On the origin of the concept clade

Plesiomorphy and apomorphy is analogous to before and after, but…where did now disappear?

The answer is that Hennig pointed at an apomorphy (i.e., an after) calling it a now (i.e., a monophyly) defining now (i.e., monophyly) as apomorphy (i.e., as after).  It is analogous to pointing at a white object calling it gray and defining gray as white. Everything is OK, except the name (i.e., monophyly is not apomorphy, and gray is not white), and, since monophyly is generic to apomorphy just like gray is generic to white, this nominal (i.e., conceptual) confusion also confuses the generic with the specific.

The conceptual confusion itself was later renamed clade, thus legitimating a confused approach within biological systematics (i.e., cladistics or cladism), thus creating the impossible task of defining its fundamental confusion, i.e., ambiguity, unambiguously (like in Wikipedia). 

The concept clade did thus generically originate as a conceptual confusion of X and Y in X, later renaming X as Z. It means that the concept Z (i.e., clade) is consistently defined as X (i.e., monophyly) and Y (i.e., apomorphy), that is, as in the starting point. Z (i.e., clade) is nothing but a confusion of X (i.e., monophyly) and Y (i.e., apomorphy). 

This confusion appears to lead biological systematics from an ambiguous approach into an unambiguous, but it actually instead leads from an ambiguous approach into a doubly ambiguous approach (both across and along). Two ambiguities do thus not add up as one unambiguity, but as two ambiguities.

The concept clade is thus a doubly ambiguous conceptual confusion. This fact is difficult to understand, but anyone with some sense can make a good guess if something sensible can arise from an approach that rests on a doubly ambiguous concept. The alternative is empirical science, resting on the unambiguous concept object, which cladistics (cladism) denies. The choice is thus between cladistics (cladism) and empirical science.

On Malte Ebach’s use, misuse and abuse of paraphyletic groups

In his post Paraphyly Watch 2009, Malte Ebach discusses the subject paraphyletic groups using the terms use, misuse and abuse.

Malte defines misuse as: accepting paraphyletic groups* as informative (e.g., using them in analysis), and abuse as: treating paraphyly as being evolutionary or evidence for evolution (e.g., accepting non-monophyletic groups in taxonomy and evolutionary biology).

Malte is thus clear about that misuse and abuse of paraphyly is using it (i.e., accepting paraphyletic groups* as informative (e.g., using them in analysis) and treating paraphyly as being evolutionary or evidence for evolution (e.g., accepting non-monophyletic groups in taxonomy and evolutionary biology)).

It means that he defines use of paraphyly as misuse and abuse.

Since it means that his own discussions (here and later) about paraphyly is both misuse and abuse of paraphyly at the same time, they must be the “most outrageous misuse and/or abuse of Paraphyly for 2009″, and thus that he himself is the best candidate for his Pewter Leprechaun.

The world thus awaits his decision impatiently: will he award himself his own price the next month? It would be the first time ever that an awarder awards himself a price for being in disagreement with himself. Exactly when is the price to be awarded?

Malte Ebach touches on the destiny of cladistics – eternal reclassification

In his post “Paraphyly Watch 1: Fossil Fish & Missing Links” Malte Ebach enters his cladistic reasoning using the phrase that “There are many ways to say “Oh #!@*! My group is paraphyletic!”.

He then gives an example of this from Brazeau, 2009 ending up with the statement that “Paraphyly sure is a ‘common problem’” asking the question “Why is this problematic?”.

Answering this question, he accuses Brazeau for being ”naive to suggest” that his discovery will “not overturn a general consensus about… interrelationships”", instead “descending into evolutionary explanation ” stating that ”a ‘missing link’ has been found”. Malte instead denies missing links generically, claiming that they can be discarded generically by reclassification.

Reclassification is also what Malte will be occupied with for the rest of his life if he doesn’t abandon cladistics, because missing links is not a real phenomenon, but a fact originating from the fact that classification is orthogonal. Orthogonal means that one class includes two classes, like, for example, how gray includes white and black. Gray is an intermediate (a missing link) between white and black. We can of course get rid of such intermediates by reclassification each time we discover one, but we cannot get rid of such intermediates. There will always be other intermediates to discover just as sure as cladistics can turn science up-side-down. 

