Looking at Embryos: The Visual and Conceptual Aesthetics of Emerging Form

Abstract

The greatest progressive minds of embryology have not searched for hypotheses; they have looked at embryos.-Jane Oppenheimer' DISCIPLINE AND AESTHETICS The tide of this essay implies that there is an aesthetic of living organisms and that the aesthetic of embryology differs from those of other areas of biology. First, we believe that one can seriously discuss the aesthetics of the embryo much as one would discuss the aesthetics of an artist's creation. Terms such as symmetry, balance, pattern, rhythm, form, and integration are crucial in both disciplines and are used in similar fashions. 2 The scientist observing the embryo can act analogously to a critic, and the different sub-disciplines of biology are not unlike different schools of literary or art criticism. Indeed, all our knowledge of cells is based on interpretations of visual abstractions. Different stains and lenses emphasize different structures in the cell, and autoradiograms are used to imply functional relationships. Centrifugation analysis of cell components also gives us radioactive and enzymological data that are then placed back onto a map of the cello As Oscar Schotte pointed out, the embryologist's visualization of the cell differs from the geneticist's visualization of the cello Thus, there are different "schools" of biology. Some (such as physiology) seek the "meaning" of a structure; while others (such as cell and molecular biology) regard the animal's general structure as relatively unimportant and look for unifying concepts and mechanisms underlying the apparent diversity of structures. A biochemist, a geneticist, a cell biologist, an embryologist, a physiologist, and an evolutionary biologist will each have a different appreciation of the cell or the human hand. Not only have they learned different techniques of analysis, they have come from different schools of interpretation. 3 Second, the aesthetic perspective of embryology is unique in the biological sciences. Mayr 4 has categorized biology as being divided into functional biology and evolutionary biology. Developmental biologists often do not feel comfortable with this categorization. Embryonic development takes part in the physiological concerns of functional biology, but it is also a biology characterized by change, akin to evolutionary biology. We propose a different typology that is based on temporal change. Let functional biology equal physiology , anatomy, cell biology, genetics, etc. Developmental biology equals A[functional biology]/ ~t. It is characterized by progressive changes during the lifespan of the organism which irreversibly alter the structure and function 125