What cladists don't understand

What cladists don't understand is the fact that conflation is contradiction.

If we, for example, conflate the category humans with the category chimps into one category (ie, what cladists comprehend as the ancestor of and humans and chimps, but which actually is a claimed category we can call human-chimps, then this category is in practice a paradoxical claim (assertion, hypothesis) that there is a category of the contradictory class human-chimp. This class has the contradictory properties of both humans and chimps, and the ancestor is thus paradoxically contradictory between the two categories humans and chimps. It means that cladists think they have nailed a "relationship group", when they actually have claimed a paradoxically contradictory category of a contradictory class (ie, the class human-chimp). Cladists thus don't understand what they are doing.

Some cladists understand, or feel, the inconsistency of typifying categories (eg, Mikael Härlin) and the founders of the PhyloCode, and instead try to define clades only in terms of relationship. This does not, however, escape the fact that conflation is contradiction, since clades still conflate the classes before and after. This conflation is probably the most difficult to understand for cladists (as well as for all of us). When pointing at this conflation, cladists respond: so what? An entity may well be both before and after at the same time, or...? This rhetorical question does not, however, address the problem, but just cladists' own conflation. The answer to the question depends on whether entities are real or not. If they are real, then they can indeed be both before and after at the same time, whereas if they are artificial constructs, then they can't be both before and after at the same time per definition. The problem for cladists is that they both assume as an axiom that entities are artificial constructs, meaning that they can't be both before and after at the same time, and claim (assert) that they can be both before and after at the same time. The problem for cladists is thus that they exclude the possibility that entities can be both before and after at the same time, at the same time as they claim (assert) that they can. Cladists thus both assume and claim that entities can't and can be both before and after at the same time, respectively. This incompatible assumption and claim is actually the cladistic contradiction (hypocrisy) in a nutshell: if entities can't be both before and after at the same time, then cladists are inconsistent, whereas if entities can be both before and after at the same time, then cladists' axiom is wrong. Cladists are thus either inconsistent or wrong. And, since cladists are consistent, they have to be consistently inconsistent.

Cladists thus don't understand, actually refuse to understand, that conflation is contradiction. Instead, they only acknowledge contradiction.


 

Is cladistics inconsistent or not?

Biological systematics has lately (during the last 50 years or so) experienced a fundamental rift between proponents for a new approach called cladistics and traditional Linnean systematics (in the context of evolution called evolutionary taxonomy). The rift is rooted in Darwin's illustration of the origin of biodiversity as "the origin of species", since cladistists claim that they base their classification only on the bifurcating phylogenetic relationships between biological species, whereas Linnean systematists (ie, evolutionary taxonomists) assert that cladistics is inconsistent. Well is cladistics inconsistent or not?

The rift concerns classification of a bifurcating process, and classification of the entities (eg, biological species) in bifurcating processes has a tendency to distort our minds.

There are only two principally different kinds of classification of bifurcating processes: (1) a flat classification conflating entity with class (in this case represented by continuity), also called pattern and process, by using mutually exclusive classes (ie, clades and paraphyletic groups) and then categorizing these classes separately (ie, cladistics), and (2) an orthogonal system of classification keeping entity and class consistently apart by using (categories of) categories of classes (eg, evolutionary taxonomy).

The former (1) is simpler to understand, but also paradoxically contradictory in present (ie, between before and after in continuity) and thus lacking a consistent solution, whereas the latter (2) is more difficult to understand, but consistent and thus having several consistent solutions. The (only) principal difference between these two possible options is thus that the former (1) lacks consistent solution, whereas the latter (2) has several consistent solutions.

The fact that puzzles us, and thus drives the distortion of our minds, is that there is no single unambiguous ("true" or "natural") classification of a single such process. Frustration over this fact was probably resposible for cladists' radical move to simply assert (actually define) that there indeed is a single unambiguous ("true" or "natural") classification to be found, in the form of what they first called "monophyletic groups" but later became known as "clades", but which consistently ought to be called "holophyletic groups". This assertion is thus wrong. There is no such unambiguous classification "to be found". Classifications are actually not found at all, they are produced.

