Difference Between Ontogeny and Phylogeny

Ontogeny vs Phylogeny

In science dictionaries you’ll come across ‘ontogeny’ which means the origin of an organism or how it was developed. ‘Phylogeny,’ on the other hand, is the evolution of an organism or how it evolved.

Ontogeny and phylogeny are discussed in life science subjects such as biology, microbiology, developmental biology, and psychology just to name a few. ‘Ontogeny’ and ‘phylogeny’ as words were first seen during 1872 at the International Scientific Vocabulary.

To explain fully, let us make examples. Let us take, for example, the farm animal a chicken. In ontogeny, people will tackle how the chicken came to life, the process it underwent. From being a single cell inside the egg up to becoming a chick, ontogeny will explain the cycle. However, with phylogeny, let’s take an ostrich as a sample. Assuming that the ostrich came from the family of chickens, in phylogeny, people would discuss how the chicken evolved into becoming an ostrich. In short, from a single existing organism it evolved into other animals, and phylogeny explains the evolution process. To clear things up, ontogeny is development while phylogeny is evolution.

Scientists can either be on the side of ontogeny or phylogeny. Some would agree, for example, that a chicken has its origin as well as the ostrich. However, the phylogenists may say that the ostrich came from the chicken; that peacocks were also chickens which evolved to become peacocks. It is a scholarly argument being debated by scientists and archaeologists.

In the end, it doesn’t matter where we came from. The important thing is we are created for a good purpose. A few textbooks are available on the subject matter for further and specific reading.

Summary:

1.

Ontogeny is the study of the development of organisms while phylogeny is the study of evolution.
2.

Both words were coined during 1872 at the International Scientific Vocabulary.

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