Susan Oyama On Development and Evolution

Susan Oyama is a psychologist and philosopher of science, and currently professor emerita at the John Jay College and CUNY Graduate Center in New York. Her 1985 book The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution is regarded as a foundational text in developmental systems theory.

From the eSMCs Summer School 2011, San Sebastián, Spain, 5-9 September, 2011:

Development and Evolution in a World Without Labels
by Susan Oyama

Accounts of development and evolution typically involve complementary notions of prespecification–organismic and environmental ‘labeling,’ if you will. In the case of development these can take the form of genetic programs or instructions and the like, while descriptions of evolution often invoke preexisting environmental demands or problems that organisms must meet.

The traditions of thought informing The Embodied Mind and Developmental Systems Theory (DST) both challenge such ways of conceiving life processes. Yet these traditions sprang from different grounds, and they bring distinctive sensibilities to their overlapping projects. I describe the systemic contingencies of self-organizing systems in DST, pointing out the importance of alternative pathways, both in biological processes and the theorizing they inspire.