ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2010
Idealization in evolutionary developmental investigation: a tension between phenotypic plasticity and normal stages.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other Domains-Part One.Biological theory · 2026Article
- Article
- Dev-ResNet: automated developmental event detection using deep learning.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- 'Extreme' organisms and the problem of generalization: interpreting the Krogh principle.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2018Article
- Delta-Notch signalling in segmentation.Arthropod structure & development · 2017Review
- Developmental plasticity and the evolution of animal complex life cycles.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2010Review
- Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts. Introduction.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Abstract
Idealization is a reasoning strategy that biologists use to describe, model and explain that purposefully departs from features known to be present in nature. Similar to other strategies of scientific reasoning, idealization combines distinctive strengths alongside of latent weaknesses. The study of ontogeny in model organisms is usually executed by establishing a set of normal stages for embryonic development, which enables researchers in different laboratory contexts to have standardized comparisons of experimental results. Normal stages are a form of idealization because they intentionally ignore known variation in development, including variation associated with phenotypic plasticity (e.g. via strict control of environmental variables). This is a tension between the phenomenon of plasticity and the practice of staging that has consequences for evolutionary developmental investigation because variation is conceptually removed as a part of rendering model organisms experimentally tractable. Two compensatory tactics for mitigating these consequences are discussed: employing a diversity of model organisms and adopting alternative periodizations.
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Registered trials
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