Biol. [irreg. for cæno- or kainogenesis, f. Gr. καινός new + γένεσις genesis.] Haeckel’s term for the form of ontogenesis in which the true hereditary development of a germ is modified by features derived from its environment (opposed to palingenesis). Hence Kenogenetic a.
1879. trans. Haeckel’s Evol. Man, I. i. 10. The term Kenogenetic process (or vitiation of the history of the germ) is applied to all such processes in the germ-history as are not to be explained by heredity from primæval parent-forms. Ibid., 11. This distinction between Palingenesis or inherited evolution, and Kenogenesis or vitiated evolution, has not, however, yet been sufficiently appreciated by naturalists.
