teorema

Vol. XXXIV/2, 2015, pp. 211-223

ISSN: 0210-1602
[BIBLID 0210-1602 (2015) 34:2; pp. 211-223]

NOTA CRÍTICA/CRITICAL NOTICE

Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem

Guillermo Lorenzo González

Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation, by GÜNTER P. WAGNER.

PRINCETON AND OXFORD, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014, 478 pp, € 50.39.

The fact that Richard Owen’s most original and persuading treatise on
the subject matter of this notice [Owen (1849)] has recently been reedited in
English [Amundson (2007)] and Spanish [Balari & Lorenzo (2012a)] is an
eloquent piece of evidence that the homology concept seems to be in good
shape, despite doubts cast upon it by the long shadow of Darwinism through-
out the 20th century. It is a further piece of evidence on the same track that
many such doubts may now be declared solved thanks to Günter Wagner’s
last book—published 165 years after its venerable “homolog”, which is a re-
newed and enlightened summary of his ideas on the matter since his ground-
breaking articles of 1989, where the now popular “biological homology
concept” was firstly introduced [Wagner (1989a), (1989b)]. For the sake of
my point, let me start this notice by making a short detour and remembering
another text written in 1971. I am referring to Gavin de Beer’s very short
(sixteen pages) but extremely beautiful reader on the then very challenging
notion of homology, containing an expedient presentation of the concept and
up-to-date information extracted from the fossil record and the individual un-
folding of organisms corroborating the idea that superficial differences not-
withstanding, species seemed to be massively made of the same component
pieces [de Beer (1971)]. From a definitional point of view, the question
seemed to be not particularly problematic, for a large consensus had existed
since Richard Owen’s characterization in 1843 that homologs were “the same
organ in different animals under every variety of form and function” [Owen
(1843), p. 379]. So far so good, but the curious fact about de Beer’s booklet
was that after twelve pages as seemingly clear and unproblematic as the con-
cept itself, it ended with four demolishing pages that projected all kinds of
shadows upon the ultimate reality of the category, as if after all it was but an

211
212 Guillermo Lorenzo

artifact conveniently installed in the biologists’ jargon but with no real bio-
logical import. By the time of de Beer’s passing away, just a few months af-
ter publishing the pamphlet, the “homology” question was, as he aptly
entitled it, “an unsolved problem”.
Gavin de Beer probably would not have even considered the issue — like
most of his contemporaries, were not for the fact that besides a champion of
the Evolutionary Synthesis and a guardian of the Darwinian orthodoxy, he
was also a leading embryologist, and one early committed to the then coun-
tercurrent idea of exploring the doings of individual development among the
causal factors feeding species evolution [de Beer (1940), Gould (1977)]. Oth-
erwise, evolutionary biologists were not particularly sensitive to the question
of the component parts of phenotypes around the mid 20 th century, for the
new Darwinian universe was one where no major entities beyond populations
and genetic sequences were felt necessary for explanatory purposes [Dawkins
(1976), Hull (1980), Ghiselin (1997)]. Moreover, their focus was put on “ad-
aptations”, a category defined on functional grounds and regarding which the
question of the structural boundaries within bodies was not particularly de-
manding [Lewontin (1978)]. Adaptations, mostly conceived of as external
surrogates of competing allelic sequences, were at most organismal compo-
nents in a rather fuzzy sense,1 a conclusion that obviously run against the
Owenian project of deciphering the organization of bodies as combinations
and reconfigurations of a few basic building blocks. So de Beer’s conflict,
atypical but at the same time symptomatic of the prevailing idea of nature
throughout the 20th century, was probably one between a Dr. Jekyll aware of
the motivation of incorporating the generative foundations of agreeing parts
of organisms within the evolutionist’s agenda, and a Mr. Hyde prompted to
disdain them as alien to the biologist’s evolutionarily grounded worldview.
The main objection that de Beer generically raised against the project of
identifying and positing homologs as units of evolutionary change revolved
around the question of how the homology concept could possibly advance,
given the prodigality of misleading examples, beyond its soft Darwinian or
historical interpretation — “community of descent from a representative
structure in a common ancestor”, and towards a hard core biological one —
already latent in Owen’s writings [Balari & Lorenzo (2012b), pp. 51-57],
based on the identification of shared genes and patterns of embryological ori-
gins underlying the structures of concern, which according to him ought to
“provide the key to the problem” on mechanistic grounds [de Beer (1971), p.
15]. Let us briefly review a couple of particular cases to get the flavor of de
Beer’s point [for similar cases more recently raised with a similar argumenta-
tive mood, see Butler & Saidel (2000)]:
[1] The common frog (Rana fusca) does not develop a lens if the optic
cup is cut out before the relevant embryological event; contrarily, the edible
Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem 213

