Abstract
From the 1930s through the 1970s, C. H. Waddington attempted to reunite genetics, embryology, and evolution. One of the means to effect this synthesis was his model of the epigenetic landscape. This image originally recast genetic data in terms of embryological diagrams and was used to show the identity of genes and inducers and to suggest the similarities between embryological and genetic approaches to development. Later, the image became more complex and integrated gene activity and mutations. These revised epigenetic landscapes presented an image of how mutations could alter developmental pathways to yield larger phenotypic changes. These diagrams became less important as the operon became used to model differential gene regulation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abir-Am, P.: 1987, ‘The Biotheoretical Gathering, Trans-Disciplinary Authority and the Incipient Legitimation of Molecular Biology in the 1930s: New Perspective on the Historical Sociology of Science’,History of Science 25, 1–70.
Abir-Am, P.: 1988, ‘The Assessment of Interdisciplinary Research in the 1930s: The Rockefeller Foundation and Physico-Chemical Morphology’,Minerva 26, 153–177.
Abir-Am, P.: in press, ‘The Philosophical Background of Joseph Needham's Work in Chemical Embryology’, in S. F. Gilbert (ed.),A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology, Plenum Press, New York.
Allen, G.: 1969, ‘T. H. Morgan and the New American Biology’,Quarterly Review of Biology 44, 168–188.
Allen, G. E.: 1985, ‘Thomas Hunt Morgan: Materialism and Experimentalism in the Development of Modern Genetics’,Trends in Genetics 3, 151–154, 186–190.
Beadle, G. and B. Ephrussi: 1937, ‘Development of Eye Colors inDrosophila: Diffusible Substances and Their Interrelations’,Genetics 22, 76–86.
Berrill, N. J.: 1941, ‘Spatial and Temporal Growth Patterns in Colonial Organisms’,Growth Symposium 3, 89–111.
Berrill, N. J.: 1961,Growth, Development and Pattern, Freeman, San Francisco.
Brooks, W. K.: 1883,The Law of Heredity, John Murphy, Baltimore.
Cassirer, E.: 1950, ‘Developmental Mechanics and the Problem of Cause in Biology’, in E. Cassirer (ed.),The Problems of Knowledge, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Dobzhansky, T.: 1970,Genetics of the Evolutionary Process, Columbia University, New York, pp. 210–211.
Gilbert, S. F.: 1979, ‘The Embryological Origins of the Gene Theory’,Journal of the History of Biology 11, 307–351.
Gilbert, S. F.: 1988, ‘Cellular Politics: Ernest Everett Just, Richard B. Goldschmidt, and the Attempt to Reconcile Embryology and Genetics’, in R. Rainger, K. R. Benson, and J. Maienschein (eds.),The American Development of Biology, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 311–346.
Gilbert, S. F.: in press, ‘Induction and the Origins of Developmental Genetics’, in S. Gilbert (ed.),A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology, Plenum Press, New York.
Goldschmidt, R. B.: 1938,Physiological Genetics, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Griesemer, J., and W. C. Wimsatt: 1988, unpublished manuscript, ‘On Reading Weismann Diagrams’, presented at the meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Study of Biology, London, Ontario, 1988.
Haraway, D. J.: 1976,Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth Century Developmental Biology, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Holtfreter, J.: 1968, ‘Address in Honor of Viktor Hamburger’, in M. Locke (ed.),The Emergence of Order in Develo** Systems. The Twenty-seventh Symposium of the Society for Developmental Biology, Academic Press, New York, p. xi.
Jacob, F.: 1988,The Statue Within, Basic Books, New York.
Just, E. E.: 1939,Biology of the Cell Surface, Blakiston, Philadelphia.
Kauffman, S. A.: 1987, ‘Developmental Logic and Its Evolution’,BioEssays 6, 82–87.
Lerner, I. M.: 1958,The Genetic Basis of Selection, University of California Press, Berkeley, California.
Lillie, F.R.: 1927, ‘The Gene and the Ontogenetic Process’,Science 66, 361–368.
Mayr, E.: 1963,Animals Speciation and Evolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Merrell, D. J.: 1962,Evolution and Genetics, Rhinehart and Winston, New York.
Morgan, T. H.: 1926,The Theory of the Gene, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Needham, J.: 1932,The Great Amphibian, Student Christian Movement, London.
Robertson, A.: 1977, ‘Conrad Hal Waddington: 8 November 1905-26 September 1975’,Biographical Memoirs: Fellows of the Royal Society 23, 575–622.
Roll-Hanson, N.: 1978, ‘Drosophila Genetics: A Reductionist Research Program,Journal of the History of Biology 11, 159–210.
Roux, W.: 1894, ‘The Problems, Methods, and Scope of Developmental Mechanics’, W. M. Wheeler (trans.),Biological Lectures MBL 1894, 149–190.
Sander, K.: 1986, ‘The Role of Genes in Ontogenesis: Evolving Concepts from 1883-1983 as Perceived by an Insect Embryologist’, in T. J. Horder, J. A. Witkowski, and C. C. Wylie (eds.),A History of Embryology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 363–396.
Spemann, H.: 1903, ‘Entwicklungsphysiologische Studien am Tritonei III’,Roux Archeologische Entwicklung 16, 551–631.
Waddington, C. H.: 1939a,An Introduction to Modern Genetics, Macmillan, New York.
Waddington, C. H.: 1939b, ‘Preliminary Notes on the Development of Wings in Normal and Mutant Strains ofDrosophila’,Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 25, 299–307.
Waddington, C. H.: 1940,Organisers and Genes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Waddington, C. H.: 1942, ‘Canalization of Development and the Inheritance of Acquired Characters’,Nature 150, 563–564.
Waddington, C. H.: 1956,Principles of Embryology, Macmillan, New York.
Waddington, C. H.: 1957,The Strategy of the Genes, Allen and Unwin, London.
Waddington, C. H.: 1959, ‘Canalization of Development and Genetic Assimilation of an Acquired Character’,Nature 183, 1654–1655.
Waddington, C. H.: 1961, ‘Genetic Assimilation’,Advances in Genetics 10, 257–290.
Waddington, C. H.: 1962,New Patterns in Genetics and Development, Columbia University Press, New York.
Waddington, C. H.: 1970,Behind Appearances, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Waddington, C. H.: 1974, ‘A Catastrophe Theory of Evolution’,Annals of the New York Acadamy of Science.231, 32–42.
Waddington, C. H.: 1975,The Evolution of an Evolutionist, Cornell University Press, Ithica.
Waddington, C. H., J. Needham, and J. Brachet: 1936, ‘The Activation of the Evocator’,Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) B 120, 173–207.
Weiss, P.: 1962, ‘From Cell to Molecule’, in J. H. Allen (ed.),Molecular Control of Cellular Activity, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 1–72.
Weissman, A.: 1893,The Germ-Plasm: A Theory of Heredity, W. N. Parker and H. Ronnfeld (trans.), Walter Scott, London.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gilbert, S.F. Epigenetic landsca**: Waddington's use of cell fate bifurcation diagrams. Biol Philos 6, 135–154 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02426835
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02426835