So, why isn't there a single unambiguous ("natural") classification of a single such process ("to be found")? Well, this question has millions of possible answers, but the mere attempt to explain it is actually irrational. An answer can only point to how the idea of such classification is inconsistent (actually paradoxically contradictory), like Bertrand Russell did in Russell's paradox, and to that it is falsified by the fact that time is relative to space, not explain why it is. The reason that such classification is lacking is a fact and as such inexplicable. Facts can't be explained; only directed processes can. It just allows us to draw conclusions about what it says about reality. The most fundamental of these conclusions is that reality is not rational, that is, that reality is irrational. The only alternative to this conclusion is to deny facts, that is, to BE irrational (like cladists do and are). Also the answer to why a single unambiguous ("true" or "natural") classification is lacking is thus lacking.

This fact explains the problems non-cladists had (and have) to respond to cladists' erroneous assertion (which Ashlock and Mayr, among many others, experienced and experience). If cladists choose (or don't understand better) to ignore facts and be irrational, then there is nothing the rest of us can do about it. There is no possibility to force anyone to accept facts and be rational. The option to ignore facts and be irrational can't be closed. That's why I'm just trying to explain that cladistics is irrational, so that cladists will have a harder time to lull others into the belief that it is rational (and thus that rationality is irrational). My only aim is, as a Swedish leader for the left wing party once expressed it, that: "there must be some kind of order also in the left wing party [ie, biological systematics]".

Classification of entities in a bifurcating process thus has a tendency to distort our minds, but I resist allowing it distort them to the degree of turning irrational into rational and vice versa, that is, turning biological systematics from a science into a belief, even if the fact that there isn't any unambiguous classification of a single bifurcating process is frustrating. Being irrational is extremely confusing, and biological systematics can probably not compete with all other beliefs anyway, especially since it evidently lacks a God. Instead, I struggle to retain biological systematics among the rational sciences by advocating evolutionary taxonomy for classification in the context of evolution. But, as I explained above, I can't hinder anyone from denying facts and being irrational. The gate to denial of facts and irrationality can't be closed.

Cladistics does thus not base its classification only on the bifurcating phylogenetic relationships between biological species, but on any contradictory belief in a bifurcating relationship between biological species. It actually tries to categorize a contradictory classification (ie, into clades and paraphyletic groups) of any bifurcating process, which actually is a generic phenomenon and therefore conflated with a category. It tries to realize an idea (which to them already appears realized) that can't be realized. Cladistics is thus clearly inconsistent, although consistently inconsistent.

Cladistics is a "natural" confusion

Science acknowledges the fact is that there are two aspects of entities: pattern and process.

Cladistics distinguishes itself fundamentally from science by assumiing as an axiom that there is no difference between pattern and process.

Now, if cladistics indeed is correct, then it thus loses its foundation, since there is nothing to be no difference between, leaving cladistics with nothing but its contradiction.

Cladistics is thus fundamentally contradiction, that is, eternal division, or evolution itself.

Cladistics thus turns Darwin's discussion about evolution into evolution itself by denying the difference between pattern and process that conceptualization of reality rests on. This approach isn't "natural", as cladists assert, but possibly a "natural" confusion..

How on earth can the paranoic approach cladistics have gained such widespread acceptance in biological systematics?

Cladists conflate their assumptions (ie, "coding of properties into characters and character states", actually classification) with their deduction (ie. a phylogenetic tree, also actually classification) as closely as possible, as if any assumption is correct by deduction per definition. Isn't this the shortest circularity (ie, paranoia) there is?

It is just as if I would analyze my opinions by reviewing them in the light of the evidence that made me form them. Where can such analysis lead to if not to that my opinions are correct.

How on earth have this paranoic approach gained such a widespread acceptance in biological systematics? Are biological systematists especially prone to self-confirmation?

How on earth shall biological systematics drag itself out of the hole of cladistics?

Cladists think that the question whether objectivity or subjectivity is to be preferred in biological systematics is a matter of voting. They think that if the majority prefers objectivity, then objectivity should be preferred, whereas if the majority prefers subjectivity, then subjectivity should be preferred.

