On the problem for cladistics

Cladists claim that only groups consisting of an ancestor and its descendants are "natural groups". However, if there is a finite number of members of such groups, then there must be an infinite number of such groups, and vice versa, because if the number of both is finite, then at least one such group is a paradox (ie, Russell's paradox).

Cladists thus have to pass the insurmountable barrier between finity and infinity, ie, resolve Russell's paradox, to realize their claim, ie, find the true tree of life. Does anyone dare to bet that they will succeed in a limited time frame?

No, cladistics is actually the worst error we can make, that is, to conflate object with class. It is not only stupid, but as stupid as we can possibly be. It is the opposite to sense, that is, nonsense. It actually marks the beginning of the end for science unless it is clearly dismissed by scientists.

Cladistics is pure old race biology

The approach in biological systematics called "cladistics" is nothing but pure old race biology in a new dress.

 

 

It is fundamentally the belief in kinds, ie, class-realism.

The explanation of why there isn't any single ultimate truth

The problem with finding a single ultimate truth does not reside in reasoning, but in classification. The problem is that there isn't any both internally consistent and externally unambiguous (ie, with regard to reality) classification. Instead, there are only internally inconsistent (ie, paradoxically contradictory) and externally ambiguous classifications (like cladistics and Linnean systematics, respectively).

It means that we can think forever without finding any single ultimate truth. There simply isn't any to find. There thus isn't any "single true tree of life" as cladists claim, nor any "Higgs particle" as particle physicists claim. Instead, the idea that there is such a single ultimate truth is a fundamental misunderstanding of conceptualization, called (class)-realism, ie, the belief that classes are real. This idea is actually the only conceptual construction that conceptualization excludes. Every attempt to formulate such a "truth" will thus be either paradoxically contradictory or contradicted by facts.

The idea of a single ultimate truth is thus like the carrot in front of the donkey's eyes - a practical illusion.

         

A message to those that search for The Truth (like cladists and Higgs particle-ists)

To those people that are engaged in fundamental (basic) research searching for The Truth, like cladists and Higgs particle-ists, I can inform them that such a thing is not to be found. The place where it ought to be is simply empty.

I don't know how they could arrive to the belief that there is such a thing, but I can inform them that it is in practice just a bite in their own tails, ie, what they say it is, but consistently contradictory.

If there indeed had been something in this place, then it would have been overpopulated.

Belief in a single truth is the problem for science

The fundamental problem with conceptualization of reality is that both reality and conceptualization of it are orthogonal, and that they (ie, reality and conceptualization of it) are mutually orthogonal, because it means that conceptuazation can only reach either ambiguity in relation to reality or paradoxical contradiction within itself - the former does it reach when it's internally consistent (eg, using ZFC), and latter does it reach when it's inconsistent (eg, using naive set theory). This problem does thus mean that it can't reach both consistency within conceptualization and unambiguity in relation to reality (at the same time).

Assertiing the contrary (ie, that it can reach both consistency within conceptualization and unambiguity in relation to reality) eg, cladistics, does thus actually lead to paradoxical contradiction.

Asserting that it has reached the contrary (eg, has found Higgs particles, is thus contradicted by facts (eg, the fact that time is relative with speed in space, and that there are anti-materia).

The idea of a single consistent AND unambiguous conceptualization of reality is what we intuitively call The Truth (unlike "truth" within conceptualization, ie, logical truth). Such a single "Truth" is thus not possible to reach due to the practical obstacles explained above, but fundamentally due to that conceptualization distinguishes itself from the reality it discusses. The idea of such a single "Truth" is thus not different from the old idea of a God - it is clearly irrational, but can't be wiped out from our minds.

It means that conceptualization of reality is fundamentally a quagmire from which many of us flee into a belief in something, may it be a God or "The Truth", because those of us can't stand the thought of being left on a quagmire. A true atheist, however, accepts the fact that he/she is left on a quagmire and do the best he/she can under the circumstances. It is the pure relativist approach - the only rational approach.

Belief in a single truth in science (which can be called science-ism), like cladistics and Higgs particle-ism, has the major disadvantage of including race biology (apart from being irrational). As a true atheist, I thus strongly argue against this extremism of science. Science is rational and practically useful, but belief in a single truth is irrational, actually paradoxically contradictory. This belief is thus actually both the driving force for, the "black hole" of and the main enemy to science..

On the truth of cladistics and particle physics

Cladists and particle physicists both assert that a contradiction (ie, "a true tree of life" and "Higgs particle", respectively) is real. The only difference between them is that cladists have not yet asserted that they have found it, which particle physicists on the contrary have.

