As a field of scientific expertise, semiotics has the interesting property of being a relevant tool for understanding how scientists represent any domain of research, including the semiotic domain itself. This feature is particularly expressive in the case of biology, as it appears to be the case that a certain range of biological phenomena are of a semiotic character. However, it is not consensual the extent to which semiotics pervades biology. This paper deals with this issue for the particular case of developmental biology, stressing the role of semiotics-as-a-discipline in delimiting the extent of semiotics-as-a-natural-phenomenon and, specifically, in disentangling semiotic mechanisms from semiotic metaphors aimed at clarifying non-semiotic developmental mechanisms.

作为科学专业领域，符号学具有令人感兴趣的特性，它是一种了解科学家如何代表任何研究领域（包括符号学领域本身）的相关工具。该特征在生物学的情况下尤其具有表现力，因为似乎一定范围的生物学现象具有符号学特征。但是，符号学在生物学上的普及程度尚无共识。本文针对发育生物学的特殊情况处理此问题，强调符号学作为学科的作用在界定符号学作为自然现象的范围，特别是从符号学隐喻中解开符号学机制方面的作用。旨在阐明非符号化的发展机制。