epigenesis
See also: epigénesis
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
epigenesis (countable and uncountable, plural epigeneses)
- (biology) The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.
- Coordinate term: syngenesis
- 2011, Terence Allen, Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, page 100:
- Ignored for two millennia, Aristotle, in his book On the Generation of Animals, first proposed the theory of epigenesis in biology, suggesting that development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore follows a sequence of steps in which the organism changes and the various organs form.
- (geology) Changes in the mineral content of rock after its formation.