If they indeed can find their respective contradiction empirically, then logic is wrong, since logic rests on the distinction of true and false, and false then is true. However, if logic is wrong in this way, then it means that it is just wrong in assessing true as true and false as false, when it actually should assess true as false and false as true, which it can adjust by considering true as false and false as true.

It means that if we have an argument that p implies q, and we prove that this argument is true, then we simply conclude that it is false, and vice versa, thereby proving that "everything goes" as Kuhn expressed it. In a world of contradiction, every argument is true, and every assertion can be framed in an argument that supports it. The only thing that can't be true is that time is relative (with speed in space), which is a fact. This is the subjective aspect of reality ( ie, the aspect that denies meta-levels of problems).

If this aspect gains public support, as in bold racism, then we're heading into the 3rd World War. The only way to avoid this development is to understand that cladists' and particle physicists' assertions are impossible. Never will they find their respective pink elephants. Science does not assert the existence of particular sets, but rather denies the existence of them.   

Cladistics and Higgs particle-ism are simply just annoying conceptual conflations of "object" and "class"

Things like "the true tree of life" of cladistics and "the Higgs particle" of particle physics are logical end paradoxes of conflation of "object" with "class", ie, actually assuming that classes are real instead of objects, as in the cases of the class "species" of cladistics and all classes of "elementary particles" of particle physics, which also Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 with his "Russell's paradox". The simple reason for this fate of such conflations is that classification is orthogonal and therefore leads to paradox in logical reasoning if we conflate the direction of the orthogonality of classification.

Exactly how it leads to paradox is, however, more difficult to explain, because it only concerns conceptualization and logic themselves, not the reality they refer to, that is, the relation between the concepts "objects" (or "particles") and "classes" together with the relation between "premises" and "deductions" of logic, and thus is confusing.

The fundamental problem is that whereas few of us would ever conflate "premises" with "deduction", many of us have a tendency to conflate "objects" with "class" (notice that the former in these two pairs is in plural whereas the latter is in singular), although the relation between the former of the pairs to the latter of the pairs is the same in both pairs: a deduction can't exist without presumed premises just as a class can't exist without presumed objects. This problem (ie, that many of us have a tendency to conflate "objects" with "class") thus means that those (many of us) start their logical reasoning from assumed classes instead of from assumed objects, meaning that they get the relation between the two pairs "objects and class" and "premises and deduction" as orthogonal, meaning that they actually conflate "plural" with "singular" by conflating "class" with ""premises" and "objects" with "deduction". This conflation leads to some kind of Russell's paradox because a single single object thereby is "a half" deduction. Such "a half" deduction (ie, Russell's paradox) are thus both "the true tree of life" of cladistics and "the Higgs particle" of particle physics. Typical for such figments of the imagination is that they are singular, ie, "THE true tree of life" and "THE Higgs particle", in difference from, for example, "species", "leptones" and "bosons". As "half deductions" they are paradoxically contradictory between pattern and process, as the Barber in Barbers paradox.

Belief in such paradoxes is either devastating or irrelevant. It is devastating if it induces a practical search for the paradox, because a paradox can't, of course, be found, and irrelevant if it claims to have found the paradox (like particle physics). It is simply just an annoying conceptual conflation in science.             

Class-realism, as cladistics and particle physics, and Russell's paradox

Class-realism, as cladistics and particle physics, rests on the axiom that classes are real. This assumption did Bertrand Russell falsify in 1901 by demonstrating that it leads to paradox, ie, Russell's paradox, in logical reasoning.

Russell's paradox can be understood fairly simple as that a class consisting of two classes, for example class "A" consisting of class "B" and class "C", is BOTH neither class "B" nor class "C" AND both class "B" and class "C". Class "A" is thus BOTH neither nor AND both and class "B" and class "C". This relationship makes the question: "Which of "B" and "C" is "A"?" indeterminable - it is neither any of them nor both of them.

This paradox do the opposite to class-realism, nominalism - resting on the axiom that particles are real, not have to encounter, since a corresponding particle "A" consisting of the particles "B" and "C" can be allocated to another and orthogonal class to "B" and "C" (like the genera of Linnean systematics). Particles that are physically nested can be consistently allocated to different (and orthogonal) classes.

