Article ID: CBB998886359

Historicizing the homology problem (2023)

unapi

There is widespread agreement that “homology” designates something of fundamental biological importance, but no consensus as to how precisely that “something” should be defined, recognized, or theorized. Philosophical observers of this situation commonly focus on tensions between historical and mechanistic explications of homological sameness by appeal, respectively, to common ancestry and shared developmental resources. This paper uses select historical episodes to decenter those tensions and challenge standard narratives about how they arose. Haas and Simpson (1946) influentially defined “homology” simply as “similarity due to common ancestry.” They claimed historical precedent in Lankester (1870) but seriously oversimplified his views in the process. Lankester did prioritize common ancestry, but he also raised mechanistic questions that resonate with contemporary evo devo work on homology. The rise of genetics inspired similar speculations in twentieth-century workers like Boyden (1943), a zoologist who engaged Simpson in a 15-year debate over homology. Though he shared Simpson's devotion to taxonomy and his interest in evolutionary history, he favored a more operational and less theoretical homology concept. Their dispute is poorly captured by current analyses of the homology problem. It calls for further study of the complex relationship between concepts and the epistemic goals they serve.

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Authors & Contributors
Abadía, Oscar Moro
Bradley, Ben S.
Brigandt, Ingo
Burian, Richard M.
Creath, Richard
Delisle, Richard G.
Journals
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Biology and Philosophy
Journal of the History of Biology
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Publishers
Cambridge University Press
University of Chicago
University of Pittsburgh
McGill-Queen's University Press
University of California Press
Springer Nature
Concepts
Evolution
Philosophy of biology
Biology
Epistemology
Classification in biology
Homology (biology)
People
Darwin, Charles Robert
Althusser, Louis
Aron, Raymond C. F.
Canguilhem, Georges
Derrida, Jacques
Ginnobili, Santiago
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
Modern
18th century
20th century, late
Places
Pyrenees (France and Spain)
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