> By convergence, I mean in the sense that two independent organisms that did not share a historical character trait (in this case, a specific homologous gene)

> By convergence, I mean in the sense that two independent organisms that did not share a historical character trait (in this case, a specific homologous gene) independently evolved an identical trait (a gene with provably no homology, but identical function) through the process of natural selection, with no information sharing via horizontal gene duplication. I'm no expert and could be wrong but I think this is what Losos is referring to in his book. For example, "New and Old World porcupines do not share a common evolutionary heritage… The two lineages have independently evolved their quills from different, unquilled rodent species." Dozens of stuff like this. He goes into more detail with tropical island anoles, his field of expertise, and orients the whole discussion around Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris's competing views on the overall paradigm of convergence. See this NPR interview for a quick summary[0]. A key quote (which I'm not discerning enough to tell if it challenges your claims or if your claims are actually already in response to these claims): "the flood of molecular DNA data that has come forth in the last two decades or so has in many cases revised our understanding about how species are related to each other. And it has revealed that many species that we thought were similar because they're closely related, that they're not closely related and that their similarity is the result of convergent evolution." https://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/549250035/biologist-jonathan-losos-explores-convergent-evolution-in-improbable-destinies https://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/549250035/biologist-jonathan-...