| 释义 |
preforˈmationist
Also præ-.
[f. preformation + -ist.]
One who holds or maintains the theory of preformation (see preformation 2). Also attrib. or as adj.
1888E. R. Lankester in Encycl. Brit. XXIV. 815/1 The so-called ‘evolutionists’ of the eighteenth century, better called præformationists. 1936Mind XLV. 221 Boodin begins by explaining why he prefers to class the cosmological theories of Plato and Aristotle, notwithstanding certain preformationist tendencies especially in the thought of Aristotle, under the heading of creation theories. 1960New Biol. XXXI. 119 As development proceeds, suitable conditions start the synthesis of a succession of new substances. This, at least, is the contemporary opinion; the Preformationists in the eighteenth century thought otherwise, but their point of view is hard to square with the atomic hypothesis. 1973Jrnl. Genetic Psychol. CXXII. 326 Preformationist prejudices were so powerful that early embryologists..‘saw’ nonexistent miniature adults when viewing embryos through their microscopes. 1975Nature 5 June 449/1 These findings fit well the expectations of the Preformationists. 1978Ibid. 9 Nov. 125/1 Until this metaphor became available, the only alternative to a crude preformationist kind of innatism was a mysterious force such as Driesch's ‘entelechy’, which would allow the developing organism to survive the vicissitudes of the environment and the embryologist's knife.
Also preforˈmationism, the doctrine or theory of preformation (sense 2).
1890Q. Rev. Apr. 372 Both notions have now passed along with ‘preformationism’ into the limbo of discarded hypotheses. |