The habit of thinking about ontogeny and phylogeny as alternative means by which
information is made available to the developing individual has a long history in both biology
and psychology. This article examines existing proximate (ontogenetic) and ultimate
(preontogenetic) approaches to the study of human development and describes an
alternative, developmental systems approach for directing research programs. On this view,
phenotypes are not simply transmitted in the genes, nor are they contained in features of the …