The Organism in Developmental Systems Theory (DST)
نویسنده
چکیده
In this paper, I address the question of what the Developmental Systems Theory (DST) aims at explaining. I distinguish two lines of thought in DST, one which deals specifically with development, and tries to explain the development of the individual organism, and the other which presents itself as a reconceptualization of evolution, and tries to explain the evolution of populations of developmental systems (organism-environment units). I emphasize that, despite the claiming of the contrary by DST proponents, there are two very different definitions of the ‘developmental system’, and therefore DST is not a unified theory of evolution and development. I show that the DST loses the most interesting aspects of its reconceptualization of development when it tries to reconceptualize evolutionary theory. I suggest that DST is about development per se, and that it fails at offering a new view on evolution.
منابع مشابه
Discussion: Three ways to misunderstand developmental systems theory
Developmental systems theory (DST) is a general theoretical perspective on development, heredity and evolution. It is intended to facilitate the study of interactions between the many factors that influence development without reviving ‘dichotomous’ debates over nature or nurture, gene or environment, biology or culture. Several recent papers have addressed the relationship between DST and the ...
متن کاملDevelopmental systems theory: what does it explain, and how does it explain it?
We examine developmental systems theory (DST) with two questions in mind: What does DST explain? How does DST explain it? To answer these questions, we start by reviewing major contributions to the origins of DST: the introduction of the idea of a "developmental system", the idea of probabilistic epigenesis, the attention to the role of information in the developmental system, and finally the e...
متن کاملDesigning a Home Security System using Sensor Data Fusion with DST and DSMT Methods
Today due to the importance and necessity of implementing security systems in homes and other buildings, systems with higher certainty, lower cost and with sensor fusion methods are more attractive, as an applicable and high performance methods for the researchers. In this paper, the application of Dempster-Shafer evidential theory and also the newer, more general one Dezert-Smarandache theory ...
متن کاملBridging the gap between developmental systems theory and evolutionary developmental biology.
Many scientists and philosophers of science are troubled by the relative isolation of developmental from evolutionary biology. Reconciling the science of development with the science of heredity preoccupied a minority of biologists for much of the twentieth century, but these efforts were not corporately successful. Mainly in the past fifteen years, however, these previously dispersed integrati...
متن کاملDevelopmental Systems Theory Formulated as a Claim about Inherited Representations*
Developmental systems theory (DST) is often dismissed on the basis that the causal indispensability of nongenetic factors in evolution and development has long been appreciated. A reformulation makes a more substantive claim: that the special role played by genes is also played by some (but not all) nongenetic resources. That special role can be captured by Shea's 'inherited representation'. Fo...
متن کامل