings from the rest of the universe: autonomous morphogenesis and reproductive invariance. Monod's theme is that reliable and invariant reproduction precedes purpose in all living systems; purpose being directed, coherent, constructive activity. Principles of selection operate upon liv- ing systems to achieve, above all, intraorganismic compatability whenever nov- elty arises by chance. Chance and selection together generate projective per- formance. This mechanistic view differs strongly from that of the vitalists (e.g., from Bergson's vital force) and also from the implicit animism present in Teilhard de Chardin's "complexification" and in dialectical materialism, according to which there is a perfect mirror of reality in the mind. According to the mechanistic view, the appearance of living organisms was not foreordained by the general laws of nature nor by the general evolution of the universe. Their appearance is com- patible with, but not predictable by, such laws. Thus, this book contributes a fun- damental, cybernetic view of organization at the primitive, molecular biological level in terms compatible with other branches of natural science. It deals with the concepts of organization in living systems and with the implications of a genetic code for all purposeful levels of organization.

The elements of modern molecular biology are authoritatively developed. The book would be valuable for its first few chapters alone.

The second theme, which attempts to base evolutionary trends on principles of molecular biology is less well thought out, and we believe is developed er- roneously. Purpose at all levels of organization becomes confused in this treat-

381 Copyright �9 1973 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

382 BOOK REVIEW

ment with cybernetic details having to do with microscopic process chains and their stability. What is missing is an awareness of the dynamic properties of complex, nonlinear, degradative yet selfsustaining, hierarchical systems. Monod believes that these dynamic properties may be implied in the molecular cyber- netics, but in our opinion they are not.

Monod explains clearly how protein is the essential molecular agent of purpose, and the nucleic acids are the essential molecular agents of invariant reproduction. Teleonomic performance in a living system calls for interactions that are geomet- rically specific, and asymmetric. Monod starts from the fact that specific shape and handedness of protein molecules in solution permit them to recognize each other and other materials. Structure and function become revealed (rather than created) by protein assembly. At the molecular level of organization of living systems, these arguments are appropriate and persuasive. However, difficulty arises in extending the principles of microscopic cybernetics to the character- ization of organ system and higher level processes. When we try to conceive models for building all structures out of a few physical forces we are plagued by the lack of intervening detail. We could as easily say that purpose lies in the basic subatomic forces that can invariably assemble specific molecules. They are remarkable in assembling higher level, biological structures. People also assemble systems. Purpose, therefore, can be said to emerge ab initio at every level. It is not convincing to assert that the protein molecule is its agent at all levels.

As Monod sees it, a specific molecular action may be described as one in which the state of many inputs will determine an output state in which there is power amplification. A hormone bound to an enzyme can alter its catalytic function and produce an amplified effect on the mass fluxes involved in the substrate to product transformation. A propositional logic controls this amplification. Although the logic may not be binary, it is certainly not much more complicated than that of the logic networks currently in use in technological systems. For example, practical technological switching functions appeared in the fields of communication engi- neering (1930's), feedback engineering (1940's), or analog and digital computer engineering (1950's, 1960's). The switch function is also very similar to features of the McCulloch-Pitts neural net model. Unfortunately, it has clearly turned out that the nature of the mind is not revealed by an understanding of such informa- tion processing tricks.

Just as Wiener related feedback with purpose in cybernetics, so Monod as- sociates purpose with control of reaction velocity by catalytic switches. To regard a system that merely compensates for deviations by some particular rule as having a purpose is misleading. The adaptive motion of true, purposeful systems toward a goal, independent of the many kinds of disturbance and the details of biochemical reaction-rate control via catalytic enzymes, involves a different set of principles not to be found in this book. Although the nature of the primitive step controlling biochemical specificity and reaction rate throughout the body is clearly set forth, the extension of molecular biology to the purpose of complex organisms is not. That omission is the greatest deficiency of the book.

