Leo W. Buss (born 1953) is a retired Professor at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

's departments of

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

, and

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

Life

He graduated from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

with a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D in 1979. His

evolutionary developmental biology Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biological research that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolved. The field grew from 19th-century beginni ...

book approaches the subject of the evolution of

metazoan Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motility, able to move, ca ...

development from a cell

lineage selection Lineage selection occurs when the frequency of one biological lineage changes relative to another lineage. Lineage selection is a generalization of individual based natural selection; the stating that an allele is favored by natural selection is eq ...

point of view. He reevaluates

August Weismann August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Cha ...

's model of the cell compartmentalization of

somatic Somatic may refer to: * Somatic (biology), referring to the cells of the body in contrast to the germ line cells ** Somatic cell, a non-gametic cell in a multicellular organism * Somatic nervous system, the portion of the vertebrate nervous sys ...

and

germline In biology and genetics, the germline is the population of a multicellular organism's cells that pass on their genetic material to the progeny (offspring). In other words, they are the cells that form the egg, sperm and the fertilised egg. They ...

cell lineage Cell lineage denotes the developmental history of a tissue or organ from the fertilized embryo. This is based on the tracking of an organism's cellular ancestry due to the cell divisions and relocation as time progresses, this starts with the orig ...

s (see

Weismann barrier The Weismann barrier, proposed by August Weismann, is the strict distinction between the "immortal" germ cell lineages producing gametes and "disposable" somatic cells in animals (but not plants), in contrast to Charles Darwin's proposed pangenesi ...

), and argues that the vision of the individual taken by the

modern synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...

is insufficient to explain the early evolution of development or

ontogeny Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the stu ...

. He collaborated with

Walter Fontana Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 1 ...

in producing some of the first papers on artificial chemistries.

Works

* ''The Evolution of Individuality'', Princeton University Press, 1987,
"Beyond Digital Naturalism"
''Artificial life: an overview'', Editor Christopher G. Langton, MIT Press, 1997,
"What would be conserved "If the tape were played twice?""
''Complexity: metaphors, models, and reality'', Editors George A. Cowan, David Pines, David Elliott Meltzer, Westview Press, 1999,
"Growth by Intussusception in Hyrdactiniid Hydroids"
''Evolutionary patterns: growth, form, and tempo in the fossil record in honor of Allan Cheetham'', Editors Alan H. Cheetham, Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Scott Lidgard, Frank Kenneth McKinney, University of Chicago Press, 2001,

References

External links

"Leo W. Buss"
''Scientific Commons'' 1953 births Living people Evolutionary biologists MacArthur Fellows Yale University faculty Researchers of artificial life {{biologist-stub