 Some questioned the chromosome theory of heredity and the notion of separable corpuscular genes. For instance, in the light of the “position effect”, where genes had different effects depending on their location in the chromosome, Richard Goldschmidt (1878–1958; 1938) suggested a holistic view of chromosomal agency (Allen 1974; Carlson 1966: Chs. 13–15). Furthermore, whether justified or not, many embryologists interpreted genetics as a form of preformationism, the view that organisms or their parts were in some way already given or at least pre-determined in the fertilized egg or its nucleus, such that development would be the mere articulation of the given structures. This interpretation was at odds with the view held by most embryologists, that the organism is the result of a process referred to as epigenesis, in which nucleus, cytoplasm and environment interact to transform material and structures (see the entry on  theories of biological development).