Ontogeny and Phylogeny (book)

Ontogeny and Phylogeny is Stephen Jay Gould's first technical book, published in 1977 by Belknap, a division of Harvard University Press. Gould wrote that Ernst Mayr suggested in passing that he write the book, but that "I only began it as a practice run to learn the style of lengthy exposition before embarking on my magnum opus about macroevolution."^[1] This became The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, published in 2002.

Ontogeny and Phylogeny explores the relationship between embryonic development (ontogeny) and biological evolution (phylogeny). The book also discusses the role recapitulation—the discredited idea that embryonic developmental stages replay the evolutionary transitions of adult forms of an organism's past descendants—had on biology, theology, and psychology. The second half of the book details how modern concepts such as heterochrony (changes in developmental timing) and neoteny (the retardation of developmental expression or growth rates) have in influencing macroevolution (major evolutionary transitions).

It has been said that of all the books that Gould wrote in his career, "the one with the most impact is probably Ontogeny and Phylogeny...to say that this work is a hallmark in this area of evolutionary theory would be an understatement. It proved to be the catalyst for much of the future work in the field, and to a large degree was the inspiration for the modern field of 'evolutionary developmental biology'. Gould's hope was to show that the relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny is fundamental to evolution, and at its heart is a simple premise - that variations in the timing and rate of development provide the raw material upon which natural selection can operate."^[2]

Contents

1. Prospectus

Part One - Recapitulation

2. The Analogistic Tradition from Anaximander to Bonnet
   • The Seeds of Recapitulation in Greek Science?
   • Ontogeny and Phylogeny in the Conflict of "Evolution" and Epigenesis: The Idyll of Charles Bonnet
   • Appendix: The Revolution in "Evolution"

3. Transcendental Origins, 1793-1860
   • Naturphilosophie: An Expression of Developmentalism
   • Two Leading Recapitulationists among the Naturphilosophen: Oken and Meckel
   • Oken's Classification of Animals by Linear Additions of Organs
   • J. F. Meckel' s Sober Statement of the Same Principles
   • Serres and the French Transcendentalists
   • Recapitulation and the Theory of Developmental Arrests
   • Von Baer's Critique of Recapitulation
   • The Direction of Development and Classification of Animals
   • Von Baer and Naturphilosophie; What Is the Universal Direction of Development?
   • Louis Agassiz and the Threefold Parallelism

4. Evolutionary Triumph, 1859–1900
   • Evolutionary Theory and Zoological Practice
   • Darwin and the Evolution of Von Baer's Laws
   • Evolution and the Mechanics of Recapitulation
   • Ernst Haeckel: Phylogeny as the Mechanical Cause of Ontogeny
   • The Mechanism of Recapitulation
   • The American Neo-Lamarckians: The Law of Acceleration as Evolution's Motor
   • Progressive Evolution by Acceleration
   • The Extent of Parallelism
   • Why Does Recapitulation Dominate the History of Life?
   • Alpheus Hyatt and Universal Acceleration
   • Lamarckism and the Memory Analogy
   • Recapitulation and Darwinism
   • Appendix: The Evolutionary Translation of von Baer's Laws

5. Pervasive Influence
   • Criminal Anthropology
   • Racism
   • Child Development
   • Primary Education
   • Freudian Psychoanalysis
   • Epilogue

6. Decline, Fall, and Generalizations
   • A Clever Argument
   • An Empirical Critique
   • Organs or Ancestors: The Transformation of Haeckel's Heterochrony
   • Interpolations into Juvenile Stages
   • Introduction of Juvenile Features into the Adults of Descendants
   • What Had Become of von Baer's Critique?
   • Benign Neglect: Recapitulation and the Rise of Experimental Embryology
   • The Prior Assumptions of Recapitulation
   • Wilhelm His and His Physiological Embryology: A Preliminary Skirmish
   • Roux's Entwicklungsmechanik and the Biogenetic Law
   • Recapitulation and Substantive Issues in Experimental Embryology: The New Preformationism
   • Mendel's Resurrection, Haeckel's Fall, and the Generalization of Recapitulation

Part Two - Heterochrony and Paedomorphosis

7. Heterochrony and the Parallel of Ontogeny and Phylogeny
   • Acceleration and Retardation
   • Confusion in and after Haeckel's Wake
   • Guidelines for a Resolution
   • The Reduction of de Beer's Categories of Heterochrony to acceleration and Retardation
   • A Historical Paradox: The Supposed Dominance of Recapitulation
   • Dissociability and Heterochrony
   • Correlation and Dissociability
   • Dissociation of the Three Processes
   • A Metric for Dissociation
   • Temporal Shift as a Mechanism of Dissociation
   • A Clock Model of Heterochrony
   • Appendix: A Note on the Multivariate Representation of Dissociation

