This example is akin to making a new factory or assembly process. Once plastic injection was invented, it was used in making everything from car parts to yo-yos. Teeth are no different. Once the process that makes teeth came into being, it was modified to make the diverse kinds of organs that lie within skin. We saw this taken to a very great extreme in the ostracoderms. Birds, reptiles, and humans are just as extreme in many ways. We would never have scales, feathers, or breasts if we didn’t have teeth in the first place.

