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Venomous Dinosaurs and Rear-Fanged Snakes: Homology and Homoplasy Characterized

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Abstract

I develop an account of homology and homoplasy drawing on their use in biological inference and explanation. Biologists call on homology and homoplasy to infer character states, support adaptationist explanations, identify evolutionary novelties and hypothesize phylogenetic relationships. In these contexts, the concepts must be understood phylogenetically and kept separate: as they play divergent roles, overlap between the two ought to be avoided. I use these considerations to criticize an otherwise attractive view defended by Gould, Hall, and Ramsey & Peterson. By this view, homology and homoplasy can only be delineated qua some level of description, and some homoplasies (parallelisms) are counted as homologous. I develop an account which retains the first, but rejects the second, aspect of that view. I then characterize parallelisms and convergences in terms of their causal role. By the Strict Continuity account, homology and homoplasy are defined phylogenetically and without overlaps, meeting my restriction. Convergence and parallelisms are defined as two types of homoplasy: convergent homoplasies are largely constrained by external factors, while parallelisms are due to internal constraints.

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Notes

  1. To an extent I attribute this to Rosenberg & Neander because Ramsey & Peterson do. I don’t think many philosophers before Ramsey & Peterson have taken talk of homology as ‘the same’ trait, versus homology as ‘similar’ traits particularly seriously. In Rosenberg & Neander’s paper they do make some claims about similarity: “… similarity judgements, or at least specifications of the traits or characters judged to be homologous, are prior to homology claims (330).”

  2. Part of the justification of this turns on an empirical claim about the relative similarity, and level of constraint, between convergences and parallelisms. Following Gould and Griffiths, I think that functional continuities are relatively coarse, while ancestral continuities are finer grained—convergent similarities are ‘shallow’, while parallel similarities are ‘deep’. If that is right, then because developmental continuities tightly constrain the space of possible phenotype expression, I should be quite confident in inferring between model and target. Moreover, shallow similarities probably belie less constraint in phenotype expression, meaning that projectability from model to target is less secure (see Currie 2012b for discussion of the ‘shallowness problem’). This claim, then, is merely ceteris paribus and based on the empirical claim that most of the time, functional similarities are shallower than ancestral ones. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pushing me on this point.

  3. But surely a lineage’s phenotype is as it is in part due to its genotype? Why don’t phenotypic constraints collapse into developmental constraints? Here’s why: in cases of developmental constraint, the developmental system’s inability to achieve certain forms constrains morphospace. In phenotypic constraint, it is the phenotypic failings to (for instance) fly to islands which explain why certain evolutionary paths are closed. Naturally part of the proximate explanation of why any particular phenotype is as it is appeals to developmental systems, but ‘being flightless’ is multiply realizable across such systems. In cases of phenotypic constraint, it is phenotype, not development, which explains the contrast (thanks to Kim Sterelny and an anonymous referee for pressing this point).

  4. A referee points out that structural constraints (for instance, those which appeal to geometry) could, if they are classed as internal, count as parallelisms without any developmental at all. How we precisely delineate internal and external constraints, and what to say about structural constraints, is left for further investigation.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Russell Powell and Brian Hall for comments on earlier drafts. Versions of this paper has been presented at both the ANU and Otago Philosophy departments, I am grateful for the discussion and comments I received.

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  1. c/o RSSS Philosophy Department, Australia National University, Coombs (bldg 9), Canberra, 2601, Australia

    Adrian Mitchell Currie

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Currie, A.M. Venomous Dinosaurs and Rear-Fanged Snakes: Homology and Homoplasy Characterized. Erkenn 79, 701–727 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-013-9533-5

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