frog (Rana esculenta) develops the undoubtedly homologous structure (de

Beer’s emphasis) even if the optic cup is removed at the corresponding de-
velopmental stage. Thus, the developmental mechanism differs completely in
each specific scenario, yet the structures attained are notwithstanding the same.
[2] The moth Triphaena has grey and dark variants, but the way the latter
attain their dark coloration is quite different in populations from the Scottish is-
lands of the Orkneys and the Hebrides, respectively. Thus, developmental
mechanisms differ again in a context of agreeing phenotypic qualities.
It is with great pleasure that readers may learn in the pages of Günter
Wagner’s book how to solve such recalcitrant de Beerian puzzles by their
own, guided by the author’s expertise both as a gifted philosopher and first
rank scientist. As for the second case, for example, a rather simple piece of
conceptual clarification seems to be enough to show that it is not so defying
after all, illustrating at the same time how some philosophical care may prove
crucial in matters biological. According to Wagner:

In morphology, we can distinguish between two kinds of entities. On the one

hand there are character identities — for example, forewings and hind wings of
insects. On the other hand there are various character states that insect wings
can assume; the forewing can be a wing blade or a elytra or even a haltere (as in
the enigmatic insect order Strepsiptera), and the hind wind can be a wing blade
or a haltere. A wing blade can also have a different shape, structure, and color
[Wagner (2014), p. 54)].

Obviously enough, the homology concept applies to characters — i.e.

entities where conditions of individuality are met at the genetic, developmen-
tal and functional levels of analysis [Wagner (2014), pp. 54-58], and not to
states — as actually entailed in Owen’s definition above. So the case of de
Beer’s moths does not seem to question in any relevant sense the homology
concept, for it simply happens that he focused on “the wrong level to attach
statements of homology” [Wagner (2014), p. 57]. Regarding this particular
case, the only entity that corresponds to “the proper level of analysis” [Wag-
ner (2014), p. 57] to attach them is the scales that cover most of the moth’s
body, regardless the great range of variation that scales exhibit in terms of
form (hair-like, blade-like, and so on) and color (grays, browns, blacks, and
so on). As for the parameter of concern here, particular colors obtain from the
melanin with which scales are pigmented, as well as from structural proper-
ties like the way they are stacked and scattered: Namely, black coloration ob-
tains due to high densities of melanin — a means specific of black variants,
but also structurally due to the thickness of the adwing or lower side of the
scales — by means of a structural pattern common to blue and red variants
[Prum, Quinn & Torres (2006), Stavenga, Leertouwer & Wilts (2014)]. So
there is not a single and exclusive means for attaining a specific coloration,
which makes the expectation reasonable that the same color (say, black) may
214 Guillermo Lorenzo

