Developmental Systems Theory as a Process Theory

Paul Griffiths and Russell D. Gray have argued that the fundamental unit of analysis in developmental systems theory should be a process—the life cycle—and not a set of developmental resources and interactions between those resources. The key concepts of developmental systems theory, epigenesis and developmental dynamics, also suggest a process view of the units of development. This chapter explores in greater depth the features of developmental systems theory that favour treating processes as fundamental in biology and examines the continuity between developmental systems theory and ideas about process in the work of several major figures in early twentieth-century biology, most notably C. H. Waddington.