Om kladistikens omöjlighet

Hur vi än gör, så kommer vi aldrig att kunna förklara verkligheten, eftersom verkligheten är irrationell. Vi kan inte förklara en irrationalitet rationellt. Ni kaske inte vill acceptera detta ofrånkomliga faktum, men er vilja kan aldrig styra vad vi (och således ni) måste acceptera. Önskan kan aldrig övervinna fakta. Ett enda sant Livets Träd är således en omöjlighet. Aldrig kommer kladister att kunna förverkliga denna omöjlighet. Dröm kommer för alltid att vara dröm, medan verklighet för alltid kommer att vara verklighet, och aldrig kommer de två att mötas. Den dag kladistiken hittar "den sanna fylogenin" (ie, Livets Träd), har världen stannat.

On the meeting point between objective and subjective classification (e.g., Linnean and cladistic classification, respectively)

Classification ends in Russell's paradox or the class clade, depending on whether it starts from objects or classes, which thus is the meeting point (i.e., interface) between objectivity and subjectivity. This point is actually the orthogonal opposite to object, and is thus a pure abstraction arising from classification itself. The reason that this point is contradictory is that it is doubly ambiguous, both in time and over time, at the same time, which is contradictory (i.e., a paradox).

The existence of this end point in classfication excludes the existence of a single consistent and unambiguous classification (like, for example, the cladistic idea "The Tree of Life"), instead meaning that classification can only be either ambiguous or contradictory. Objective classification (like Linnean classification) is consistent but ambiguous, whereas subjective classification (like cladistics) is "natural" but contradictory. It means that typology (the belief that classes are real) in practice is an eternal merry-go-round between ambiguous or contradictory alternatives. The difference between classes is in practice fundamentally not qualitative, but quantitative (ie, not a matter of black or white, but of gray scale).

Cladistic typology is the entrance to racism

Cladistics can't distinguish object and class. This deficiency is the generic entrance to racism. Cladistics is thus dangerous to humanity by being the "evolutionary", and thus seemingly scientific, entrance to racism.

I'm doing what I can to counteract this hole in science by trying to explain that this kind of application of the theory of evolution is consistently inconsistent, that is, contradictory. Cladists have simply got matters up-side-down. It is not classes that are real, but objects. Evolutionary scientists are just doing what we can to describe evolution consistently. We are not responsible for the total misunderstanding that is called cladistics. We have never claimed that classes are real. .  

Is cladistics simple?

Cladists take a pride of keeping matters simple, but take a look at their definitions of "clade" and "cladistics" on Wikipedia. Do these definitions (and the discussions about them)  keep matters simple? To me, they appear as the ultimate confusion of all concepts at the same time... Keeping matters simple in comprehension is obviously the opposite to keeping matters simple in words. The only thing cladists appeas to agree about is that all of them are right (to keep it simple), for what it is worth on a practical level discussing reality...

(Isn't this a fairly simple description of cladistics?)

I can explain cladistics simple by that it is "confusion of object and class, and thereby confusion of conceptualization itself". I can thus also explain simple that the problems cladists have to explain their confusion is due to that it is a confusion, that is, that they try to explain a confusion. I can thus explain simple that cladistics is incomprehensible because it is incomprehensible. The only reason that cladists think that cladistics is comprehensible is that they do not understand that they confuse object and class. They simply do not understand what they are doing.  

Comments to Mikael Härlin and Per Sundberg's article: Taxonomy and Philosophy of Names. in: Biology and Philosophy 13 (2).

In this article, Mikael and Per wrote in the abstract that:

"Although naming biological clades is a major activity in taxonomy, little attention has been paid to what these names actually refer to. In philosophy, definite descriptions have long been considered equivalent to the meaning of names and biological taxonomy is a scientific application of these ideas. One problem with definite descriptions as the meanings of names is that the name will refer to whatever fits the description rather than the intended individual (clade)".

The issue is thus about what names refer to. An entitled question is then: what can names refer to? Traditionally, we simply point at things naming them. Mikael and Per do, however, thus claim that "In philosophy, definite descriptions have long been considered equivalent to the meaning of names". This meaning does, however, concern classes, not single individuals, The name of a single individual, like me, is not equivalent to any description of me. The philosophical meaning concerns classes of individuals, like humans. 

Then, Mikael and Per claims that: "one problem with definite descriptions as the meanings of names is that the name will refer to whatever fits the description rather than the intended individual (clade)". This statement appears to confuse individuals with classes. "Definite descriptions as the meanings of names" only concerns classes, not individuals. Mikael and Per's names are, for example, not dependent of "definite descriptions as the meanings of" them. Although the names of classes can be, and are, defined by "definite descriptions as the meanings of names", names of individuals (like Mikael and Per) aren't. There is thus a difference between names on individuals and names on classes, which Mikael and Per appears to miss.

Mikael and Per's blindness for the difference between individual and class thus leads them to the confusing conclusion that "the name will refer to whatever fits the description rather than the intended individual (clade)". They thus, obviously, think that we (the rest of us) can't keep track of what there are and what we create, because they can't. They, obviously, think that we are as confused as they are.

I can reassure Mikael and Per that I do not share their confusion. I can, on the contrary, differentiate between one human (like me) and humans (like us), and can thus also differentiate between naming of them. Their confusion is not my confusion. I do, moreover, not see any reason to publish their confusion, if it is not a major desease, and then published as a desease.

I can thus not understand how Biology and Philosophy could choose to publish Mikael and Per's confusion as a scientific article. To me, it is an expression of a desease rather than a rational opinion. Can anyone of them defend the article against my comments?       

Cladistics - is a lineage real (ie, objective) or artificial (ie, subjective)?

Objective biological systematics reached an end point in the Linnean systematics, since this system is the closest objective biological systematics can come to pure subjectivity, comprehending lineages (i.e., continuity) as artificial (i.e., subjective). Subjective biological systematics represented by Willi Hennig did, however, heave biological systematics over this boundary into pure subjectivity by instead comprehending lineages as real (i.e., objective).

So, the question to answer for biological systematists is:

are lineages real (objectively true) or subjective (artificial)?

One of them has to be true, since they are opposites and there are no other alternatives, and the answer can only be found by falsification, since both can be supported inductively. The question is thus:

which criterion (-a) do we have to tell them apart?

The answer is hidden in the fact that if lineages are real (i.e., objective), then they have to be identical with themselves in each consecutive moment in time, because this they can be only be if time and space "runs" synchronously, which they do not, as evidenced by the fact that time is relative to space. This fact means that a change in resolution factually changes the relation between any two lineage in any two consecutive moments in time in time and space, respectively. There is thus an inherent displacement between time and space over resolutions, which excludes stasis and imposes change, at the same time opening up for lineages to originate and end. This fact may appear both complicated and far-fetched as a criterion to tell the two possible "beings" for lineages apart, but it is the only criterion there is that can do the job. This criterion thus falsifies the comprehension that lineages are real (ie, objective), by meaning that no lineage is identical with itself in each consecutive moment in time. Every lineage do, on the contrary, both originate and end at each consecutive moment in time.

Willi Hennig's comprehension that lineages are real and that classification thereby can rest on historical continuity is thus wrong. The truth is, instead, that every lineage both originates and ends at each consecutive moment in time, thus making continuity subjective. And, basing classification on subjectivity (like cladistics) cannot, of course, reach stability.