Straightening out the cladistic confusion

Cladists have obviously confused harnessing horses to the cart, putting the cart in front of instead of behind the horses. They obviously (see, for example, Mikael Härlin) think (and claim) that classification is posterior rather than prior to hypotheses.The fact that every hypothesis requires a prior classification has obviously escaped them. How on earth could a hypotheses originate without a prior classification. What on earth would it in that case specify?

This confusion has obviously led cladists into a search for a single True Classification of biological organisms, which they call the "natural" classification or The Tree of Life, USING prior classifications of biological organisms and logical reasoning, just as if there is a True Classification lurking beyond all possible prior classifications.

This irrational idea is easily falsified by considering the fact that every logical reasoning is orthogonal (ie, diametrically opposed) in a classificatory sense between its premises and conclusion. If, for example, the premises are that:

1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates is a man

(thus allocating Socrates to the class "men"), then the conclusion

3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

allocates Socrates to the class "mortals", which is orthogonal to "men", because although all men are mortals, not all mortals are necessarily men. The two classes are orthogonal, ie, acting on orthogonal classificatory levels. Every logical conclusion is simply orthogonal in a classificatory sense to its premises. Logical reasoning can thus not retrieve its initial classification in conclusion, and if the number of possible logical reasonings are infinite, then the number of cladistic hypothesized True Classifications is either infinite or zero. There is thus no single "natural" classification, or True Tree of Life, lurking beyond all possible prior classifications.

This finding of, and investigation of, the cladistic confusion ought to be unnecessary. No knowledgeable researcher ought to fall into it. The question why cladists (beginning with Willi Hennig) obviously fell into it anyway remains to be answered. The reasons may be many, but only they themselves can answer it. A confusion is it in any case, actually a conceptual melt-down. And, a specific solution to the confusion is not to be found. The number of solutions are either infinite or zero, meaning, in practice, infinite.