Missing links is thus a property of classification, not a phenomenon, and are thus not deniable.  The reason that cladists (like Malte) believe that missing links is a problem that can be solved by reclassification (i.e., a matter of ’acknowledging paraphyly in one or another group and solving this “problem” (i.e., paraphyly) by reclassification) is that they believe that kinds exist instead of understanding that it is we that create classes by classification of reality. They thus believe that unambiguous classification is possible, although it is both definitionally and empirically impossible. Cladists are, however, not susceptible to these strong arguments aginst their belief (nor to explanation of the implications of these facts on their actions from the belief), because they believe that their belief is “natural”. They do not understand what they’re doing, but they feel that it’s “natural”.   

Malte is thus right in that there are are many ways to say “”Oh #!@*! My group is paraphyletic!”, and Brazeau’s way may also be one of them. Brazeau may thus neither understand that classification is orthogonal, nor that paraphyly thus is monophyly per definition, but he does at least hesitate to throw himself into the eternal, inconsistent and empirically erroneous conceptual carousel that Malte has thrown himself into and which is called cladistics. It honors Brazeau. The destiny for cladists (like Malte) is eternal reclassification in chase for something that is nowhere to be found, what Darwin called a “vain search to define the indefinable”, using insensible and inconsistent reasoning. Brazeau’s acceptance of missing links does thus keep him on the sensible side of humanity, even if he doesn’t understand why or how. 

When cladistic’s vain search for the treasure at the foot of the rainbow is tired out, it’ll be placed among mass psychoses (most of which are “natural”).

Ps The reasoning above does only concern cladistics, not phylogenetic systematics. ds

The cladistic confusion of relation with classification

In his post The Science of Systematics, Malte Ebach and David Williams presents a volubility of cladistic gibberish based on two citations of Borgmeier (1957):

1. “Systematics is a pure science of relations, unconcerned with time, space, or cause”. (Borgmeier)

and

2. “Systematics is independent of the theory of descent”. (Borgmeier)

(The rest is the cladistic gibberish).

These two citations make up the statement (and thus view that): 

3. Systematics is a pure science of relations that is independent of the theory of descent. 

This statement (and thus view) leads us non-cladists unseeked to the question: which relations, if not evolutionary relations? Surprisingly for us, the relation E & W refer to is the relation between different objects of one kind, or of more inclusive kinds that they (E & W) allcate this kind into. Their notion of relation is thus what we comprehend as kinds. They have taken the mental step to interpret a kind, for example lizard, to mean that one lizard is related on a certain level to another lizard, and that these lizards is related on another level to the reptiles we see (although they don’t “acknowledge” either lizards or reptiles).

They (i.e., E & W) thus equalize their (respective) classification(s) of reality with relation in their common claim that “systematics is a pure science of relations” (by relations thus meaning classifications), but since classifications are subjective, they have to add that relations are independent of the theory of descent”, that is of factual relations. They turn relation into classification, but since relation is factual (i.e., objective) and classification is subjective, they have to subjectivize relation by liberating it from every factual relation.

Their approach is a gibberish volubility aiming to turn objective, empirical science into subjectivity, retaining the legitimacy of objective, empirical science. It is a kind of magic of words creating the illusion that subjectivity is objectivity under the impression that relation is classification. It is an attempt to seize power by turning relation into classification. It is the revolution of classificationists, or typologists as Mays called them. Unfortunately for them, their view is pure subjectivity, and subjectivity can never be turned into objectivity. They are divorced from objectivity by the abyssal rift that their classes can never become relations. Classification will always be classification.   

Considering the concept relation, please clarify related to what. An ambiguous definition of this concept is devastating for science, since it breaks up the difference between it and its opposite subjectivity. A dim boundary between objectivity and subjectivity is only beneficiary to subjetivity. We have the obligation to mark the difference between objectivity and subjectivity in order to avoid the cladistic voluble gibberish trying to turn objectivity into subjectivity

Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct, but its practical manifestation requires  small modification.     

 

 Borgmeier, T. (1957). Basic Questions of Systematics Systematic Zoology, 6, 53-69

A question that cladists can’t answer

How may lineages is a lineage?

This question is impossible to answer for a cladist, although the answer is one per definition (i.e., “a” = one).  

The reason is that the question nails the cladistic circular confusion of object and kind in lineages. “A” lineage is for a cladist his circular confusion of one and several itself. The question thus leads him into a loop between one and several that lacks an end, because it is his circular confusion of one and several itself.

