4 The paleontological point of view

There is not as much paleontology as one would expect by the title of the chapter. Mostly paleontology is an excuse to further discuss developmental biology, except for subsection 4.1
4.1 Tetrapod origin

If we turn to paleontology, we find a description of tetrapods appearance into three main steps. Appearance of chordates, segmentation of lateral fins, appearance [...]

3.3 The limb field

This is the last part of “The genetics of vertebrate development”. Not much about most of the features of vertebrates were presented and this last part is about just “the limb field”. There is a lot of interesting papers out there one could read to learn about the subject.It would be really sad if all [...]

3.2 Limb patterning in tetrapods

Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire would have be happy to read the mix Fleury made of his observations of structural homologies between tetrapods and insects and genetic homologies, but he probably have laughed with the persistence of his own idea of analogy between ribs and insects appendages armed with current knowledge of embryology (no ectoderm participating [...]

3.1 The homeobox genes in vertebrates

The author focus on Hox genes in mammals (rather than homeobox genes in vertebrates), and what he delivers is disappointing in regard with the title.

3 The genetics of vertebrate development

In the third section of the paper Fleury starts to display his incredulity of genetic explanations of developmental morphogenesis, concluding by p16, col2, §2:

The review presented here highlights that inductive cascades of unidirectional gradients of scalar quantities cannot explain morphogenesis.
The review is incomplete and often bogus,which explain why Fleury is reaching this conclusion.
Certainly a lot [...]

Introduction

Introduction
I plainly agree with Vincent Fleury that animal embryos are material objects and their development is according laws of condensed physics. But I wouldn’t call them “things” but rather objects and I would extend these considerations to all living organisms, not just animals, and at every phase of their lives, not just development.

Abstract The origin of tetrapods is a c…

Abstract
 
The origin of tetrapods is a complex question that webs together genetic, paleontological, developmental and physical facts. 
A very interesting question of evolutionary biology indeed, mobilizing the efforts of many.
 
Basically, the development of embryos is described by a complex mix of mechanical movements and biochemical inductions of genetic origin. 
It is difficult to sort out in this [...]