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n. - A theory (popular in the 18th century and now discredited) that an individual develops by simple enlargement of a tiny fully formed organism (a homunculus) that exists in the germ cell.

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Usage examples (32)
  • Wolff had risen up as an opponent of the so-called preformation theory, still widespread at that time, according to which the entire plant with all its different parts...
  • I think that it is interesting that Behe has toyed with the idea of a kind of preformation of the DNA, with the genes for such-and-such being designed into the genome at...
  • Specification of the primordial germ cells (PGCs) takes place via different strategies across animal phyla; either specified early in embryogenesis by the inheritance of...
  • The eighteenth-century preformation - ists, of whom Spallanzani was one and his friend
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