Not everything is, however, a matter of voting. Being consistent is one of the things that are not. A consistent approach can't be voted to be inconsistent, just as an inconsistent approach can't be voted to be consistent, and, whereas objectivity is consistent, subjectivity is inconsistent.

It means that voting for subjectivity is actually voting for inconsistency, and although also consistency has to be comprehended as incomprehensible by some, inconsistency IS incomprehensible per definition. Nothing can be comprehensible for everyone, but approaches can be both consistent and inconsistent, and subjectivity is inconsistent and thus also incomprehensible per definition. Voting for subjectivity is thus voting for incomprehensibility.

Cladists have thus missed the point that subjectivity is inconsistent. This fact means that only cladists (ie, subjectivists) can agree about subjectivity, but that they cannot agree about any specific subjective opinion, whereas everyone can (at least potentially) unify around a specific objective opinion. Agreement is thus within reach in the objective approach (since it is consistent), whereas it is not within reach in the subjective (since it is inconsistent).

These properties of objectivity and subjectivity respectively is not a matter of voting. Voting for objectivity or subjectivity is thus actually a matter of voting for or against consistency and inconsistency, and thus also for comprehensibility or incomprehensibility. Presently, biological systematists appear to vote for subjectivity, and thus for inconsistency and incomprehensibility.

How on earth shall biological systematics drag itself out of this hole?      

Cladists are ridiculous

If the science of evolution, ie, phylogenetics, surrender to cladistics, then it is lost, because cladistics is a contradictory fanaticism. Surrender to it would be as if moderate muslims would surrender to fanatic muslims. Science stands between ignorance and fanaticism like a beacon on the ocean of knowledge. Scientists thus have to claim science against both enemies of science and believers in science. Science is not a matter of belief, but of knowledge.

There will always be fanatics claiming monopoly in every approach, but the challange for scientists is to point the way to knowledge, in the sense of knowing. Cladistics is the fanaticism of phylogenetics. Phylogenetic scientists, like me, thus just have to explain the difference between knowing and believing to cladists. They are at least heading in the correct direction by adopting the axiom of evolution. We just have to enlighten them about the fact that there can't be any True Tree of Life per definition. Cladists are not generically, but only specifically wrong. The problem, for them, is that their error is ridiculous. Everyone can see that they contradict themselves.

On the inconsistency of cladistics

Single entities have two aspects: pattern and process. Pattern is the momentary aspect, that is, in time, whereas process is the temporary aspect, that is, over time. It means that it takes (at least) two consecutive patterns to make up one process, and that they, "pattern"and "process", thus are orthogonal, ie, diametrically opposed, or excluding a mutual 1-1 correspondance.

So-called "natural groups" (ie, the class, or the infinite type), that is, groups of entities that form super-entities by combining the the two aspects "class" and "historical unity", are the opposite to entities. It means that such "things" ARE two aspects at the same time, that is, that they conflate the two aspects "pattern" and "process". Such "natiral groups" thus both combine and conflate the two aspects "pattern" and "process",

This fact triggers the question: what, then, is the difference between "combining" and "conflating"? The answer depends on how one combines. If one combines by conflating, then the difference is none, that is, that there isn't any difference between them.

This fact explains the impossibility of "natural groups". Such groups have to conflate the two aspects "pattern" and "process", although these are two aspects of entities. Such groups are thus possible only if entities are impossible, and vice versa. Such groups and entities thus exclude each other.

The meaning of this fact may be difficult to understand, but it is simply that one of them is contradictory given that the other is unambiguous. This fact, in turn, means that the class "clade" (giving rise to cladistics) is practically contradictory per definition, since not both entities and natural groups of entities can be unambiguous at the same time. This fact makes applied cladistics non-sensical. The class "clade" simply can't make up a non-contradictory, ie, unambiguous, category (ie, finite class) per definition, since not both entities and natural groups of entities can make up categories at the same time.

Cladistics is thus inconsistent (actually consistently inconsistent) in an applied sense by including two categories that exclude each other. It means that cladistics rests on Russell's paradox. The only difference between science and cladistics is thus that cladistics believes that Russell's paradox can be found. Otherwise, they are totally parallell. Unfortunately, for cladistics, science is right and cladistics wrong. 

