Cracking the cladistical usage of “the parsimony criterion”

As I have explained in earlier posts, one can easily show that cladism is both inconsistent and empirically erroneous. However, it has a tendency to survive in spite of these shortcomings by the belief that the theory of evolution means that there must be a single true phylogenetic tree that describes this process, and that evolutionary change must be rationally reconstructable on this phylogenetic tree. This belief is expressed in the parsimony criterion; a criterion for a positive choice among phylogenetic hypotheses (contrary to the scientific negative rejection of hypotheses that aren’t correct) by minimizing the amount of change on all possible hypotheses and choosing the hypothesis that needs the least amount of change to explain the present distribution of properties among organisms (given the assumptions above). This seemingly undisputable belief (actually claim) is thus the nut to crack to achieve a final dismissal of cladism. The fact that cladism is inconsistent and empirically erroneous means that a nutcracker is to be found, but where is it?

Those that have read and understood my earlier postings probably suspects that the nutcracker is located where the ambiguity between reality and conceptualization of reality is located, but where is it? Well, it is located exactly there, that is, between reality and our conceptualization of reality, meaning where we put words on real phenomena, that is, in classification. Cladism (similarly to phylogenetics in general) begins by organizing properties into “characters” and “character states”. This is the point where we actually conceptualize reality. 

Now, the problem that confronted the ancient Greeks was that this conceptualization is ambiguous by necessity:  a single thing forms a kind both by successive instances of itself and by simultaneously existing things of the same kind, and these two kinds are not the same, meaning that every single thing is ambiguous in terms of kinds. Aristotle solved this problem by introducing the concepts generic and specific, whereof generic denotes two successive instances of the same thing and specific denotes each of these instances (whereof each belongs to different kinds).  He thus solved the problem of ambiguity between concepts and reality by transferring it from concepts to reality. He thus made concepts unambiguous. Linneus developed this consistent conceptualization further by finding out how it should be applied on hierarchical processes, that is, hierarchical conceptualization.

Willi Hennig (the father of cladism) found out how this consistent conceptualization can be reversed. In the single definition of the concept clade, he reversed both Linneaus’ development of, and Aristotle’s consistent conceptualization in a single strike.  This concept, clade, is actually the antipole to our consistent conceptualization. It utilizes a consistent conceptualization and reverses it to its origin, that is, the things we talk about. It does, thus, form a circularity (i.e., a merry-go-round) together with consistent conceptualization. What the latter conceptualizes does the former deconceptualize.

So, where’s the nutcracker of cladism’s parsimony criterion located in this merry-go-round?  Well, it is located at the actual conceptualization of reality. The problem with the parsimony criterion is that there are several different , as correct possibilities to conceptualize reality. It means that the parsimony criterion is correct per se (in itself), but that there are several different, as correct, possible organizations of properties into characters and character states, and thus that there are several, as correct, phylogenetic hypotheses suiting the parsimony criterion for every group of things. The problem is thus not the parsimony criterion in itself, but the foundation for it in this particular case. Parsimony itself is a fundamental principle in science, but it has to be applied on kinds with a common denominator. It cannot simplify relations with different denominators, like genera and species. If it is applied on such kinds of things, it’ll create impossibilities.

The problem with cladism’s “parsimony criterion” is thus not that it is wrong, but that it is erroneously applied. Specifics cannot be consistently simplified into generics, because they are different kinds of things per definition.