Jenner Ronald A
Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
Dev Genes Evol. 2006 Jul-Aug;216(7-8):385-94. doi: 10.1007/s00427-006-0084-5. Epub 2006 May 30.
Although flourishing, I argue that evo-devo is not yet a mature scientific discipline. Its philosophical foundation exhibits an internal inconsistency that results from a metaphysical confusion. In modern evolutionary biology, species and other taxa are most commonly considered as individuals. I accept this thesis to be the best available foundation for modern evolutionary biology. However, evo-devo is characterized by a remarkable degree of typological thinking, which instead treats taxa as classes. This metaphysical incompatibility causes much distorted thinking. In this paper, I will discuss the logical implications of accepting the individuality thesis for evo-devo. First, I will illustrate the degree to which typological thinking pervades evo-devo. This ranges from the relatively innocent use of typologically tainted language to the more serious misuse of differences between taxa as evidence against homology and monophyly, and the logically flawed concept of partial homology. Second, I will illustrate how, in a context of typological thinking, evo-devo's harmless preoccupation with distant ancestors has become transformed into a pernicious problem afflicting the choice of model organisms. I will expose the logical flaws underlying the common assumption that model organisms can be expected to represent the clades they are a part of in an unambiguous way. I will expose the logical flaws underlying the general assumption that basal taxa are the best available stand-ins for ancestors and that they best represent the clade of which they are a part, while also allowing for optimal extrapolation of results.
尽管演化发育生物学（evo - devo）蓬勃发展，但我认为它尚未成为一门成熟的科学学科。其哲学基础存在内在矛盾，这源于一种形而上学的混淆。在现代进化生物学中，物种和其他分类单元最常被视为个体。我认为这一论点是现代进化生物学现有的最佳基础。然而，演化发育生物学的特点是具有相当程度的类型学思维，它反而将分类单元视为类别。这种形而上学的不相容导致了许多扭曲的思维。在本文中，我将讨论接受个体性论点对演化发育生物学的逻辑影响。首先，我将说明类型学思维在演化发育生物学中渗透的程度。这包括从相对无害地使用受类型学污染的语言，到更严重地将分类单元之间的差异误用作反对同源性和单系性的证据，以及存在逻辑缺陷的部分同源概念。其次，我将说明在类型学思维的背景下，演化发育生物学对遥远祖先的无害关注是如何转变为困扰模式生物选择的有害问题的。我将揭示一个常见假设背后的逻辑缺陷，即可以期望模式生物以明确的方式代表它们所属的进化枝。我将揭示一般假设背后的逻辑缺陷，即基部分类单元是祖先的最佳替代物，它们最能代表它们所属的进化枝，同时也允许对结果进行最佳外推。
