ABSTRACT
The possible developmental basis of the adaptive behavior of newborns is often written off when it is said to be instinctive or innate, meaning that it has no basis in the prenatal experience of the fetus (mammal) or embryo (bird). When thinking about evolution, canalizing influences account for developmental stability, so that what we think of as normal or typical for a species repeats itself generation after generation. Canalization is thus a conservative feature of individual development that prevents evolution from occurring in a ready fashion. Substantial changes in behavior can occur when the developmental manifold is changed, thus paving the way for evolutionary change. In the present view, the normal activity of the genes themselves is dependent upon signals arising from the internal and external environment during the course of normal development. A change is in the wind in the way development is being invoked in relation to evolution.