  

The cladistic idea of a single True Tree of Life appears as the ultimate spin of all categories

The cladistic idea of a single True Tree of Life is contradictory by illustrating change, because change is contradictory.

This fact doesn't mean that a single event (like a hypothetical origin of biodiversity from a single primordial form) can't be unambiguous, but that it can't be described unambiguously. The insurmountable barrier resides in fusing one piece of change (ie, one process) with two consecutive pieces of entities (ie, two patterns), and is called Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

This barrier believed the German entomologist Willi Hennig himself capable of bridging by only acknowledging change (ie, contradiction), thus denying pattern (ie, unambiguity), just as if acknowledgement of only contradiction can TURN contradiction non-contradictory.

Willi Hennig thus believed himself capable of getting rid of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by only acknowledging contradiction, and thereby turning the principle up-side-down into an opposite certainty principle, although change is just as contradictory (and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle just as real) after this mental exercise as it was before. This belief (today called cladistics) does thus emerge in an extremely tight spin from sensibility to insensibility, appearing as the ultimate spin of all categories.

On the relation between cladistics and Linnean systematics

Cladistics and Linnean systematics are opposites. Both conceptualize reality using objects, classes and categories, but whereas cladistics assumes that categories (and thus also classes), like humans and cods, are real, ie, can be found, Linnean systematics instead assumes that objects, like you and me, are real, ie, can be found. Cladistics is thus subjective, whereas Linnean systematics is objective.

Both of them (ie, categories (and thus also classes) and objects) can't be real at the same time, since they are orthogonal, ie, diametrically opposed, and that it thus would mean that they would be synonymous, which they obviously aren't. Cladistics pretends that it acknowledges both categories and objects at the same time, but in practice it acknowledges categories (and thus also classes) instead of objects. Both of them can't be acknowledged at the same time, because they are orthogonal.

Cladistics and Linnean systematics thus represent the two possible entrances to conceptualization: (1) assuming that categories (and thus also classes) are real and (2) assuming that objects are real, respectively. The problem with cladistics is that it is contradictory between categories and classes (ie, finite classes and infinite classes), whereas the problem with Linnean systematics is that it is ambiguous in relation to reality. Neither is thus unambiguous in relation to reality. It means that we can't be unambiguous in relation to reality at all, since no entrance to conceptualization is unambiguous in relation to reality, but instead are constrained to discuss advantages and disadvantages of the two possible entrances to conceptualization.

The main advantage with objectivity (eg, Linnean systematics) is that it agrees with facts. Discussing reality using a conceptualization that does not agree with facts (like the cladistic concepts "clade" and "paraphyletic group") has to be  confused, since the concepts are contradictory. The concepts simply can't be defined non-contradictory. This main advantage with objectivity explains its success in the form of empirical science and modern IT applications as object oriented programming (eg, Geomatics). Objectivity is thus superior to subjectivity by agreeing with facts.

In spite of this strong advantage of objectivity, it has severe problems being accepted in biological systematics. Biological systematists obviously prefer conducting confused existential discussions to producing a standardized system of classification. It is just as if they can't abandon the naive idea that there is a single truth to be found; as if their own existence hangs on the existence of a single truth. In practice, however, it is the other way around.

Biological systematics in terms of cladistics is a severe misunderstanding

If cladists were cartographers, then they would battle about which map that is the true map. Cladists obviously lack ability to straighten out the relation between reality and maps (ie, descriptions) of it, instead confusing them to the extent of believing that maps of reality can BE reality (ie,a belief in a true map).

The problem with traditional maps is that a 2-D representation of a 3-D reality has to err in either area, distance or angle, because the dimensional reduction from 3 to 2 can't preserve all three. The problem with phylogenetic illustrations is that a 2-D representation of a 4-D reality (then including time) is that every single representation is contradictory, because there are several just as correct 2-D representations of a single 4-D reality. And, since illustrations of phylogenies are 2-D representations of a 4-D reality, there are several just as correct illustrations of the phylogeny of biodiversity. The cladistic conflation of illustration (ie, representation) with the illustrated (ie, the represent) may be "natural", but is none the less contradictory. A single true such representation simply can't be found, because all of them are contradictory. The "natural" belief that such thing can be found is simply wrong.

