From Embryology to Evo-Devo

Developmental Evolution

Evolutionary Developmental Biology has been a major transformation of the conceptual framework of developmental biology over the last four decades. Several members of our research team have actively contributed to this example of scientific change, starting with a Dibner seminar in 2001 led to a book "From Embryology to Evo-Devo A History of Developmental Evolution," edited by Jane Maienschein and Manfred Laubichler. This project continues to document and analyze the history of this ongoing transformation of developmental biology.

From Embryology to Evo-Devo
A History of Developmental Evolution
Edited by Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein
With contributions by Garland Allen, Fred Churchill, Elihu Gerson, Scott. F. Gilbert, James Griesemer, Brian K. Hall, Manfred D. Laubichler, Alan C. Love, Jane Maienschein, Gerd B. Müller, Stuart A. Newman, Marsha L. Richmond, Günter P. Wagner, William C. Wimsatt and John Wourms

Although we now know that ontogeny (individual development) does not actually recapitulate phylogeny (evolutionary transformation), contrary to Ernst Haeckel's famous dictum, the relationship between embryological development and evolution remains the subject of intense scientific interest. In the 1990s a new field, evolutionary developmental biology (or Evo-Devo), was hailed as the synthesis of developmental and evolutionary biology. In From Embryology to Evo-Devo, historians, philosophers, sociologists, and biologists offer diverse perspectives on the history of efforts to understand the links between development and evolution.

After examining events in the history of early twentieth-century embryology and developmental genetics—including the fate of Haeckel's law and its various reformulations, the ideas of William Bateson, and Richard Goldschmidt's idiosyncratic synthesis of ontogeny and phylogeny—the contributors explore additional topics ranging from the history of comparative embryology in America to a philosophical-historical analysis of different research styles. Finally, three major figures in theoretical biology—Brian Hall, Gerd Müller, and Günter Wagner—reflect on the past and future of Evo-Devo, particularly on the interdisciplinary nature of the field. The sum is an exciting interdisciplinary exploration of developmental evolution.