Epigenesis[2] (or neoformism),[3] then, in this context, is the denial of preformationism: the idea that, in some sense, the form of living things comes into existence. As opposed to "strict" preformationism, it is the notion that "each embryo or organism is gradually produced from an undifferentiated mass by a series of steps and stages during which new parts are added" (Magner 2002, p. 154).[4] This word is still used in a more modern sense, to refer to those aspects of the generation of form during ontogeny that are not strictly genetic, or, in other words, epigenetic.