be generated through not completely identical means in different species, a

fact which is however tangential to the homology question. “States are still
variants of the same thing” [Wagner (2014), p. 71]: Thus, different colored
scales or identically colored scales but by different generative means, are still
scale variants.2
The elaboration of this “character identity/character state” distinction is
one of the main distinguishing features of Wagner’s contribution to the clari-
fication of the homology concept, which paves the way to an important extra
category that he also puts forward in the book: Namely, the “variational mo-
dality” concept [Wagner (2014), pp. 58-65]. It refers to sets of character
states clustered together and in a non-overlapping way relatively to alterna-
tive sets: e.g. the fins of teleost fishes — four radials attached to the shoulder
griddle plus a complex of dermal bones/rays, relatively to the limbs of tetra-
pods — one bone attached to the body and a set of two distal bones plus a
number of endochondral long bones/digits. According to Wagner’s relevant
conceptualization, the corresponding clusters are inaccessible form the com-
plementary pattern of developmental origins and organizational distribution,
yet they represent two alternative instantiations of an identical character (the
vertebrate limb) at a “macro-state” level of analysis, so to speak: “Variational
modalities reflect ‘deep’ differences between instances of the same character”
[Wagner (2014), p. 126].3 I turn to this important “variational modality” con-
cept in my discussion below.
As for case [1] above, as a matter of fact it had already been raised by
Hans Spemann, one of the founder fathers of modern embryology, in 1915, in
a paper where he concluded that organs undoubtedly the same — like the
lens of a variety of amphibian species’ eyes, were however discontinuous
from the point of view of their developmental origins [Spemann (1915)].
Specifically, Spemann experimentally settled then that lens formation was in
some species dependent on the inductive effect of the eyecup, but that in oth-
er species it was not. This was presented as an intriguing fact, which did not
however question the identity of lenses despite the lack of an across-the-
board lens generation means. It nevertheless pointed, as underscored by de
Beer, to the conflicting conclusion of disconnecting the homology question
from developmental considerations. A century after Spemann’s original ob-
servations, Wagner accepts the challenge of these defying cases and in a cu-
rious tour the force, admits that “we can safely assume that some level of
variation in the developmental mechanisms of homologous characters is the
rule rather than the exception” [Wagner (2014), p. 90; the emphasis is from
the original]. Note that such a stance entails a non-trivial modification of
Owen’s original definition above, which should now read as follows:
Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem 215

Homolog [Wagner’s extended version].— The same organ in different

animals under every variety of form, function and developmental
mechanism. [the wording is mine]

Obviously enough, this definition does not suggest that a particular or-
gan may be obtained by an unrestricted array of means. It makes in any event
clear that different developmental means may lead to the same organic struc-
ture. So in the end, is it or is it not development the ultimate foundation of the
sameness relation underlying collections of homolog candidates? Wagner’s
not uncontroversial [see below], but extremely elegant position is that it is:
Namely, that complementarily to the range of variation in the developmental
mechanisms of homologs, a core of uniformity also exists that guarantees
character identities, in the sense introduced above. From this point of view
the case of lenses is straightforward, for it is a well established fact that the
inductive signals that ultimately transform cell populations — e.g. two lateral
patches of embryonic skin — into organs — e.g. lenses, are rather unspecific,
in the sense that they basically act as a perturbing stimulus that can be easily
replaced by natural or artificial surrogates. The role of such signals is that of
inciting cells to enter into one among the different possible fates originally
accessible to them. So putting all the pieces together, it becomes clear that
“the information for character identity is within the cells that react to the
signal and not in the inductive signal itself” [Wagner (2014), p. 93; the em-
phasis is from the original]. In other words, it is “within” that the foundations
of identities (i.e. of homologies) must be found. In this respect, the idea that
Wagner puts forward in the book, building upon previous suggestions by
Jean Deutsch [(2005)],4 is that “character identity networks” (ChINs) exist at
the genetic level, which interface between the positional information provid-
ed by inductive signals, on the one side, and downstream “realizer” genes in
charge of character states differentiating among collections of homologs, on
the other side. In between, variational modalities reflect “developmental mo-
dalities that lead to different and persistent variational tendencies” [Wagner
(2014), p. 127]. In any event, it is ChINs that Wagner deems ultimately re-
sponsible to the individuality of organs and their identity across species: i.e.
of homologies.
In a nutshell, the previous paragraphs offer the core of Wagner’s up-to-
date and high-tech approximation to the problems traditionally raised by the
homology concept. Obviously enough, Wagner’s beautifully written four
hundred and twenty five pages are full of important qualifications of the
framework and excellent illustrations of each and every of the author’s
points. It is fair to conclude that the concept relies now on much more solid
grounds than before — and it is worth remembering that it has been pointed
out as “the central concept of all biology” [Wake (1994), p. 268]. So Wag-
ner’s cannot be appraised but as a major advancement in our present under-
216 Guillermo Lorenzo

