måndag 2 januari 2012

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.      

  

Inga kommentarer:

Skicka en kommentar