Nomogenesis

a hypothesis according to which the evolution of organisms is based on internal processes that are independent of environmental influences. Nomogenesis was advanced by L. S. Berg in 1922 in opposition to Darwinism. The hypothesis proceeded from the view that living beings supposedly have inherent purposeful reactions to external influences and from the preformistic notion that phylogenetic traits are anticipated in ontogenesis. However, the phenomena of convergence and parallelism, on which the hypothesis of nomogenesis was based, in fact arise from the action of natural selection on groups of individuals whose range of phenotypic traits is not unlimited but rather is determined by the species’ genetic and ontogenetic potentials. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s nomogenesis again achieved a certain popularity in connection with the assumption—now known to be untrue—that certain mutations do not influence natural selection.