Cladistics is the belief in a single true tree of life

Cladistics is a belief, like Christianity and Islam, - the belief in a single true tree of life. Similar to all other beliefs it is also contradictory. Cladists may think that their belief is scientific, but this belief about the belief remains to be turned into science by finding this imaginary single true tree of life.

Similar to Higg's particle-ists, cladists may claim that they have found the single true tree with a certain probability, but at which probability can they (we) conclude that they (we) have found a particular kind of entity (ie, Higg's particle or biological species), when the probability actually can never reach 1, since there are always at least two different but just as probable kinds of entities? When can they (we) claim that they (we) have closed the gap that distinguishes reality from our comprehension of it, when there will always remain a contradiction? When can they (we) claim to have taken this final step; when they (we) actually can't take it?

I think that both Higg's particle-ists and cladists are ridiculous. They strive so tremendously hard to prove (positively) that they are correct, although many philosophers have demonstrated that positive proof of correctness is impossible. Haven't they read anything of what have been written in this issue or have they forgot it? Are they ignorant or stupid?

A long time has passed since since Simpson and Ashlock had intelligent discussions about evolution. Today the discussion in this issue is just cladist-confused. What in hell is the "paraphyletic groups" that cladists hate, the goats of Jesus?, and, what are the holophyletic groups they call "clade": the Father in Heaven? The dream? Why should we chase this impossible dream at all, when it can't be reached? Are we stupid?
     

On the fundamental error of cladistics

Those biological systematists that are called cladists conflate entity (or object) with class. It means that they also conflate monophyletic groups of entities with monophyletic groups of classes.

This conflation makes cladists erroneously believe that monophyletic groups of entities can be consistently distinguished as monophyletic groups of classes with what they call "apomorphies", and picks up that thread in a practical search for such groups.

Their conflated kind of monophyletic group is, however, what biological systematists searched for for about 2,000 years before Linné, and failed. The problem with such groups is that entities consist of classes in that every entity belongs to several classes, and that the relation between entities and classes thus is not 1-1, but 1-many, and that the relation between classes and entities thus is many-1, The latter part of this relation, ie, many-1, between classes and entities, means that there are several classes that fit one entity, and thus that there also are several monophyletic groups of classes that fit one monophyletic group of entities. There simply isn't a 1-1 relation between monophyletic groups of entities and monophyletic groups of classes which cladists erroneously believe there is.

This fundamental error of cladists´means that they search for something that isn't to be found (ie, the true tree of life). Their conflation of entity (or object) with class has lured them into the belief that there is a 1-1 relation between monophyletic groups of entities and monophyletic groups of classes, which simply is wrong. Instead, their search for this singularity is in practice an infinite recursion. It is, actually, the same search for an infinite recursion as it was before Linné. This reinvented (cladistic) approach is thus just as vain as it was before Linné, but adherents of it appears to have difficulties abandoning it. Demonstration that it is inconsistent does obviously not suffice to make them abandon it.

This fundamental error of cladistics is thus obviously larger than facts. It appears to be what we tend to believe in contradiction to facts. In the case of cladistics, it has led some of us (ie, cladists) into a vain search for something that isn't to be found, but which they believe in, ie, the true tree of life. Not even the fact that there isn't any such thing to be found suffices to make them stop searching it. Somewhere here something is fundamentally stupid.         

Doesn't cladistics represent science going nuts?

Biological systematists that are called "cladists" believe that there is a true "tree of life" to be found, and spend their time and our money searching for it. Now, if there really is such a true "tree of life" to be found, how can cladists then know when they have found it?

If this true "tree", as cladists themselves claim, is the "tree" that requires the fewest number of explanations on the origin of traits among organisms, then there isn't any such tree at all, since classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory, which we can figure out ourselves but which Bertrand Russell also demonstrated already in 1901 (that is, before the origin of cladistics), because it means that there are at least two such "trees". If so, then cladists will thus search forever for their true "tree of life", because there simply isn't any single such thing to be found.

So, can there possibly be another true "tree of life" (ie, one that doesn't minimize the number of explanations on the origin of traits among organisms) to be found? If so, then there will also be a mirror image of this "tree" actually representing the other side of the same real "tree" (ie, the true "tree" seen from the other side). How can cladists then distinguish which of these two true "trees" that represent the true "tree" (when both actually do)?

The existence of such a true "tree of life" does thus appear to be a practical impossibility. Instead, the belief in it appears to be a conflation of representation with the represented (ie, class with object). It gives rise to the questions: how can we pay cladists for a search for a practically impossible belief? Doesn't cladistics actually represent science (in this case biological systematics) going nuts into its own classification?

