The Great Debate: Preformation Versus Epigenesis
Overview
During the 1700s in Europe, embryology was the focus of a controversial and lively debate that involved many of the greatest and most celebrated scientists and philosophers of that time. Most scientists were convinced that all embryos existed since Creation as preformed miniatures, held within their parents, ready to simply grow larger and emerge when their time arrived. But a few scientists believed that each embryo was formed gradually, structure by structure, in a developmental series that started with the undifferentiated materials of the egg. Both sides of "The Great Debate" used the subjective philosophies of the Enlightenment period, such as rationalism and vitalism, to fill the gaps created by the limitations of their eyes and early microscopes, which left them unable to advance embryology any further. The Great Debate has come to symbolize the effects that cultural and nonscientific factors can have on scientists and their interpretation of scientific facts and theories.
Background
The biology of reproduction, or the ability to recreate new individual organisms, is possibly the single most remarkable phenomenon of life, and this process has remained a central issue of biology for several centuries. Man's quest to understand exactly how a new organism forms, referred to as "generation" in the past and currently termed "embryology," challenged the ability of many of history's greatest scientists and philosophers.
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