8. The Ecological and Evolutionary Significance of Heterochrony
   • The Argument from Frequency
   • The Importance of Recapitulation
   • The Importance of Heterochronic Change: Selected Cases
   • Frequency of Paedomorphosis in the Origin of Higher Taxa
   • A Critique of the Classical Significance of Heterochrony
   • The Classical Arguments
   • Retrospective and Immediate Significance
   • Heterochrony, Ecology, and Life-History Strategies
   • The Potential Ease and Rapidity of Heterochronic Change
   • The Control of Metamorphosis in Insects
   • Amphibian Paedomorphosis and the Thyroid Gland

9. Progenesis and Neoteny
   • Insect Progenesis
   • Prothetely and Metathetely
   • Paedo genesis (Parthenogenetic Progenesis) in Gall Midges and Beetles
   • Progenesis in Wingless, Parthenogenetic Aphids
   • Additional Cases of Progenesis with a Similar Ecological Basis
   • Neotenic Solitary Locusts: Are They an Exception to the Rule?
   • Amphibian Neoteny
   • The Ecological Determinants of Progenesis
   • Unstable Environments
   • Colonization
   • Parasites
   • Male Dispersal
   • Progenesis as an Adaptive Response to Pressures for Small Size
   • The Role of Heterochrony in Macroevolution: Contrasting Flexibilities for Progenesis and Neoteny
   • Progenesis
   • Neoteny
   • The Social Correlates of Neoteny in Higher Vertebrates

10. Retardation and Neoteny in Human Evolution
    • The Seeds of Neoteny
    • The Fetalization Theory of Louis Bolk
    • Bolk's Data
    • Bolk's Interpretation
    • Bolk's Evolutionary Theory
    • A Tradition of Argument
    • Retardation in Human Evolution
    • Morphology in the Matrix of Retardation
    • Of Enumeration
    • Of Prototypes
    • Of Correlation
    • The Adaptive Significance of Retarded Development

11. Epilogue
    • Notes
    • Bibliography
    • Glossary
    • Index

Reviews

• Shape, form, development, ecology, genetics, and evolution - by David B. Wake, Paleobiology
• The History of a Theory - by James Gorman, The New York Times.
• Book review - by Danny Yee

Blurbs from some other reviews

“	A distinguished and pioneering work.	”
—Ernst Mayr

“	Steve Jay Gould has given us a superb analysis of the use of ontogenetic analogy, the controversies over ontogeny and phylogeny, and the classification of the different processes observable in comparing different ontogenies. His massive book (in each chapter of which there is as much material as in whole books by other writers) is both a historical exposition of the whole subject of ontogeny and phylogeny, and...a fascinating attempt at a functional interpretation of those phylogenetic alterations that involve changes of timing developmental processes in related organisms.	”
—A. J. Cain, Nature

“	In Gould's...new book...Ontogeny and Phylogeny, a scholarly study of the theory of recapitulation, he not only explains scientific theory but comments on science itself, with clarity and wit, simultaneously entertaining and teaching...[This] is a rich book.	”
—James Gorman, The New York Times Book Review

“	It is rare indeed to read a new book and recognize it for a classic...Gould has given biologists a new way to see the organisms they study. The result is a major achievement.	”
—S. Rachootin, American Scientist

“	Gould's book--pervaded, I should say, with an erudition and felicity of style that make it a delight to read--is a radical work in every sense...It returns one's attention to the roots of our science--the questions about the great pageant of evolution, the marvelous diversity of form that our theory is meant to explain.	”
—D. Futuyma, Quarterly Review of Biology

“	This [is a] fat, handsome book crammed with provocative ideas...Ontogeny and Phylogeny is an important and thoughtful book which will be a valuable source of ideas and controversies for anyone interested in evolutionary or developmental biology.	”
—Matt Cartmill, Science

Notes and references

1. ^ Gould, S.J. (1977). Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. vii-viii. ISBN 0-674-63940-5. . Also ISBN 0-674-63941-3 (paperback)
2. ^ McNamara, K.J., & McKinney, M.L. (2005). "Heterochrony, disparity and macroevolution". In Vrba, E., & Eldredge, N.. Macroevolution: Diversity, Disparity, Contingency. Essays in Honor of Stephen Jay Gould. Lawrence, Kansas: The Paleontological Society. p. 17–26. ISBN 1-891276-49-2. ISSN 0094-8373. 

External links

• Harvard's promotional page
• Online text - from the Stephen Jay Gould Archive