Abstract
The specialization of visual function within biological function is reason for introducing “homology thinking” into explanations of the visual system. It is argued that such specialization arises when organisms evolve by differentiation from their predecessors. Thus, it is essentially historical, and visual function should be regarded as a lineage property. The colour vision of birds and mammals do not function the same way as one another, on this account, because each is an adaptation to special needs of the visual functions of predecessors—very different kinds of predecessors in each case. Thus, history underlies function. We also see how homology thinking figures in the hierarchical classification of visual systems, and how it supports the explanation of visual function by functional role analysis.
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Notes
I am being deliberately vague when I speak of “things” being grouped together by common ancestry. These “things” can be traits, bone structures, behaviours, etc. See Matthen (2000) for a historical account, and Brigandt (this issue), Griffiths (this issue) and Love (this issue) for original discussion.
I take “evolved from” to be an incompletely explicated historical notion that awaits further analysis. See, however, Brigandt (this issue) on ‘evolvability’ and Griffiths (this issue) for the importance of genetic and developmental processes in operational definitions of homology. I will rest content with treating homology as something of a black box, since my interest is in an application of homology thinking, not its explication. I do not speak, for example, about serial homology, though I assume that the definition given can be fleshed out in such a way as to include it.
Karen Neander (2002) rightly insists that any adequate taxonomy should be able to accommodate variation and loss of functionality—organs of different size, genetically defective and diseased organs, and so on. She argues that only definitions in terms of teleological functions can accommodate such variation adequately (since something can possess a function but not perform it). She is wrong about this: the historically based definition of homology-class accommodates variation, but does not mention teleological functions. In fact, Neander herself implicitly appeals to historical origins. for it is only by identifying relations of evolutionary descent that naturalized teleology gets a grip on variation. Thus, I would claim that notions such as that of a “reproductively established family” (cf. Millikan 1984) implicitly appeal to homology-classes (see Griffiths, this issue). Neander and other proponents of historical approaches to “proper function” are in the same boat.
I am very much in debt to Ingo Brigandt and Paul Griffiths for helping me get straight on this matter.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my fellow symposiasts for incisive discussion and many new ideas: Ingo Brigandt, Marc Ereshefsky, Paul Griffiths, and Alan Love. Special thanks to Paul and Ingo for written comments.
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Matthen, M. Defining vision: what homology thinking contributes. Biol Philos 22, 675–689 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-007-9088-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-007-9088-4