The fact that class-realism leads to paradox do class-realists themselves, however, not comprehend as a falsification of their axiom, but instead as that paradoxes are real, eg, cladistics' belief in "a single true tree of life" and particle physics' belief in "Higgs particle". This comprehension is, however, inconsistent with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and falsified by the fact that time is relative with speed in space. It is thus falsified empirically by the only empirical fact we have to test it. There thus simply can't be such "things". Instead, belief in them is in practice an infinite recursion, ie, endless orthogonal loop.

On the impossibility to find a consistent and unambiguous model of reality

The impossibility for us to find a consistent and unambiguous model of reality, such as the ideas of "a single true tree of life" (cladistics) and of "a single Grand Unifying Theory" (particle physics), is obviously not due to reality, but to our conceptualization itself (see Russell's paradox), although reality itself obviously has the same problem, since it can't stop. It means that a search for such ideas actually mimics reality instead of modeling it. Ironic, isn't it?

Against stupidity (like cladistics) do facts battle in vain

Cladistics was actually rejected before it emerged. Already in 1901, Bertrand Russell demonstrated that classification ultimately leads to paradox, which is the appraoch of Cladistics. The fact that Cladistics leads to paradox was thus known before Cladistcs emerged. Cladists thus ought to consider known facts before it claims that facts are wrong.

Against stupidity, like Cladistics, do facts battle in vain.

Cladistics denies what it searches for

Cladistics does not acknowledge the difference between reality and our comprehension of reality, and does thereby deny interfaces in a generic sense. It means that Cladisics actually acts as an interface between reality and our comprehension of it, that is, is contradictory between the two. As such, it can't find what it searches for (ie, "the true tree of life") per definition, since it factually denies what it is searching for. Finding what one searches for does at least require acknowledging it.

The sense of cladistics shines by its absence

Cladists are actually fossils from before we (humans) developed quantum mechanics (during the 21st century). They simply refuse to acknowledge the problems with classical physics, but instead "deny" quantum mechanics, and do thereby end up in the problems with classical physics (specifically Russell's paradox in the form of a "tree of life"). They obviously think that reality is just an issue of denying and acknowledging, although Bertrand Russell demonstrated already 1901 that this methodology leads to paradox. It is just as if cladists think they can defeat paradox by believing in it. The sense of the approach shines by its absence.     

Conceptualization and the contrary, ie, cladistics

We (humans) conceptualize the reality we perceive using a tool composed of three components: objects (aka entities), infinite classes (aka imaginary types) and finite classes (aka categories). We perform conceptualization by distinguishing objects and allocating them to finite classes using infinite classes. In this process, infinite classes functions as a catalyst for allocation of objects into categories. The only requirement of conceptualization is that we keep objects, infinite classes and finite classes consistently apart, because if we don't, then we confuse conceptualization itself by conflating them.

However, there is an inconsistency internally in conceptualization in the concept of "the finite class of all finite classes" (ie, the category of all categories) residing in the definitional fact that finite classes (ie, categories) are not single objects, but several objects, whereas the notion of "the finite class of all finite classes" is a single object consisting of several finite classes and thus both (ie, paradoxically contradictory between) an object and a finite class, that is, a single object and several objects. This notion is thus empty per definition by being both an object and a class at the same time, that is, a paradox (ie, Russell's paradox).

The German Nazi entomologist Willi Hennig did, however, turn this fact up-side-down by comprehending the finite class of all finite classes as "the only natural group". The problem with this comprehension is thus that it is inconsistent (ie, paradoxically contradictory). He (and others) may thus comprehend this "group" as "the only natural group", but neither he nor others can ever pinpoint this "group" without contradiction, because it is paradoxically contradictory per definition. If it hadn't been, then it could also have had an ancestor.

Willi Hennig and his followers (ie, cladists) obviously think that finite classes are real instead of objects, which leads them to conflation of "finite class" with "infinite class", and thus to conflation of conceptualization itself. Instead of conceptualizing reality, they, obviously, search for "the true" conceptualized reality, which in practice is their own conceptualization of reality, whichever it is, but paradoxically contradictory per definition.

This spin around the internal inconsistency of conceptualization can only be halted by considering what we talk about (ie, objects, like humans, or classes, like human).

Cladistics is a mass psychosis

Cladistics is a mass psychosis. There isn't any single true tree of life per definition, since it requires that what an entity is equals what an entity does, which excludes change. It would have been fantastic if cladistics would have been consistent, but unfortunately it is just consistently inconsistent, ie, paradoxically contradictory.

Can cladists back off from their claim with their honor intact?

Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 that naive set theory leads to paradox.

