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Typology and Natural Kinds in Evo-Devo

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Evolutionary Developmental Biology

Abstract

The traditional practice of establishing morphological types and investigating morphological organization has found new support from evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), especially with respect to the notion of body plans. Despite recurring claims that typology is at odds with evolutionary thinking, evo-devo offers mechanistic explanations of the evolutionary origin, transformation, and evolvability of morphological organization. In parallel, philosophers have developed nonessentialist conceptions of natural kinds that permit kinds to exhibit variation and undergo change. This not only facilitates a construal of species and higher taxa as natural kinds, but also broadens our perspective on the diversity of kinds found in biology. There are many different natural kinds relevant to the investigative and explanatory aims of evo-devo, including homologues and developmental modules.

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Acknowledgments

The work on this essay was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Grant 435-2016-0500). I thank Alan Love and Laura Nuño de la Rosa for detailed comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Ingo Brigandt

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  1. Ingo Brigandt
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Correspondence to Ingo Brigandt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The KLI Institute, Klosterneuburg, Austria

    Laura Nuno de la Rosa

  2. The KLI Institute, Klosterneuburg, Austria

    Gerd Müller

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

    Alan Love

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Brigandt, I. (2017). Typology and Natural Kinds in Evo-Devo. In: Nuno de la Rosa, L., Müller, G. (eds) Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33038-9_100-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33038-9_100-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33038-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33038-9

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