Towards a Theory of Development. Edited by Alessandro Minelli and Thomas Pradeu © Oxford University Press 2014. Published 2014 by Oxford University Press. and preformationist explanations of the phenomena of morphogenesis. The concept of MF was ultimate- ly related to organicist (Haraway, 1976) and even vitalistic metaphysical positions (Hamburger, 1999). Gilbert et al. (1996) argued that the emergence of developmental genetics is to be considered the main cause of the demise of the MF concept, for the reason that the gene and the MF were perceived as being concepts in competition. The dificult re- lationships between Gestaltungsgesetze and genet- ics meant, as Lawrence and Levine (2006: R236) recently argued, that ‘embryology drifted off into metaphysical swamps, while genetics explored the dry savannahs of statistics’. The central theoretical concept of Gestaltungsgesetze remained indeinite. In order to explicate it, not very rigorous metaphori- cal language was often used (e.g. analogies with Newtonian forces or electromagnetic ields). Fur- thermore, the concept was used in different ways by different scientists in order to refer to different aspects of complex causal processes. Embryonic ields, organizers and morphogenetic gradients all referred to phenomena of developmental regula- tion. They were all postulated on empirical grounds in order to conceptualize speciic morphogenetic dynamics. They all possessed a physical substrate and a biochemical nature that remained to be inves- tigated and that was largely experimentally inac- cessible. They were generally considered as areas of biological information that was not genetic in origin (Gilbert et al., 1996). They were, in brief, con- cepts referring to material and physical entities (or processes) that contained part of the organizational CHAPTER 5 The epistemological resilience of the concept of morphogenetic field Davide Vecchi and Isaac Hernández Dirty boots in metaphysical swamps The concept of morphogenetic ield (hereafter MF) was the central theoretical concept of the Gestal- tungsgesetze research programme of experimental embryology in the irst part of the 20th century. It was introduced by Boveri (1910) and Gurwitsch (1910) in order to account for the phenomenon of coordination of cellular activities across a tissue. Starting from 1922 the latter called them Embryo- nalen Felder (i.e. embryonic ields). Harrison (1918), Weiss (1926), Needham (1931), Huxley and de Beer (1934), and Spemann (1938), among others, de- fended versions of the concept (Gilbert et al., 1996). The analogy between the concept of morphogenetic ield (referring to the putative biological property of groups of cells in developmental contexts) and the concept of electromagnetic ield (referring to the epistemically accessible physical properties of groups of electrically charged physical particles) was probably meant to give prima facie respectabil- ity to the former. Mangold’s and Spemann’s (1924) transplantation experiments are a typical example of the kind of research propelled by Gestaltungsge- setze. Spemann (1935) labelled the MF Organisa- tionfeld (i.e. organizer). The organizer was thought to be analogous to a physical ‘force’ external to the cells that makes them differentiate and assume the individual characters appropriate within the whole. This determining ‘force’ is not within the cell but is rather a holistic property of the transplanted tissue. So, despite its acknowledged physical nature, the MF concept challenged the prevailing mechanistic 9780199671434-Minelli.indb 79 12/04/14 12:12 PM