epigenesis
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
[edit] Noun
epigenesis (plural epigeneses)
- (biology) The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.
- 2011, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2011, p. 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.
- 2011, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2011, p. 100:
- (geology) changes in the mineral content of rock after its formation