The question for non-cladists is how we shall break this circular confusion. It may be directed towards the specific aims of curing cladists or hindering cladists from leading non-cladists into their confusion, or towards the generic aim of counteracting this tendency of falling into circular confusions in a general sense (i.e., -isms).

This circular confusion (i.e., cladism) as well as all circular confusions appear to be fueled by an inability to understand the situation. The original question has simply grew too complex: there are simply too many parameters to consider at the same time. In the absence of a generic principle to interpret the situation, interpretations deteriorate into an evidently erroneous interpretation, which is accepted in spite of its impossibility, because it liberates interpretations from the dead end of being ununderstandable. In other words, the answer to the original question deteriorates into inconsistency by the inability of the questioned to understand the situation.

The questioned stand like a herd of wilderbeasts at the bank of a river looking for the answer on the other side. On the other side there is, however, only a practical search for a thing that does not exist. The answer they’re searching is nowhere to be found. It is actually a circular confusion in their own minds, which they can’t let go, because it is what they’re searching.

In order to escape their circular confusion, cladists have to understand that kinds do not exist. It doesn’t matter if they define that kinds exist, they still don’t. They are wrong even if they define that they’re right.

Their problem is to answer the question: 

How may lineages is a lineage?

Cladistics place outside of evolutionary, empirical science

Cladistics assumes that objects exist and that holophyletic groups (i.e. what it defines as clades) of objects also exist. If it means that facts are wrong, then cladistics accepts that facts are wrong.

Cladistics simply denies the trinity (orthogonality) of two consecutive patterns making up one process, instead claiming that the latter pattern is “natural”, whereas the former pattern isn’t. When their patterns clash in “the middle”, it simply denies they do.

This leads cladistics into a consistent flip-flop reasoning lacking an end. Every conclusion contradicts its own assumptions, and can also be contradicted by its opposite (i.e., by turning matters up-side-down). The puerta into it is also the soul of it. It is what Darwin called “a vain search to define the indefinable”.

This kind of phenomenon arises within every approach. It is made up of people that share the approach principally (or literally), thereby fighting both opponents, fellows in the approach and each other. They are blind elephants walking around in the glass shop towards the sound of freedom they’re hearing, not understanding the damage they cause or why they collide with each other. They are the fanatics of approaches.

The problem for the rest of us is what we shall do with them. Denying them appears impossible without denying one’s own approach. I try to peel them off from a consistent evolutionary, empirically scientific approach. I’m trying to explain that the question is not whether holo- or paraphyletic groups are “natural” groups, but the evolutionary relationships between biological species, and that we have to accept that paraphyletic groups are monophyletic groups in order to find an answer to this question. I’m trying to explain that cladistics actually is an obstacle to finding an answer to this question.

The problem for evolutionary, empirical science is that if it does not succeed to peel off cladists, cladists will instead peel off scientists from evolutionary, empirical science. The fanatics will seize power before they slaughter each other and the science. Evolutionary, empirical science thus has to peel off cladists to avoid its own destruction.

On the problem in conceptualization of reality

The fundamental problem in conceptualization of reality (independently of whether it’s made in terms of (classifying objects into) species and genera, or in terms of (classifying groups of objects into mono-, holo. and paraphyletic groups, and confusing mono- and holophyletic group into) clades) is that every dimension is orthogonal to to all other dimensions, and that each single dimension has several directions (i.e., dimensions), that is, that every dimension is internally orthogonal concerning dimensionality.

 The problem with this fact is that it means that an odd number of dimensions is consistent with an even number of dimensions and that an even number of dimensions is consistent with with an odd number of dimensions, but that an odd number of dimensions is inconsistent with an odd number of dimensions and that an even number of dimensions is inconsistent with an even number of dimensions, because it means that the odd number of dimensions of space (i.e., three) is inconsistent with the odd number of dimensions of time (i.e., one).

This inconsistency means that there is an ambiguity in conceptualization of reality that we can’t get rid of, but which we can only place somewhere. The Linnean system places it in the fundamental level of recognizing that both holo- and paraphyletic groups are monophyletic, whereas cladism places it in its concepts and thus in reasoning itself. It means that the reasoning of a Linneanist consistently will arrive to conclusions that are compatible with their assumptions, whereas the reasoning of a cladist consistently will arrive to conclusions that are incompatible their assumptions. A Linneanist will thus conduct a consistent reasoning but never arrive to an unambiguous classification (other than by contract), whereas a cladist will conduct an inconsistent reasoning and never arrive to an unambiguous classification.

