The writer Jorge Luis Borges tells us of a wondrous Chinese encyclopedia whose classification of animals begins with the dichotomous branch: Those animals belonging to the emperor, and those animals that don’t (see Foucault 1970). In the social scheme of scientific organisms, a similar wisdom prevails. There are those privileged imperial organisms called model systems, and then there are all the other organisms. There are seven basic model systems of developmental biology: the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster; the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the mouse Mus musculis, the frog Xenopus laevis, the zebrafish Danio rerio, the chick Gallus gallus, and the mustard Arabidopsis thaliana. For many researchers, having their experimental organism be considered a model system is an important goal.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gilbert, S.F. (2009). The Adequacy of Model Systems for Evo-Devo: Modeling the Formation of Organisms/ Modeling the Formation of Society. In: Barberousse, A., Morange, M., Pradeu, T. (eds) Mapping the Future of Biology. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 266. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9636-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9636-5_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9635-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9636-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)