Is plasticity relevant to define development? (original) (raw)

Abstract

Is plasticity relevant to define development? Antonine Nicoglou, IHPST & Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne University The notion of plasticity appears to be a key term for the study of development. Indeed, the notion has a long history in the field (it was already used in 1928 by embryologists such as Hans Driesch). And nowadays the notion of plasticity puts on various meanings depending on its field of use (in morphogenesis, developmental genetics, zoology…). The old disciplinary tradition considers that development stops at a certain point of the lifetime (alternatively at the end of embryogenesis, at birth or when the organism reaches sexual maturity). But more recently development has been considered, by a growing number of biologists and philosophers alike, as a process that “never stops” (Gilbert 2010, see also Oyama, Griffiths & Gray (eds.) 2001) during the lifetime of an organism. In this conception, development would have no sharp-cut boundaries. My purpose here is to show in which ways the notion of plasticity –defined as the “ability of an organism to react to an environmental input with a change in form, state, movement or rate of activity” (Mary Jane West-Eberhard 2003)- has been used as a heuristic tool to develop a conception of development that “never stops”. The conventional dichotomy pervasive in evolutionary theory, between environment and genotype will be discussed and revisited. By making some distinctions in the different understandings of plasticity in biology, I would like to demonstrate that a restrictive definition of plasticity might help to define more precisely what development is. References Gilbert SF (2010) Developmental Biology. Sunderland : Sinauer Associates. Oyama S, Griffiths PE, Gray RD (2001) Cycles of Contingency : Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge(MA): MIT Press. West-Eberhard MJ (2003) Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. Oxford : Oxford university Press.

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