ABSTRACT
This chapter accentuates selected concepts of heredity and theories of evolution from Lamarck to the present that resonate with our line of thinking and set the framework for understanding chapters that follow. It discusses the context of Darwin ’s times, and his introduction of history into biology, and explores the facets of Lamarckian philosophy (the heredity of acquired traits, emphasis on the environmental influences and habitual progress of evolution), Haeckel ’s basic biological law and the neolamarckian idea of organic memory popular at the end of 19th century. Further, it describes the pathways of experimental embryology (Driesch, Roux, Weismann) and the ideas thereof, i.e., morphogenetic field and organizer or positional information. The chapter continues with the story of the establishment and development of genetics, with the history of Modern synthesis and the advent of the age of DNA. From the neodarwinian models of evolution and genetic determinism it turns to evo-devo (the genetic toolkit) and epigenetics (epigenetic inheritance, ENCODE project); it does not omit epigenetic processes that emphasize approaches such as the organismic systems approach or ‘phenotype first’ approach. The chapter concludes with philosophical extensions of the theories presented.
