He reevaluates August Weismann's model of the cell compartmentalization of somatic and germline cell lineages (see Weismann barrier), and argues that the vision of the individual taken by the modern synthesis is insufficient to explain the early evolution of development or ontogeny.
More recently, several art historians, most prominently musicologist Richard Taruskin, have applied the term "ontogeny becomes phylogeny" to the process of creating and recasting art history, often to assert a perspective or argument.