The genetic control system uses what we might call a "machine" code, that is, a propositional calculus not bound by chemical constraints. However, we assert that an automatic machine language is not itself sufficient to define purpose. Some

BOOK REVIEW 383

dynamic structure beyond a machine logic is required. This book gives us only the machine logic. Therefore, we must dispute the claim that the elementary "cyber- netic network in living systems far surpasses anything that the study of the overall behavior of whole organisms could ever hint at." The claim suggests to us that Monod lacks sufficient regard for the dynamics of complex, nonlinear systems. The issue in dispute is not whether living organizations can be explained by physi- cal laws, but rather, what reductionism is complete enough to encompass their purposes. The machine logic of multi-input switches (enzymes) cannot be suf- ficient. In fact, it is no more sufficient as a basis of purpose at higher levels than are the powerful summational invariants (conservation laws) that define the "pur- pose" of mechanical systems.

The last third of the book explodes with the ideas latent in Monod's view of the molecular basis of teleonomy. He sets a vivid scene in which evolution appears as an irreversible process in which species react to their environments. Their pur- posive performance places a selection pressure on their gene pool. Chance plays upon the DNA of the genetic material. Selection pressure (the "necessity" that novelty be compatible with the preexisting system) points the direction of sub- sequent evolution, which is finally chosen by the requirements of external, com- petitive forces. In the case of Man, selection pressure on the Australopithecines, and on their brains whose limited capacities for ideation had left them hardly dis- tinguishable from other primates, finally forced articulate symbolization. Lan- guage was born. Thence, culture was born, and in turn it created the selection pres- sure and survival value of intelligence as we know it.

In lower animals, coordinated and representational properties of some kind ap- pear to take place in the brain, but in man the cognitive functions of registering and grouping events and incorporating experiences leads to an internal simulation of events-and programs of action. Monod proposes (and we agree with the propos- al) that there can be and is an innate, cognitive frame of reference in the genetic code. Although human behavior involves elements acquired through experience, they are acquired from a social, cultural milieu according to an internal program. We return again to the importance of innate ideas. The learning program is man's genetic heritage. It is the simulation function which is the unique characteristic of man's brain. (On pages 156 and 157, during discussion of subjective simulation, a small technical error appears: the right and left eyes are confused with the right and left visual fields of each eye. Otherwise, this section is up-to-date and profound.)

In the last chapter, Monod discusses man's social behavior. Simulation and lan- guage have made man master of his domain. They created pressure toward group behavior. But having mastered his environment, man finds his own species his only adversary. Tribal warfare then becomes the important evolutionary force. Cultural evolutions begin, and these in turn select the genetic direction. From his innate learning programs, and his simulation capacity, man achieves a stage of cul- tural evolution which appears now as a selective force upon further genetic evolu- tion. But cultural evolution includes the need for explanation, and that need has in the past and is still in the present largely met by myth. It is myth that provides the stabilizing influence on the societies of man, and so his situation is strikingly dif- ferent from that of the social insects, whose societies are stabilized by simpler,

384 BOOK REVIEW

genetic determinisms. Thus, the predicament of man is that he requires myth (often in the form of religion) to stabilize his societies, and without stable societies his in- telligence, his simulation capacities, his ideation drift. Yet the myths no longer serve, because they deny, avoid, or contradict the explanatory structures gen- erated by science in its quest for objective truth. Monod concludes withthe view that man must abandon his myths and make an ethical choice in favor of objective truth as having higher value. Thus, Monod leads us from the protein molecule to the politics of man's authentic actions in which knowledge and value combine. In such a world, man may have some say over his own future, but should he fail to make the ethical choice of objective truth over myth he is doomed. Armed as he is by the technological fall-out of science, he can save himself only by guiding his actions by its principles, which are those of objective truth.

This book is an exciting achievement; the mind behind it reveals itself with in- cisive pungency and poetry on nearly every page. Although it fails as the founda- tion for a general theory of systems, it succeeds as the best compact description of molecular cybernetics and the philosophical crisis confronting modern man that we have seen.

F. EUGENE YATES

Biomedical Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, California

ARTHUR S. IBERALL

General Technical Services, Inc. Upper Darby, Pennsylvania