Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-fv566 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T11:26:03.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Causal Homology Concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jun Otsuka
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I propose a new account of homology, according to which homology is a correspondence of developmental mechanisms due to common ancestry, formally defined as an isomorphism of causal graphs over lineages. The semiformal definition highlights the role of homology as a higher-order principle unifying evolutionary models and also provides definite meanings to concepts like constraints, evolvability, and novelty. The novel interpretation of homology suggests a broad perspective that accommodates evolutionary developmental biology and traditional population genetics as distinct but complementary approaches to understand evolution, prompting further empirical and theoretical research.

Type
Biology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 5 , December 2017 , pp. 1128 - 1139
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I thank Yoshinari Yoshida, Günter Wagner, an anonymous reviewer, and audiences at PSA 2016 for helpful comments and questions and the editor of the journal for grammatical suggestions. Any remaining mistakes are my own. This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant-in-aid 16K16335.

References

Amundson, Ron. 2005. The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1991. “Realism, Anti-foundationalism and the Enthusiasm for Natural Kinds.” Philosophical Studies 61:127–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo. 2007. “Typology Now: Homology and Developmental Constraints Explain Evolvability.” Biology and Philosophy 22:709–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo 2009. “Natural Kinds in Evolution and Systematics: Metaphysical and Epistemological Considerations.” Acta Biotheoretica 57:77–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, YiPing, Zhang, Yanding, Jiang, Ting-Xing, Barlow, Amanda J., Amand, Tera R. St., Hu, Yueping, Heaney, Shaun, Francis-West, Philippa, Chuong, Cheng-Ming, and Maas, Richard. 2000. “Conservation of Early Odontogenic Signaling Pathways in Aves.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97:10044–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ereshefsky, Marc. 2012. “Homology Thinking.” Biology and Philosophy 27:381–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1997. Metaphysics and the Origin of Species. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Scott F., and Bard, Jonathan. 2014. “Formalizing Theories of Development: A Fugue on the Orderliness of Change.” In Towards a Theory of Development, ed. Minelli, Alessandro and Pradeu, Thomas, 129–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Scott F., and Bolker, Jessica A. 2001. “Homologies of Process and Modular Elements of Embryonic Construction.” Journal of Experimental Zoology B 291:1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kluge, Arnold G. 2003. “On the Deduction of Species Relationships: A Précis.” Cladistics 19:233–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Love, Alan C. 2009. “Typology Reconfigured: From the Metaphysics of Essentialism to the Epistemology of Representation.” Acta Biotheoretica 57:51–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Müller, Gerd B. 2003. “Homology: The Evolution of Morphological Organization.” In Origination of Organismal Form, ed. Müller, Gerd B. and Newman, Stuart A., 51–69. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, Gerd B., and Pigliucci, Massimo. 2010. Evolution: The Extended Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Otsuka, Jun. 2015. “Using Causal Models to Integrate Proximate and Ultimate Causation.” Biology and Philosophy 30:19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otsuka, Jun 2016. “Causal Foundations of Evolutionary Genetics.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67:247–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, Richard. 1843. Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals: Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Riedl, Rupert. 1978. Order in Living Organisms: A Systems Analysis of Evolution. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rieppel, Olivier. 2005. “Modules, Kinds, and Homology.” Journal of Experimental Zoology B 304:18–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suppes, Patrick. 2002. Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
True, John R., and Haag, Eric S. 2001. “Developmental System Drift and Flexibility in Evolutionary Trajectories.” Evolution and Development 3:109–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wagner, Günter P. 1989. “The Biological Homology Concept.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20:51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Günter P. 2014. Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wagner, Günter P., and Stadler, Peter F. 2003. “Quasi-Independence, Homology and the Unity of Type: A Topological Theory of Characters.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 220:505–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar