Short notes and reviews More than a few model species

The sub-title of this fascinating volume is “Ontogeny, Morphology, and Evolution.” In its comprehensive approach, it is an example of what can result if one is willing to look at situations differently, to break away from preconceptions, and to ask some new questions that begin with the phrase, “What if ... ?” In this case, what if we throw away the adultocentric view of ontogeny, i.e., directed at the adult organism, and look at ontogeny as embryocentric, a sort of on-going Markov process directed at the next stage and not at some final cause? As Minelli cautions us in the introductory chapter, the “existence of a feedback ... does not imply the existence of a programme.” There are many ways in which to look at nature, and there is value in the “multicentric view of development.”