Linneanism (i.e., empirical science) can thus arrive to a classification that is optimal with regard to facts, whereas cladism is doomed to spin around among the different classifications that agree with facts. Cladism’s idea that there is a single classification that agrees with facts more than every other classification do disregards (denies, forgets…or any other synonym) the difference between the concrete (i.e., reality) and the abstract. The problem with this disregard (denial, forgetting…or any other synonym) is that it does not (and cannot) eradicate the difference between reality and the abstract. It would be fine if it could, but it cannot.

Cladism is thus an attempt to eradicate the ambiguity between reality and the abstract leading into a double ambiguity, which it interprets as an unambiguity. It is trying to acknowledge wrong as right aiming to overcome the fact that not wrong does not equal not right. It is applied one-eyeness (that is, lack of split vision) instead of two-eyeness. Or more simply stated, it is applied simplemindedness (and also argumented for as a such). 

Cladism is thus ‘insensible simplification’ advocated by advovating  insensible simplifications in a generic sense. It is not ashamed for insensible simplifications, but, on the contrary, advocates them. It is science in spin towards its own destruction.

The fraud cladism

Cladism denies the difference between one and many (that is, mathematics in a general sense) as not being “natural”.

We pay cladists’ ”research” and their “education” (i.e., indoctrination to denial of mathematics) of our kids in our universities with our taxes.

Isn’t this a fraud of both science and tax money? We are presently supporting this fraud.

Cladistics (cladism) – the sidetrack into the route of a vain search to define the indefinable

Cladistics (cladism), i.e., partitioning reality into clades, is inconsistent (i.e., self-contradictory). The inconsistency resides in that the assumption that single objects (in this case biological species) exist is incompatible with the assumption that clades exist. If both single objects and clades would exist, then also clades would be single objects, and since groups cannot equal objects, at least some clades or objects must be excluded from existing. 

If one, like Hennig, Farris and Nelson (among other cladists) simply doesn’t give a sh-t about the inconsistency, but instead claims it as a ”self-evident line”, that is, that it is self-evident that both objects and clades exist, then this choice of track does neither lead into a “natural” line of reasoning nor to a “natural” answer to an unformulated question, but instead into a route that lacks an end.

Cladists may comprehend this lack of end as typical for science, but the difference between science and cladism is that science closes up on truth by falsifying lies, whereas cladism is like a drifting ship that can’t find a harbour per definition: inconsistent (i.e., self-contradictory) classification can’t find an unambiguous classification per definition, because it is ambiguous. It is just drifting between just as ambiguous solutions.

Most cladists believe that finding an unambiguous definition of clade is easy, although it is impossible per definition. There is no definition of clade to be found that does not rest on a definition of paraphyletic groups (i.e., all is relative to some, but not the other way around). It is thus just as impossible to define clade (excluding paraphyletic groups) as it is to partition reality into clades. Both of them are impossible per definition.

Cladistics (cladism) is thus a sidetrack in biological systematics that leads into the route of a vain search to define the indefinable (as Darwin called it), or, which I would like to call it, a vain attempt to define objects in only three dimensions, that is, in space. The Linnean system defines them in four dimensions, that is, in time and space, by providing them with two anchor points. Why on earth should we abandon a consistent four-dimensional system for an inconsistent three-dimensional system?  Because we find pleasure in self-torment? This route has no end (per definition).

Ps I’m surprised by mathematicians that enter this route (like Matt Haber). They must have missed the point with mathematics totally. The fundamental point with mathematics, as I comprehend it,  is to keep numbers (like one and many) apart. Am I wrong, Matt ? ds

Cladistics (cladism) – what is the question and what is the answer?

Cladistics (cladism)  only acknowldeges what it calls “natural” groups, but which is a confusion of mono- and holophyletic groups.

The question is which question this conclusion (confusion) answers. It appears to be “which is The Unambiguous Classification?”, and the answer flips between “my classification” and “our classification”, combined with a belief that these two aspects (i.e., subjectivity and objectivity) are the same (which they can obviously can never become).

Is cladistics (cladism) simply a matter of trying to hold the fortress “belief” against empirical science? Is it just a matter of a flat denial of facts? How can such an approach be sponsored with tax money, and on scientific universities? Isn’t it a clear case of a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothes, and also paid with sheeps’ tax money?

What will the wolf (wolves) do when he (they) has (have) eaten up the sheeps? Eat up itself (each other)?

One cannot be many.