Overview

During the 1700s in Europe, embryology was the focus of a controversial and lively debate that involved many of the greatest and most celebrated scientists and philosophers of that time. Most scientists were convinced that all embryos existed since Creation as preformed miniatures, held within their parents, ready to simply grow larger and emerge when their time arrived. But a few scientists believed that each embryo was formed gradually, structure by structure, in a developmental series that started with the undifferentiated materials of the egg. Both sides of "The Great Debate" used the subjective philosophies of the Enlightenment period, such as rationalism and vitalism, to fill the gaps created by the limitations of their eyes and early microscopes, which left them unable to advance embryology any further. The Great Debate has come to symbolize the effects that...