This demonstration made Ernst Zermelo (1908) propose an axiomatization of set theory that avoids this paradox by replacing arbitrary set comprehension with weaker existence axioms, such as his axiom of separation (Aussonderung). Later modifications to this axiomatization proposed in the 1920s by Abraham Fraenkel, Thoralf Skolem, and by Zermelo himself resulted in the axiomatic set theory called ZFC. This theory was initially controversial, but became widely accepted once Zermelo's axiom of choice ceased to be controversial, and has since then remained the canonical axiomatic set theory down to the present day.

The German Nazi entomologist Willi Hennig did, however, ignore both Russell's demonstration, Zemelo et al's avoidance of this paradox  and ZFC, when he in 1955 instead simply claimed that "only monophyletic groups [in effect Russell's paradox] appear to be natural groups". Hennig thus didn't consider the scientific discussion about Russell's paradox, which also confused biological systematists at the time since Darwin had presentated his theory "on the origin of species", but simply claimed that only this paradox appears to be natural groups. In spite of this Hennig's omission, his claim gave rise to the approach in biological systematics that today is called "cladistics", and which also today is searching for this paradox. This approach has thus totally missed the fact that naive set theory leads to paradox (as well as the scientific discussion about this fact).

The question now is thus: who in the world can explain to cladists that Hennig was ignorant about the discussion about monophyly (ie, Russell's paradox) when he made his claim that "only monophyletic groups [ie, Russell's paradox] appear to be natural groups". And, can cladists withdraw their claim at all (which is more of a belief than a claim)? Can cladists back off with their honor intact?

Closer than the Linnean system can classification not come to reality

Classification can only be either ambiguous or paradoxically contradictory. It is ambiguous if we use an orthogonal system like Linnean systematics, and paradoxically contradictory if not. The reason for this fact is that classification ultimately is paradoxically contradictory, which Bertrand Russell demonstrated with Russell's paradox in 1901. It means that classification can't reach unambiguity at all. It doesn't matter what we do, never will it reach unambiguity.

This fact has cladistics, ie, Willi Hennig, turned up-side-down into a notion that classification indeed can reach unambiguity in the form of a single true tree of life. This notion is thus wrong. It can't. Classification can't reach unambiguity.Instead, this notion is just an empty belief like the belief in Creation. The two are just as empty, although believing in different contradictions. Linné's system is actually the ambiguous belance between all such contradictory beliefs. Closer than it can classification not come to reality.

What can a species possibly be?

Ever since the dawn of Biological systematics, it has discussed what a "species" is. This fundamental problem appears to concern how we shall specify a consistent and unambiguous kind of group of organsisms, but does actually concern how we shall overcome the fact that such a kind of group is a definitional contradiction. Such a kind of group consists of both single species and single organisms at the same time, and is thus consistent only if species equal organisms, which are not groups, but single organisms. The problem is thus not how we shall specify a consistent and unambiguous kind of group of organsisms, but that we can't.

Rather than asking the question what a species is, we thus ought to ask the question why we can't specify what a "species" is, which is answered by the conclusion above. This answer does not, however, suffice to those biological systematists that ask the question what a species is. It does not even qualify as an alternative among the possible answers to their question. "Nothing" is not an acceptable answer to them.

Carl von Linné  partly overcame this problem by constructing an orthogonal system of classification wherein species is consistent in relation to genera, and genera is consistent in relation to species. This system did not solve the fundamental problem that reality is distinct from our conceptualization of it, ie, that the relation between the two can't be unambiguous, but only the problem of consistency.

A later approach in biological systematics called Cladistics instead "solved" this problem by simply asuming as an axiom that we indeed can specify what species are, in the form of a single true tree of life. This solution did not, however, actually solve the problem, but merely transfered it into finding the single true tree of life, which, thus, is a definitional impossibility. Such thing is simply impossible per definition. Another approach in biological systematics called Evolutionary taxonomy adopted Linné's system and was thus at least consistent, although ambiguous.

However, in a fundamental battle in biological systematics in the 1980-ies, biological systematists downvoted Evolutionary systematics in favor for Cladistics. The outcome of this battle tilted biological systematics up-side-down from being a scientific discipline into being a belief in a single true tree of life. It simply expelled scientific thinking from biological systematics. (This was the time I entered biological systematics (in the beginning of the 90-ies). Unfortunately, I was thus expelled from biological systematics in the moment I paid for entering it. I didn't get in before I was out. Not yielding for a belief in a single true tree of life effectively excluded me from getting any position at any academy. This belief was the ticket of entrance to positions. Since then, I have been referred to expressing my protests against this belief to media that is not governed by cladists, also excluding Wikipedia (which is governed by cladists)). Today, biological systematics is thus dominated by Cladistics, although Cladistics is paradoxically contradictory. You can thus get a position at any academy if you search for a paradox, but not if you say that Cladistics is a search for a paradox. Paranoia is acceptable, but not stating that it is a paranoia.