standing of nature. It was not however the author’s ambition to solve the
question from root to branch and in just one assault, as he actually admits by
pointing out some of the questions that he has decided to put aside for the
time being, which jointly boil down to the question whether the same homol-
ogy concept that applies to morphological characters also applies to behav-
iors, proteins, genes and gene regulatory networks [Wagner (2014), p. 1]. For
the sake of his own practical needs, Wagner’s decision of concentrating just
on the morphological level somehow entails that solving subtleties at the cor-
responding levels of analysis may be safely driven by ignoring the rest. I un-
derstand this as a practical and justifiable move that undoubtedly has
benefited the book. But it also raises some non-trivial questions regarding
Wagner’s otherwise elegant theory of homology, as I presently explain. Be-
fore that, I also want to comment another loose end — unless my own under-
standing of some critical passages of the book is not fair enough, which in
my opinion projects the shadow of a doubt into the overall new conceptual
map that the book opens. For the sake of clarity, I divide the rest of this no-
tice into two sections, respectively devoted to what I will refer to as the “in-
tension” and the “regression” problem.

I. THE INTENSION PROBLEM

In his 1849 monograph Richard Owen left a note of dissent relatively to

a particular aspect of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s prior identifications of
parts of different animals [Geoffroy (1830)], which the latter directed under
less restricted criteria and with more across-the-board results than the former.
Specifically, it was one of Geoffroy’s conclusions that insect limbs and ver-
tebrate limbs were the same organ, as they clearly showed an “analogous”
pattern of organization [Geoffroy (1820)]. 5 Owen reacted to his antecessor’s
claim, for while he admitted that similarly organized parts of invertebrates
existed answering similar purposes than their putative vertebrate correlates,
yet he contended that the external versus internal character of the respective
skeletons was a bridge wide enough as to prevent deeming the corresponding
organs homologous [Owen (1849), pp. 4-5; pages are from Amundson’s
(2007) edition]. It is somehow perplexing that the question has not been defi-
nitely settled 165 years later, and it is perhaps even more disturbing that it is
not completely clear whether the question remains open for conceptual or
empirical reasons. The aim of this short section is to explain the broad impli-
cations of this particular case taking advantage of Wagner’s elaborated theory
of homology, which notwithstanding probably finds one of the limits to its
explanatory potential in similarly defying cases.
Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem 217

An important contribution regarding the “Geoffroy-Owen affaire” can

be found in a recent paper by Neil Shubin, Cliff Tabin and Sean Carroll
[Shubin, Tabin & Carroll (2009)], a follow-up of the authors’ ground break-
ing article of 1997 [Shubin, Tabin & Carroll (1997)]. Shubin, Tabin and Car-
roll defend that while fish fins and tetrapod limbs are undoubtedly the same
organ (i.e. bona fide homologs), as they are clearly molded by shared genes
and signaling machinery, vertebrate and insect limbs are also homologs, but
in a more unconventional and deeper sense: Namely, they share primitive de-
velopmental machinery devoted to making things protrude from the body wall.
So the authors’ conclusion is in part pro-Owenian — vertebrate and insect
limbs are not homologs as organs, and also in part pro-Geoffroyan — verte-
brate and insect limbs are homologs as protrusions. I confess not being abso-
lutely convinced of this Salomonic solution, namely for one thing: It purports
the non-trivial transformation of the classical homology concept into a “ho-
mology as” concept. The peril of this new concept is clear: It entails the in-
troduction of a perspectival or intensional dimension (i.e. a natural semantics
of sorts) into the workings of development and evolution.6 So the odd impli-
cation of the concept boils down to the fact that according to it, it seems to
make a difference to otherwise purely mechanical developmental events
whether they work at one or another semantic level, to which no clear natural
correlate is declared.7
As for Wagner’s position on the issue, it is difficult to guess what his
actual stance is. Shubin, Tabin and Carroll’s findings and conclusions are
early introduced in the book [Wagner (2014), p. 36], but they seem to loose
any relevance thereafter. This fact may be interpreted as if for Wagner deep
homologies (e.g. homologs as protrusions) do not pertain to the same level of
analysis of morphological characters (e.g. limbs and so on) on which he fo-
cuses the book. But according to my reading, the Geoffroy-Owen case could
have offered a nice field of exploration for Wagner’s “variational modality
concept” [see above], maybe as an extension of the whole fascinating chapter
that he devotes to the prototypal cases of variational modalities: i.e. fish fins
and tetrapod limbs [Wagner (2014), Ch. 10]. The closer Wagner approxi-
mates to the question is probably in his analysis of eye development networks
[Wagner (2014), pp. 102-111], where he decides the question in an Owenian
mood, for despite the amount of shared genes found both in vertebrate and
insect eye development, he nevertheless concludes that the networks these
genes respectively belong to “are so different that it is a more likely conclu-
sion that these genes regulatory networks were assembled independently dur-
ing the evolution of eyes” [Wagner (2014), p. 111]. 8 So it is also tempting to
conclude that Wagner’s opinion on the limb issue is also Owenian, for de-
spite a certain common genetic background, vertebrate and insect limb de-
velopment clearly splits by “the details of [the] molecular and functional
interactions” of the whole array of genes committed to the task [Wagner
218 Guillermo Lorenzo

