Explorations in bibliometric historiography: C. H. Waddington and the rise of evolutionary developmental biology

Conrad Hal Waddington was a well known developmental biologist and geneticist whose publications span almost 50 years, from the late 1920s through the mid 1970s. He is perhaps best known for his introduction to genetics and developmental biology of concepts such as “the epigenetic landscape” “canalization”, and “genetic assimilation.” His research in the 30s, 40s, and 50s has become newly relevant with the emergence of the field of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo) – a field that seeks the “unification of genomic, developmental, organismal, population, and natural selection approaches to evolutionary change” (Hall, 1999). [According to Gilbert (2003), “C. H. Waddington, one of the first developmental geneticists, was a person who did not believe that genetics, embryology, and evolution were separate sciences (he called the fusion of these disciplines "diachronic biology" and worked in each area).”]