BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

HETEROCHRONY 1)2)

A differential rate of growth and/or development in a living organism.

Heterochrony can be understood in two different meanings:

1) The differential growth rate of different organs in a living being. For example, in the human species, the head grows more than the rest of the body at the embryonic and fetal stages, but this trend is reversed after the birth.

2) The different rate of embryonic development in different species. The German biologist Ernest HAECKEL (1834-1919), comparing embryos of different species during their development, came to the conclusion that, at least in vertebrates, different growth rates produced very different animals from quite similar embryos. His idea that "ontogeny recapitulates philogeny" proved later on to be a too simple evolutive principle. (Ken McNAMARA, 1999, p.1-4)

In fact, neoteny, i.e. the conservation in adults of embryonic or juvenile biological structures, appears to be a truer evolutive process. It is also of course related with heterochrony.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]


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