In 1980, an evolution meeting at the University of Sussex, UK, featured several speakers who Darwin200 questioned the importance of genetics in understanding evolution and development. The 'structuralists' saw the adaptations of many organisms as products of self-organizing molecules rather than natural selection. Others touted the epigenetic view, claiming that important evolutionary change involved heritable features not coded in the DNA. Perturbed, the distinguished embryologist Lewis Wolpert stood up and proclaimed that he too had a radical and heretical view: "Genes control development." Wolpert was puckishly defending what he saw as a perfectly adequate paradigm against those who minimized the importance of genes. To emphasize his point, he switched the lights on and off during the coffee break - but the structuralists refused to admit that the switch controlled the lights.
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