Um exame histórico-filosófico da biologia evolutiva do desenvolvimento

Development has a central role in the understanding of the evolution of multi-cellular organisms mainly because it is the process that results in the adult organic form. Therefore, every morphological innovation is also a result of changes in development. However, developmental biology remained at t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Almeida, Ana Maria Rocha de, El-Hani, Charbel Niño
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2010
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade de São Paulo (USP)
Repositorio:Scientiae Studia (Online)
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:revistas.usp.br:article/11194
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.usp.br/ss/article/view/11194
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Evolutionary developmental biology
Evo-devo
Form
Function
Structuralism
Functionalism
Transformationism
Variationism
Biologia evolutiva do desenvolvimento
Forma
Função
Estruturalismo
Funcionalismo
Transformacionismo
Variacionismo
Descripción
Sumario:Development has a central role in the understanding of the evolution of multi-cellular organisms mainly because it is the process that results in the adult organic form. Therefore, every morphological innovation is also a result of changes in development. However, developmental biology remained at the margin of the modern evolutionary synthesis and development has been treated for a long time as a black-box between genotype and phenotype. Only at the beginning of 1980s, the role of development received more attention, and this resulted in unexpected empirical and theoretical progress. This progress resulted in the emergence of a new research field, evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), which has been playing an important role in the construction of a new understanding of the evolution of organic forms. We argue that this field has a central role in a "new evolutionary synthesis", currently under construction, which is committed to a "pluralism of processes", that is, the idea that not only natural selection but also a variety of different mechanisms play causal and explanatory roles in biological evolution. We discuss some classical dichotomies in evolutionary thought, particularly between structuralism and functionalism, and transformational and variational processes, in an effort to situate evo-devo in contemporary evolutionary thought.