| Description |
1 online resource (x, 269 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction -- The devils of vitalism in early twentieth-century morphology and a methodological way out -- "Let us save the old machine" : Form and organization -- The architecture of organisms -- Darwin without morphology or morphology without Darwin : Two alternative evolutionary syntheses -- The architect and the scientist : Forming morphology with new and unfamiliar rules -- A bridge too far : Internal factors in morphogenesis -- The failed attempt to establish a new science of form -- Morphogenesis, constraints, and constructions -- Conflicts and collaboration : Konstruktionsmorphologie, form-finding, and evolution -- Science of form, evo-devo, and a new evolutionary biology -- Epilogue. |
| Summary |
"In the final decades of the twentieth century, the advent of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) offered a revolutionary new perspective that transformed the classical neo-Darwinian, gene-centered study of evolution. In The Architecture of Evolution, Marco Tamborini demonstrates how this radical innovation was made possible by the largely forgotten study of morphology. Despite the key role morphology played in the development of evolutionary biology since the 1940s, the architecture of organisms was excluded from the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. And yet, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1970s and '80s, morphologists sought to understand how organisms were built and how organismal forms could be generated and controlled. The generation of organic form was, they believed, essential to understanding the mechanisms of evolution. Tamborini explores how the development of evo-devo and the recent organismal turn in biology involved not only the work of morphologists but those outside the biological community with whom they exchanged their data, knowledge, and practices. Together with architects and engineers, they worked to establish a mathematical and theoretical basis for the study of organic form as a mode of construction, developing and reinterpreting important notions that would play a central role in the development of evolutionary developmental biology in the late 1980s. This book sheds light not only on the interdisciplinary basis for many of the key concepts in current developmental biology but also on contributions to the study of organic form outside the English-speaking world"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Biography |
Marco Tamborini teaches history and philosophy of science at the Technical University of Darmstadt and is a member of the Junge Akademie/Mainz at the Academy of Sciences and Literature/Mainz, as well as fellow of the Johanna Quandt Young Academy at Goethe. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Evolution (Biology)
|
|
Morphology.
|
|
Evolution (Biology) |
|
Morphology |
| Other Form: |
Print version: Tamborini, Marco (Philospher). Architecture of evolution. Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2022] 0822947358 (OCoLC)1287126645 |
| ISBN |
9780822989073 electronic book |
|
0822989077 electronic book |
|
9780822947356 hardcover |
|
0822947358 hardcover |
|
