For the study of the origin and evolution of living form

Established in 1996, SLL scientists and science illustrators have pursued the elusive goal of the discovery of the mathematical, topological, physical and mechanical phenomena which have resulted in the self-organization of the complex shapes and forms of the plant and animal body. The work has culminated in the publication of graphic animations describing the path from the egg to the adult bodyplan of the archetypal flower, fruit, insect, mollusk, crustacean and vertebrate.

Our theory begins where Darwin leaves off. Darwin explains how mankind arose by evolution from fish. But he does not explain how the fish got its shape in the first place, nor how any of the other three dozen basic forms of life arose in the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago. Darwin's theory that evolution was directed by natural selection is only an idea. It does not provide any tangible, graphic evidence. Natural selection is today generally dismissed by evolutionary biologists as merely the means of extinction of species which are actually formed by the creative force of self-organization. But no one before now has described how self-organization works. Consequently, biology, unlike physics and chemistry, is a descriptive science. This theory accounts for the origin of the forms of nature by setting down laws of self-organization for the first time.

This new understanding of the workings of embryology can lead to progress in such fields as genetic engineering, birth defects, synthetic organs and synthetic life.