Summary |
Specific to papers included in Developmental
Systems Theory (DST) is the belief that the study of development requires a systems-level
model. Such a model would abstract away from the specific biological details of
any particular developmental process in order to isolate the general properties
of developing systems. Contrasting with Developmental
Modularity, DST maintains that identifying the function of individual developmental
modules at the cellular and molecular levels is intractably complicated and is incapable
of representing the structure found at the abstract systems-level, systems
properties are emergent. However, reflecting an internal dispute, the systems
studied are either individual developing organisms (expressing particular
phenotypes) or systems of ecologically-coupled populations of developing organisms
(as they co-evolve with each other). |