Ultimately, cladistics is doomed to eternal splitting (like the species it believes in are), on the contrary to Linnean systematics, because a house can only stand firmly on a consistent ground, like Linnean systematics. Belief in eternal splitting does, of course, lead to eternal splitting.



   

On the difference between phylogenetics and cladistics, and the error of cladistics

The error of cladistics is not that it assumes that species have orginated by a dichotomously branching process, but that it assumes that species (and thus also the species of species) are real, since this assumption is a paradox (which Bertrand Russell also demonstrated already in 1901, that is, before the origin of cladistics). This assumption does not phylogenetics do.

The scientific question concerning evolution is not how species have originated, as cladists appear to think, but how biological organisms have originated and diversified, as phylogeneticists think. Species are not concrete entities, as cladists appear to think, but an abstraction that phylogenetics uses together with the abstraction "genus" as an orthogonal conceptual tool to discuss the biological diversity. Cladists take the scientific phylogenetic discussion too literally, leading them into a typological perspective on reality which can be called inverse science, because it superficially looks like science but follows an orthogonally opposite line of logical reasoning, ie, resting on the axiom that abstract classes (like species) instead of concrete objects (like organisms) are real. This inverse science is also responsible for the disgusting race biology of the early 20th century.

On the concept "clade" and the belief "cladistics"

The now popular concept "clade" in biological systematics is actually an infinitely recursive concept, like "the list of all lists", by including itself as a member of itself. A belief that this concept indeed can break even, today called "Cladistics", and its corollary search for what it calls "the true tree of life", is actually in practice a belief that every clade is what cladistics calls a "sister-group" to itself and that the most inclusive clade also is a sister-group to the least inclusive clade. It is thus an absurd belief by believing in the obviously absurd.

Linnean systematics and Evolutionary taxonomy avoid this sink hole by arranging concepts orthogonally as categories of classes (of organisms).

The question whether there is such a "single true tree of life" or not thus has a negative answer - there isn't. Instead, there are actually several equally true graph illustrations of a hypothesized evolutionary origin of biological organisms. Large scale change (ie, evolution) actually can't be unambiguous if small scale change is, because only entities are unambiguous and they are physically nested as INDEPENDENT entities in other entities. Unambiguity in change at different scales at the same time actually requires total dependency between entities on different scales, which, in turn, makes change impossible. The cladistic belief in a single true tree of life does thus contradict its own assumption of the underlying process (ie, evolution) itself. Cladistics does thus believe in something it at the same time denies.

Giddy, this siding in biological systematics, isn't it?

On conceptualization, and Linnean systematics versus cladistics

If we conceptualize reality using single entities as starting points, then there is just one statement that can't be true: that classes are real, because conceptualization allocates single entities into abstract categories (ie, finite classes) via classes (ie, infinite classes, or types), and if it could, then single entities would instead be abstract, ie, it would tilt reality and conceptualization up-side-down.

This fact, ie, that this statement can't be true, is shown by that any such claim is either ambiguous between classes and categories, like the Linnean system is, or paradoxically contradictory between different classes, like cladistics is.

We can thus produce a compromise between reality and conceptualization, like Linnean systematics, or tilt reality and conceptualization up-side-down, like cladistics, but we can't fuse reality and conceptualization unambiguously, ie, truthfully. We can't, for example, describe a process unambiguously, ie, truthfully, but can just represent it in different aspects. The Unambiguous Aspect is simply lacking.

This is a fact we just have to accept. If a bucket is empty, then it is empty. We can't fill it with words. There is thus no such thing as a "true tree of life" (or Higg's boson for that sake). It would have been perfect if there had been one (or a category of Higg's bosons), but, unfortunately, there isn't. Entities are real, but neither a true tree of life, Higg's bosons, nor any other kind of entities, sorry to say, but only entities. These entities can't, sorry to say, be unambiguously allocated into any kind(s) of entities. Ultimately we are unambiguously left with just entities. We can discuss them, but we can't nail them. A single entity, like me and you, will never be unambiguously nailed to any category. This is a pain in the ass for typologists like race biologists, but it is a blessing for the rest of us.