(2014), p. 111; note that Wagner’s quote refers to the case of eyes]. So insect
limb probably is not an extra variational modality of the same homological
class to which fish fins and tetrapod limb belong. Moreover, within Wagner’s
framework the case does not seem to deserve the introduction of a further
conceptual distinction, for it simply amounts to the pervasive phenomenon of
sharing and reusing developmental resources in the most disparate organic
structures (or “molecular convergence”; Wagner [p.c.]).
If the above paragraph faithfully reflects Wagner’s actual position on the
issue, then one may preliminarily conclude that the intension problem is proba-
bly neutralized within his theory.9 However, it is not at all clear that Wagner’s
homological theory is really powerful enough to solve such issues in the ab-
sence of a corresponding theory at the genetic level, for the book’s statements
on such delicate matters rely on claims on similarities among gene regulatory
networks,10 which are however not grounded on a clear metric. So it seems that
only a theory of morphological homologies cum an associated homological
theory at the ChIN level may ultimately prove strong enough to decide whether
a certain array of organic structures are plain homologs, variational modalities
or nothing at all, defying Wagner’s ambition of obtaining clean answers while
avoiding theorizing on homologies at levels other than observed morphologies.
This leads me to the next problem I want to briefly comment.

II. THE REGRESSION PROBLEM

It is my conclusion in the previous section that Wagner’s theory of

morphological homologies is committed to converge with a worked out
enough theory of ChIN homologies in order to eventually provide better
grounded statements regarding particular identity relations among body parts
of the same or different organisms.11 From his short comments in Chapter 3
one may conclude that he is perfectly aware of this, but the truth is that the
book leaves the question mostly undetermined. What Wagner positively asserts
in this in passim section basically boils down to the following statements:

[1] The degree to which similarity of gene regulatory networks is indicative of

homology depends on how unlikely it is to find two genes that interact in two
unrelated tissues,

and
[2] Similarity of a gene regulatory network of some tissues, even one in which
multiple genes are involved per se, is not strong evidence for homology [Wag-
ner (2014), p. 113].
Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem 219

