The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought

In this book Ron Amundson examines two hundred years of scientific views on the evolution-development relationship from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). This new perspective challenges several popular views about the history of evolutionary thought by claiming that many earlier authors had made history come out right for the Evolutionary Synthesis. The book starts with a revised history of nineteenth-century evolutionary thought. It then investigates how development became irrelevant with the Evolutionary Synthesis. It concludes with an examination of the contrasts that persist between mainstream evolutionary theory and evo-devo. This book will appeal to students and professionals in the philosophy and history of science, and biology.

• First history of evolution biology to adopt the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology • Challenges a number of traditional beliefs about nineteenth-century evolutionary theory • Written in a clear, accessible style

1. Introduction; Part I. Darwin’s Century: Beyond the Essentialism Story: 2. Systematics and the birth of the natural system; 3. The origins of morphology, the science of form; 4. Owen and Darwin, the archetype and the ancestor; 5. Evolutionary morphology: the first generation of evolutionists; 6. Interlude; Part II. Neo-Darwin’s Century: Explaining the Absence and the Reappearance of Development in Evolutionary Thought: 7. The invention of heredity; 8. Basics of the evolutionary synthesis; 9. Structuralist reactions to the synthesis; 10. The synthesis matures; 11. Recent debates and the continuing tension.