Ontogeny and Phylogeny is Stephen Jay Gould's

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

 first technical book, published in 1977 by Belknap, a division of Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

. Gould wrote that Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr

Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...

 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." This became The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is a technical book on macroevolutionary theory by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, published only two months before his death. The volume is divided into two parts. The first is a historical study and exegesis of classical evolutionary thought,...

, published in 2002.

Ontogeny and Phylogeny explores the relationship between embryonic development (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...

) and biological evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 (phylogeny). The book also discusses the role recapitulation

Recapitulation

Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...

—the discredited idea that embryonic developmental stages replay the evolutionary transitions of adult forms of an organism's past descendants—had on biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

, and psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. The second half of the book details how modern concepts such as heterochrony

Heterochrony

In biology, heterochrony is defined as a developmental change in the timing of events, leading to changes in size and shape. There are two main components, namely the onset and offset of a particular process, and the rate at which the process operates...

 (changes in developmental timing) and neoteny

Neoteny

Neoteny , also called juvenilization , is one of the two ways by which paedomorphism can arise. Paedomorphism is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological development of an...

 (the retardation of developmental expression or growth rates) have in influencing macroevolution

Macroevolution

Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes within a species or population.The process of speciation may fall...

 (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

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...

'. 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."

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
  David B. Wake
  David B. Wake is professor of integrative biology and former curator of herpetology of Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. Wake is an internationally respected expert on species formation and has written widely on the subject...
  
  , Paleobiology
  Paleobiology
  Paleobiology is a growing and comparatively new discipline which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology...
  
  
• The History of a Theory - by James Gorman, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  .
• Book review - by Danny Yee

Blurbs from some other reviews

External links

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