Biological systematics in terms of cladistics is thus a severe misunderstanding. The illustration of the origin of biodiversity in the form of a dichotomously branching graph does not equal evolution, but is merely an illustration of it. A classification of this process in terms of the illustration (ie, cladistics) is contradictory, because there are several just as correct ways to illustrate one and the same process (see Jeremy Martin et al.). Abandoning the scientific Linnean system (ie, evolutionary taxonomy) for a cladistic classification would thus be a severe mistake.

Cladistics is the opposite to geomatics

Cladistics (ie, the belief in a single truth in the form of The Tree of Life) is the opposite to geomatics (ie,  the discipline of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering spatially referenced information). Only one of them can thus be correct: if cladistics is correct, then geomatics is over-complication, whereas if geomatics is correct, then cladistics is over-simplification.

The difference between them is that geomatics distinguishes between reference and referent, which cladistics doesn't. The question is thus whether distinction of reference and referent is overcomplication or if equalization of them is over-simplification? The question is thus whether reference and referent has to be distinguished at all?

If we do not distinguish reference and referent, then a fat man is a fat man instead of a man that is fat. If this man loses weight and becomes thin, then he is accordingly a new man, that is, a thin man, instead of being a man that has gone from being fat to being thin. The identity of this man does not reside in being an entity, but in being an entity of this or that kind. The cladistic confusion of reference and referent does thus connect the identity of an entity to any category it is allocated to, instead of to its being of an entity itself. This approach is traditionally called typology, because it attaches greater importance to which category an entity is allocated to, than to its being an entity itself. This approach has also done much harm over the history of humanity by reducing single entities into anonymous instances of a category, thereby allowing sweeping generalizations over single entities about any category.  

The cladistic confusion of reference and referent does thus anonymize entities (like you and me) in favor for categories (ie, kinds), like fat, thin, good, bad, beautiful, ugly, and so on. This approach can't be claimed to be wrong on the basis on what we have said so far, but these are the fundamental generic differences between the cladistic confusion and geomatics' distinction of reference and referent. Geomatics attaches all importance to that an entity is an entity, and no importance to which category this entity is allocated to, because allocations to categories are always provisional. No entity does necessarily belong to any category, because a non-contradictory overall categorization is impossible. This statement does, however, claim that cladistics, ie, the typological approach, is wrong by denying its practical possibility.

So, how can I support the statement that "a non-contradictory overall categorization is impossible"? Well, the fundamental support resides in that every single category contains several categories per definition. There is no single non-contradictory solution for a system wherein every unit contains both several units and several entities at the same time, per definition. Instead, units that contain both several units and several entities at the same time are contradictory between units and entities per definition.

We can thus conclude that the cladistic confusion of reference and referent is contradictory per definition, which keeping them apart isn't.Cladistics thus appears to be wrong and geomatics right, luckily.  

Cladistics is an entrance to fundamental inconsistency problems

Cladistics assumes as an axiom, claims and defines that there are true and false clasifications, although there can't be. Its axiom, claim and definition instead actually both equals and differentiates infinite classes (ie, classes) and finite classes (ie, categories) at the same time, which is contradictory. Fact is, instead, that cladistics is a contradictory, actually paradoxically contradictory, conflation of infinite classes with finite classes.

Cladistics is thus not a solution to any problem, but an entrance to fundamental inconsistency problems.

On the illusion called cladistics

Cladistics is simply the claim (assertion) that there is a True, ie, non-contradictory, classification to be found. It is the dream of total unambiguity presented as a claim (assertion).

The problem with cladistics is simply that its claim (assertion) is wrong. There is no True, ie, non-contradictory, classification to be found, because if there had been, then change would have been an illusion and time would not have been relative to space.

Cladistics is thus totally, meaning totally, wrong. It is, in fact, the mental desease we call paranoia. It may appear "natural" to paranoids, but it is just because it is the paranoia.