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Sameness in Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Grant Ramsey  and
Anne Siebels Peterson
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Abstract

Homology is a biological sameness relation that is purported to hold in the face of changes in form, composition, and function. In spite of the centrality and importance of homology, there is no consensus on how we should understand this concept. The two leading views of homology, the genealogical and developmental accounts, have significant shortcomings. We propose a new account, the hierarchical-dependency account of homology, which avoids these shortcomings. Furthermore, our account provides for continuity between special, general, and serial homology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 255 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

We thank Marc Ereshefsky, Russell Powell, Phil Sloan, Gunter Wagner, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor of this journal for their helpful comments on this article. Some of the ideas for this article were presented at the 2011 meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. We thank the audience members for their thoughtful suggestions.

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