fredag 4 oktober 2013

More wrong than cladistics is impossible to be

The old idea of ​​a single "true tree of life", today providing the foundation for Cladistics, confronts the two fundamentally different approaches in our conceptualization of reality: realism (ie, assuming that classes are real) and nominalism (ie, assuming that objects are real). The fundamental problem for our conceptualization of reality is namely that not both classes and objects can be real at the same time, since they can't fuse. This problem can be analogized with that not both reality and a map of reality can be real at the same time, since they can't fuse. Confronted with this fundamental choice between classes (ie, map) and objects (ie reality), realism (ie, cladistics) thus claims (asserts) that there indeed is a single "true tree of life" (ie, claims that there indeed is a single "true" map of reality), whereas nominalism denies the existence of such a single "true tree of life" (ie, comprehends reality as reality).

So, which of them do you think is right: realism claiming that map is reality or nominalism comprehending reality as reality?  The answer appears obvious (at least to me). realism's claim that map is reality is obviously wrong when it is confronted with the fact that reality is reality. 

It was realists that set up this confrontation with nominalism by their claim that there indeed is a single "true tree of life", which they thus obviously lose (ie, there isn't any "true tree of life". Their claim thus appears like a pink elephant that they claim can fly. The problem with this claim is that there are no pink elephants, and even if there had been, they wouldn't have been able to fly. The claim is thus totally wrong, more wrong than that is actually impossible to be.

The problem for biological systematics is thus how it shall explain to cladists that they are wrong. Whether cladists understand that they're wrong or not does not, however, matter, since they are wrong anyway.A failure to explain to cladists that they're wrong is thus a failure for biological systematics. It leaves biological systematics as a dream that there are pink elephants that can fly.
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