The history
of the evolution of scientific theories about embryonic life (the origin of
living beings) is very curious. I will try to summarize it in a couple of posts.
Throughout
the history of science, the problem of the embryonic
development of multicellular organisms has been one of the most
arcane mysteries that man has tried to solve. Faced with this problem, two
conflicting solutions have essentially been proposed:
•
Preformation: During embryonic development there is just a growth
of the pre-formed embryo, whose constitution and composition are completely ready-made
from its origin. Everything is done from the beginning, whether in the egg, the
sperm or the zygote.
•
Epigenesis: Embryonic development is a process.
Not everything is decided from the beginning; everything happens because
something - a vital force, or an external or internal action - forces the
embryo to develop in one way, rather than another.
