What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Pangenesis vs Epigenesis - What's the difference?

pangenesis | epigenesis |

As nouns the difference between pangenesis and epigenesis

is that pangenesis is a mechanism for heredity proposed by Charles Darwin long before the true mechanism was discovered, according to which the cells of the body shed "gemmules" which collect in the reproductive organs prior to fertilization while epigenesis is the theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.

pangenesis

Noun

(pangeneses)
  • A mechanism for heredity proposed by long before the true mechanism was discovered, according to which the cells of the body shed "gemmules" which collect in the reproductive organs prior to fertilization.
  • epigenesis

    Noun

    (epigeneses)
  • (biology) The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.
  • *2011 , Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford 2011, p. 100:
  • *:Ignored for two millennia, Aristotle, in his book On the Generation of Animals , first proposed the theory of epigenesis in biology, suggesting that development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore follows a sequence of steps in which the organism changes and the various organs form.
  • (geology) changes in the mineral content of rock after its formation