Dr. Chris Moore of Dalhousie University and Dr. David Moore of Pitzer College co-hosted this small-group workshop from August 16 to 18, 2011, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The workshop focused on the potential utility of the idea of homology for developmental psychologists. The interdisciplinary workshop was attended by an international group of evolutionary-developmental biologists, developmental psychobiologists, traditional child-developmentalists, comparative developmental psychologists, and philosophers of science.
The aim of the workshop was to bring together theorists from different disciplines to explore how the concept of homology, properly imported from biology, might aid in understanding psychological/behavioral development.
Questions that were addressed during the workshop included:
- How might developmental psychologists use the homology-analogy distinction that has proven so useful to biologists?
- How might we determine if a characteristic present in adults is homologous -- or merely analogous -- to a characteristic present earlier in development?
- How can we use the concept of homology to help developmental psychologists formulate novel, empirical research questions?
The primary product of the workshop was a special issue of Developmental Psychobiology, which contains papers written by the participants and informed by conversations that occurred at the meeting.
The conference hosts and participants would like to thank the National Science Foundation, Dalhousie University, and Pitzer College for their support.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1023899. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
