Leo W. Buss is a Professor in Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

's departments of geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, geophysics

Geophysics

Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...

, and ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 and evolutionary biology.

Life

He graduated from Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 with a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D in 1979.

His evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to determine the ancestral relationship between them, and to discover how developmental processes evolved...

 book approaches the subject of the evolution of metazoan development from a cell lineage selection point of view.
He reevaluates August Weismann

August Weismann

Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...

's model of the cell compartmentalization of somatic

Somatic cell

A somatic cell is any biological cell forming the body of an organism; that is, in a multicellular organism, any cell other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte or undifferentiated stem cell...

 and germline

Germline

In biology and genetics, the germline of a mature or developing individual is the line of germ cells that have genetic material that may be passed to a child.For example, gametes such as the sperm or the egg, are part of the germline...

 cell lineages (see Weismann barrier

Weismann barrier

The Weismann barrier is the principle that hereditary information moves only from genes to body cells, and never in reverse. In more precise terminology hereditary information moves only from germline cells to somatic cells .This does not refer to the central dogma of molecular biology which...

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

Modern evolutionary synthesis

The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution...

 is insufficient to explain the early evolution of development or ontogeny

Ontogeny

Ontogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...

.

He collaborated with Walter Fontana in producing some of the first papers on artificial chemistries

Artificial chemistry

An artificial chemistry is a computer model used to simulate various types of systems. Artificial chemistry is in some ways similar to a chemical reaction, hence the name...

.

Works

• The Evolution of Individuality, Princeton University Press, 1987, ISBN 9780691084688
• "Beyond Digital Naturalism", Artificial life: an overview, Editor Christopher G. Langton, MIT Press, 1997, ISBN 9780262621120
• "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, ISBN 9780738202327
• "Growth by Intrususecption 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, ISBN 9780226389318

External links

• "Leo W. Buss", Scientific Commons