Development is an evolutionary phenomenon

EvoDevo called homeotic genes "architect genes" because they "control" "body plans". The first metaphor involves purposefulness and brings finalism; the second one is cybernetic; the third one is idealistic/platonic. These are three ways of thinking that are incompatible with today's evolutionary theory. Using such ordering causal factors, EvoDevo partly stayed outside biology-and evolution as well-because in biology, order is not causal: it is a consequence that we need to explain. Natural selection is one of the concepts explaining the rise of apparent short-term biological order, or regularities. We no longer need the verb "to control" [Nijhout, Prog. Biophys. Mol. Biol., 169-170 (2022)]. Since genes are controlled [Noble, Interface Focus, 7 (2017)], just as much as they control, the notion of control in this context is not appropriate. It would be better to speak of "contribution". Natural selection and descent with modification, the two pillars of the Darwinian approach to life [Gayon, C. R. Palevol, 8 (2009)], are entering the soma. They are not restricted to the functioning of the adult soma, but also to the entire developing soma, avoiding "adultocentrism" [Minelli, Toward a Theory of Development (2014)]. The first pillar, natural selection within the body, anticipated by [Roux, Der Kampf der Teile im Organismus: Ein Beitrag zur Vervollständigung der Mechanischen Zweckmässigkeitslehre (1881); Roux, La lutte des parties dans l'organisme (2013)], but occulted during the past century [Heams, La lutte des parties dans l'organisme (2013b)], is now helping to explain cancer dynamics, aging, neurogenesis, etc. With the second pillar, it is now possible to construct the phylogeny of cells of a single developing organism, or to perform a phylogenetic analysis of metastases from a single patient. Ontogenesis and phylogenesis are no more two distinct processes: natural selection and descent with modification both contribute to explain both the developing individual and its stability, as well as the regularity of individuals of a same population from which we name species. The two pillars of evolutionary theory-descent with modification and natural selection-do occur within the developing organism itself and the resulting phenomenon is ontophylogenesis [Kupiec, L'ontophylogenèse. Évolution des espèces et développement de l'individu (2012)], which is actually studied by EvoDevo.