fredag 9 augusti 2013

How long will cladistics' belief in a single "true tree of live" survive within biological systematics?

The problem with cladistics is that it conflates states of things with change between states of things.

This conflation gives rise to the question: "why do we distinguish states of things and change if we then conflate them?", and, "which of all possible conflations of them equals them?".

Every possible conflation is namely also paradoxically contradictory (see Russell's paradox), so, how can we possibly ever agree on a particular conflation of them, when we can't even agree on the fact that it is a conflation of  states of things with change between states of things?

Now, if we can't possibly ever agree on a particular conflation of them, then we have to ask ourselves what we are doing and why. Our efforts will never result in any stable state, but will just give rise to new inconsistencies forever. This chase started from an axiomatic belief in a single "true tree of life", so when will we abandon this belief? After ten years, after one hundred years, after one thousand years, or never?

So, how long will cladistics' belief in a single "true tree of live" survive within biological systematics? (It will never die as an idea, but the question is how long it will survive in biological systematics). 

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