In
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, epigenesis (or, in contrast to
preformationism
In the history of biology, preformationism (or preformism) is a formerly popular theory that organisms develop from miniature versions of themselves. Instead of assembly from parts, preformationists believed that the form of living things exist, ...
, neoformationism) is the process by which plants, animals and fungi develop from a seed, spore or egg through a sequence of steps in which
cells differentiate and
organs form.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
first published the theory of epigenesis in his book ''
On the Generation of Animals
The ''Generation of Animals'' (or ''On the Generation of Animals''; Greek: ''Περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως'' (''Peri Zoion Geneseos''); Latin: ''De Generatione Animalium'') is one of the biological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum, the co ...
.'' Although epigenesis appears to be an obvious fact in today's
genetic age, historically,
creationist
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 'th ...
theories of
life's origins hindered its acceptance.
However, during the late 18th century an extended and controversial debate among biologists finally led epigenesis to eclipse the long-established preformationist view.
[Conference, Abstracts of papers presented.] The embryologist
Caspar Friedrich Wolff
Caspar Friedrich Wolff (18 January 1733 – 22 February 1794) was a German physiologist and one of the founders of embryology.
Life
Wolff was born in Berlin, Brandenburg. In 1759 he graduated as an M.D. from the University of Halle with his diss ...
refuted preformationism in 1759 in favor of epigenesis, but this did not put an end to preformationism.
See also
*
Epigenetics
In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "o ...
*
Epigenesis (disambiguation)
References
External links
Aristotle:_''On_the_Generation_of_Animals''_(extracts).html" ;"title="On the Generation of Animals">Aristotle: ''On the Generation of Animals
'' (extracts)">On the Generation of Animals">Aristotle: ''On the Generation of Animals
'' (extracts)*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Epigenesis (Biology)
Developmental biology
Embryology
nl:Epigenese