The additive effect of these statements is an inconclusive stance on the

question of how the molecular composition and organizational pattern of in-
teracting genes in specific developmental contexts may solve the question of
the putative identity of the resulting morphologies. It is fair to clarify that it is
precisely Wagner’s intention to underscore such a perplexing situation. On
the one hand, he seems to favor the idea that similarities at the genetic level
are indicative of homology on probability grounds; but on the other hand, he
is also aware that on strictly biological grounds the logic of probability is eas-
ily defied and defeated. What it is curious, even somehow ironic about this
problem is that it looks as a repetition at the genetic level of analysis of the
same problems that historically defied the application of the homological
method by its precursors in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is also inter-
esting that judging from his insightful reflections on the case of eye develop-
ment, Wagner seems to privilege a view reminiscent of Geoffroy’s principe de
corrélation des formes, but now applied at establishing ChIN identities attend-
ing to the similarity of the interactive patterns among the dedicated genetic
resources. But as commented above, it precisely was what at the time was felt
as flawed results of such formal principle that motivated the introduction of
supplementary criteria—like histological and embryological ones in the case
of Owen [Padian (2007)], also leading to unclear solutions in many cases.
The point of my comment is that a regression problem of sorts seems to arise
once the suggestion is made that the composition and organization of ChINs
may prove the definitive judge to solve questions of morphological sameness.
In any event, the promise seems to be open by Wagner’s book that such a
problem may eventually be circumvented by properly worked out inter-ChIN
isomorphism criteria capable of deeming homologous (or not) sets of struc-
tures at the morphological level.12
Readers may judge by themselves whether my comments point to mi-
nor or major shortcomings of Wagner’s theory. In my opinion, they are prob-
ably good pieces of evidence that Wagner has taken the question up until the
limit to which it might be currently taken. And a limit, I dare to add, where
few before reading the book could even think that the question was ready to
be debated yet.

Departamento de Filología Española, Área de Lingüística General

Universidad de Oviedo
Campus ‘El Milán’,
C/Teniente A. Martínez s/n, E-33011, Oviedo, Spain
E-mail: [email protected]
220 Guillermo Lorenzo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Sergio Balari and Günter Wagner for their helpful comments
and suggestions to an earlier version of this note. Any remaining errors are my own
responsibility.

NOTES
1
Amundson [(2005), p. 240] aptly refers to the resulting view on homology as
the “homology as residue” concept.
2
A note of disclaim is in order here: I am applying Wagner’s ideas to de Beer’s
objection by my own, so any fault in the analysis is of my exclusive responsibility.
3
Actually so deep that Wagner concludes that the novelties that differentiate
between modalities at this level may eventually be deemed new organs “nested with-
in” the shared identity (Wagner [2014], p. 318).
4
Namely, Deutsch’s ingenious interpretation of comparative data from three in-
sect species — flies, beetles and butterflies. In all three species, the appendage of the
second thoracic segment behaves as a default element, which shows up in mutants
where the action of genes modeling the specificity of the third segment is repressed.
So according to Deutsch the respective appendages of the second segment must be
deemed homologs—i.e. the same organ, despite the fact that it is a wing in flies, an
elytra in beetles and a characteristically colored wing in butterflies.
5
“Analogy” is the word that Geoffroy specifically used to refer to natural iden-
tities (i.e. homologies).
6
My point is thus reminiscent to Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s
criticism of classical Darwinian adaptationism [Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini (2010)]. It
may be worth remembering that from Brentano on, “intensionality” is customarily
thought of as a hallmark of the mind. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s main conceptual
objection to Darwinism boils down to the metaphysical shortcoming of deeming na-
ture a mindful entity, as according to the model it makes a difference whether traits
are selected as adaptations for one or another concurrently particular benefit [see
Richards (2005) and (2012), for the particular case of Darwin]. It is my point that
some versions of the homological project similarly treat identities (or lack thereof) as
in the eye of the beholder, which cannot be other than nature itself.
7
A footnote of qualification (as it relates only indirectly to Wagner’s book) is
in order here. What I specifically mean is that a distinction like the one between a
“protrusion” and a “limb” seems to correspond to a conceptual hierarchy rather than
to a bona fide organic hierarchy. To be fair, Shubin, Tabin and Carroll do offer a pre-
cise definition of “protrusion”: Namely, “outgrowth of the body wall that [is] pat-
terned along three axes — the proximodistal, anteroposterior and dorsoventral axes”
[Shubin, Tabin & Carroll (2009), p. 821]. So it names a superordinate category com-
prising organs like limbs, horns, and so on. Their point is that the category is coexten-
sive with the expression of a certain array of common genetic sequences. It is my
point, however, that the distinction remains conceptual (in other words, it is just in the
beholder’s eye) in that no a clear biological correlate is actually suggested. Fair
enough, Shubin, Tabin and Carroll mention some candidate genes. But in the absence
of a theory grounding the rationale of telling them apart from the factors specifically
Homology, an (Un)Solved Problem 221

acting in the development of specifically different kinds of appendages, concluding

