Images of Development questions the dominant biological approach of explaining animal development as entirely genetic by exploring the explanatory value of investigating environmental influences. Van der Weele discusses assumptions, explanatory patterns, and conceptual tools in developmental and evolutionary biology and reviews many concrete examples of environmental influence in animal development. She provides perspectives from biology, philosophy of science, and ethics in an integrative way.

"Images of Development introduces biology and philosophy for specialists and, at the same time, for readers not acquainted with one or both of these fields. The amazing thing is that, as one continues reading, one notices after a while that the two disciplines merge in such a way that you can't tell them apart anymore. This is philosophy of biology at its best.

Cor van der Weele is Assistant Professor of Science and Ethics at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.