When science turns into belief: cladistics and Higg's particle-ism

Cladistics and Higg's particle-ism do actually represent scientific breakdowns into belief. When the irrationality of reality frustrates scientists enough, they find ways to escape this frustration, and these ways do, unfortunately, always lead them into the belief they tried to escape in the first place, and are, also unfortunately, just as paradoxically contradictory as the beliefs they tried to escape are. These ways do thus just lead them from the ashes into the fire. Neither clades nor Higg's particle are consistent, but are actually paradoxes.

Scientists can't understand how their rational search for the truth led them to this frustration, which forced them to take the step to belief, but I can explain that it is because the explanation of this is simpler than their explanation of reality is. They simply can't see the forest because they look to close on the trees.

The fundamental problem is that reality has two aspects: pattern and process, and that this fact prevents us from finding a single truth, just as it prevents reality from finding a stable state. This fundamental fact is not something we can overcome, but something we have to accept. Unfortunately, it means that particle physicists will not find a smallest particle and that cladists will not find the tree of life. Both of them are convinced over the boundary between science and belief that their respective ideas are to be found, but, unfortunately, they're wrong. Neither of them is to be found. This I can claim with security, since if they could be found, then time would not be relative to space. My claim thus hangs on the fact that time is relative to space.

(However, independently of this fundamental rectifier, only my reasoning is totally consistent. Please, correct me if I'm wrong).

No, extraterrestrial civilizations do not exist

No, extraterrestrial civilizations do not exist. No matter how high the probability for such civilizations is, they do not exist as pure probabilities, but only as facts. If probabilities exist (as facts), then God can also be a fact by pure probability. And, furthermore, if probabilities exist, then realities, like you and me, do not exist.

We have to choose: do realities (like you and me) or probabilities (like extraterrestrial civilizations) exist. If the latter, then not the former, and vice versa. 

On the dream of cladistics

An orthogonality is a diametrical opposition. It may be between classes, as that between 'hairy-hairless' and 'hair color', or between dimensions, as that between 'X' and 'Y'. The typical property of an orthogonality is that it lacks a common middle. There is, for example, no hair color that can be assigned to both a hairy and a hairless object. Orthogonalities emerge in the moment we conceptualize reality. Indeed, reality itself protrudes as an orthogonality between what we call 'pattern' and 'process'.

Orthogonalities are difficult to interpret in an existential sense, since both of the opposites have to "exist" as being interdependent, although not both of them thus can exist at the same time as being contradictory. An orthogonal relation do we sometimes express as that one "thing" is BOTH one and its opposite, as in that a photon is BOTH a particle and a wave. However, if this statement is correct, then it logically means that a wave also is BOTH a photon and a particle, which, obviously, isn't correct. The problem is that concepts have different extensions (ie, are of different inclusiveness among objects), and that this difference is impossible to express for certain relations. We can, for example, say that SOME waves (ie, photons) also are particles, since 'wave' is intermediate in extension between 'photon' and 'particle', but we can't incorporate this distinction in a statement about photons, since the extension of 'photon' is smaller than that of both 'wave' and 'particle'. The extension of the concept we explain must be intermediate between the concepts we use to explain it. Instead, the correct expression is that a photon is NEITHER a particle nor a wave, since it does not have any erroneous connotations, but leaving the photon unexplained.

The correct statement about reality is thus that it is neither pattern nor process, thus leaving reality unexplained. This statement excludes the existence of something like Higg's particle, although it would have explained reality if it indeed had been a particle, which it can't be because it would have meant that a particle is a wave. There is thus no Higg's particle, although Higg's particle-ists claim to almost having found it.Never will we cross the boundary between knowledge and belief.   

Cladistics (Willi Hennig) got off the problem for biological systematics on the wrong foot

Cladistics (Willi Hennig) got off the problem for biological systematics on the wrong foot. The problem isn't which dichotomously branching illustration of the origin of life that is "true", but that there can't be a single "true" dichotomously branching illustration of the origin of life.

This problem is due to that classification is orthogonal and thus ultimately paradoxically contradictory, which also Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901, and is actually the reason for Linné's invention of his orthogonal classification, which avoids the paradox. Cladistics' (actually Hennig's) belief there is a single "true" dichotomously branching illustration of the origin of life does not change the fact that there isn't. Belief can overcome many problems, but not change facts.