INTELLIGENT DEVELOPMENT 149Such “canalization” of development, as Waddington called it, is found
in all basic aspects of the body: eyes, limbs, internal organs, and so on. At
the level of be hav ior, canalized development accounts for what has oft en
been described as instincts, also oft en (mis)attributed to genes. When
people speak of a trait as being ge ne tic or innate, it is just such a complex
of developmental regulations that is actually being referred to: it will
require gene products, but it is not in the genes.
Canalization suggests intelligent interactive systems that can adapt by
modifying pathways of pro cessing. By helping to reveal it, Waddington
was instrumental in contrasting preformationist theories of develop-
ment (potential pres ent in the fertilized egg) with the theory of epigene-
sis (potential emergent from interactions among simpler components).
Th is history is well described in the article by Paul Griffi ths and James
Tab er y.^8
Until recently, the details of how those interactions work were still only
theoretical. Although Waddington devised the term “epige ne tic,” it still
connotes cellular pro cesses subordinate to quasi- executive genes, whereas
it now seems more likely to be the other way around: the genes are used
as a resource by the intelligent system of the cell. Gilbert Gottlieb has
noted this per sis tence of “preformationism” in biology beneath a super-
fi cial layer of epige ne tic clothing (as also noted by Griffi ths and Tabery).
Today, that relationship and the pro cesses supporting it are a little
clearer. It is thought that changes in protein folding, enzyme activity, TF
recruitment, and so on can create alternative metabolic pathways that
compensate for proteins that are absent or have been modifi ed by gene
mutations. In dynamical terms, we would say that alternative routes to
the attractor state have been created.^9
Th ere is much research to support that view. For example, Orkun Soyer
and Th omas Pfeiff er showed how biodynamics “leads to evolution of
metabolic networks that display high robustness against gene loss...
underlined by an increased number of multifunctional enzymes and
in de pen dent paths leading from initial metabolites to [full develop-
ment].”^10 In other words, there is self- organized patterning as with the
Bénard cells described in chapter 4. Only in cases of rare deleterious gene
mutations will the system be unable to cope with the loss of resource and
a disease state will ensue.
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