that “protrusion” names more than a concept seems, to say the less, premature. For
example, one of the genes referred to by Shubin, Tabin and Carroll is Distall-less
(Dll). But Dll, like most genes, is a very unspecific resource, also recruited for exam-
ple in developmental tasks like pigment production in some insect wing spots [Wag-
ner (2014), pp. 191ff]. So lacking a more articulate theory on superordinate genetic
circuitries acting in agreement with ChINs, the claim that Dll (or similar genes) be-
longs to one such circuitry that brings about protrusions does not seem particularly
justified relatively to just claiming that it is a gene with a high propensity of being re-
cruited in the machinery for making the most disparate characters, limbs among them
— thus parsimoniously avoiding intermediates categories like “protrusion”.
8
This is however a controversial issue. See Shubin, Tabin & Carroll [(2009),
pp. 818-820] for a review of the position contrary to Wagner’s. For a philosophical
discussion, see Balari & Lorenzo [(2014), p. 13] and references therein.
9
But to be fair, it is not completely clear that the issue is actually solved in the
book. In the closing pages, Wagner himself raises the question whether it really makes
sense “to say that the bird wind is not homologous to the bat wing as wing but homol-
ogous as forelimb”, yet simply to conclude that “while there is some useful truth in
this observation, it is also intrinsically confusing” (Wagner [2014], p.421). In the end,
he seems to waive that question by saying that the issue is only relevant concerning
character states, but not character identities, thus at a level different from the one at
which homologies are established.
10
To wit, only one page and a half note is devoted to the question in the book
[Wagner (2014), pp. 112-114]. According to Wagner [p.c.] this is justified, for the
book is aimed at constructing a mechanistic explanation of homologies at the morpho-
logical level (i.e. what morphological homologies are), and not to operationalizing cri-
teria for identifying them (i.e. how they can be recognized). I agree that this is a
legitimate position. In any event, my point is that what it is auxiliary for Wagner’s in-
terests, it is explanatorily central from the point of view of homologies at the ChIN
level (i.e. what ChIN homologies are), on which morphological homologies are cru-
cially dependent. So the former theory cannot aspire to full completion not being the
latter satisfactorily articulated.
11
An obvious point of reference is Abouheif’s (1999) model. However, Abou-
heif’s and Wagner’s frameworks are not fully convergent, for two main reasons. On
the one hand, Abouheif trusts in historical criteria more than Wagner seems to deem
necessary: “[The] historical or genealogical notion of homology […] begs the ques-
tion of what it is that has continuity of inheritance” [Wagner (2014), p. 270]. On the
other hand, Wagner (despite the comments below in the main text) clearly trusts in in-
ter-level correlations more than Abouheif does: “Homology among networks cannot
always be taken as strong evidence to support homology among […] morphological
structures” [Abouheif (1999), pp. 211-212].
12
It is fair to note that this “regression problem” is not exclusive of Wagner’s
approach. It is also manifest, for example, in Shubin, Tabin and Carroll’s influential
“deep homology” model, as the following definition clearly shows: “[…] Deep ho-
mology: Morphologically disparate organs whose formation (an evolution) depends
on homologous genetic regulatory circuits” [Shubin, Tabin & Carroll (2009), p. 819;
the emphasis is mine].
222 Guillermo Lorenzo

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RESUMEN
El concepto de “homología” se ha mostrado históricamente muy resistente a ser
explicado sobre unas bases mecanicistas. Esta nota introduce la reciente propuesta de
Günter Wagner, con la que da respuesta a la intuición de que tal explicación debe es-
tar conectada con el desarrollo. Apunta también dos posibles cabos sueltos de la teo-
ría, aunque probablemente acomodables a este nuevo marco.

PALABRAS CLAVE: homología, identidad, desarrollo, intensión, isomorfismo.

ABSTRACT
The “homology” concept has historically proved very refractory to mechanistic
explanations. This notice introduces Günter Wagner’s recent proposal, with which he
fulfills the intuition that such an explanation is to be connected with development.
The notice also deals with two possible loose ends of the theory, which are neverthe-
less presented as putatively resolvable within this new framework.

KEYWORDS: Homology, Identity, Development, Intension, Isomorphism.