Preface: Toward a postmodern synthesis of evolutionary biology

The title of this work alludes to four great books: Paul Auster’s novel The Music of Chance (Auster, 1991); Jacques Monod’s famous treatise on molecular biology, evolution, and philosophy, Chance and Necessity (Le hazard et la necessite) (Monod, 1972); the complementary book by Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life (Jacob, 1993); and, of course, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859). Each of these books, in its own way, addresses the same overarching subject: the interplay of randomness (chance) and regularity (necessity) in life and its evolution.

Only after this book was completed, at the final stage of editing, did I become aware of the fact that the phrase Logic of ...

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