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

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.

On truth (and cladistics, or cladism)

Truth is a relative conclusion.

This statement does not mean, however, that any relative conclusion is a truth (like cladists believe), but that truths have to be sought by relativity. Only one truth can be true at any particular point in time for the concept truth to be unambiguous, and thus true.  Cladists believe (actually define) that truth is ambiguous, at the same time as denying that it is. They are torn between their belief (in natural groups) and rationality (denying natural groups), which they solve by denying rationality, thereby also denying the foundation for their belief. Not even a definition that natural groups exist can thus make them exist. Natural groups are just as impossible today as they have always been (doomed as they are to the realm of abstraction), The only difference today is that humanity (and with it, biological systematics) is decaying into ignorance and stupidity.

Malte Ebach is, as far as I can see, the most shining example of this decay (next to Steve Farris). He appears to lack all signs of sense. He can thus be put as the contrary of Einstein. He’s on a mission to disprove the fact that time is relative. Good luck, Malte!

On the consequences of the incongruence between properties

The fact that every object possesses at least two properties means that properties are not ordered either in time or over time, or in time and over time, meaning that they in a phylogeny (i.e., a dichotomously branching process) are not necessarily congruent. On the contrary, they can only be congruent for a totally symmetrical phylogeny.

The fact that clade is a class, and thus basically a property, means that such objects can be consistently distinguished only  in totally symmetrical phylogenies, leaving out phylogenies resulting in an odd number of objects, since they can’t be totally symmetrical.

Cladism (i.e., only acknowledging clades) does thus restrict the space of possible phylogenies for the objects of a particular kind dramatically into only the totally symmetrical ones. It only acknowledges totally symmetrical phylogenies.

What cladism does with phylogenies that are not totally symmetrical is written in the sand, since cladism assumes that all phylogenies are totally symmetrical. Cladism is not equipped to deal with reality, but only to its dream. It does not acknowledge reality, but only its dream.

The incongruence between properties does thus falsify cladism, a falsification that cladism turns up-side-down into a falsification of the incongruence between properties by cladism. Cladism simply defines that properties  are congruent instead of accepting that they are incongruent. It is a way of solving problems by denying that they are problems, by denying that there are any problems what-so-ever. Properties are simply defined to be congruent although they are incongruent. It is constructivity to the degree of denying facts. It is science breaking its way into belief, claiming that science is belief.

This is, however, wrong. Science can never compete with belief, since they play on different arenas: science testing practical models, and belief claiming that it is otherwise than it appears to be. Science explains what we experience with what we experience, whereas belief explains what we see with what we cannot experience. If they meet, science wins. Belief can only win in statements that are untestable.

The fact that properties are incongruent does thus mean that cladism’s erroneous assumption that they are congruent turns cladism into a (erroneous) belief. It’s close association to science appears to make it an interest of science, but it is the other way around. It is actually an attack on science which science ought to fight, since turning biological systematics into cladism turns biological systematics into a belief like all other beliefs. Classifying biological organisms is not a matter of revealing a “natural” classification, but of agreeing on a classification that agrees with our notion of “natural” groups.

You can’t nail the nail

You can’t nail the nail. That’s why we have to distinguish nail and nail, that is, a nail and the infinite class nail, thereby also giving way for the finite class “all nails”.

Cladism’s belief that it has nailed the nail by confusing the finite class “all nails” with the action “nailing”, acknowledging “all nails” and denying the infinite class nail is simply wrong. What it has done is actually confusing the concepts nail and nail, thereby giving the impression that you can actually nail the nail. It has turned the factual situation up-side-down creating an illusion that you can achieve the impossible (to nail the nail), but not the possible (to discuss nails and nailing by distinguishing nail and nail).

If this is scientific progress, instead of a simple illusionary trick promoting subjectivity and optimization instead of objectivity and falsification, then I’m Santa. The shocking discovery in the story of cladism is how easily biological systematics was dragged down in this black hole of insensible simplification. There wasn’t scientific resistence enough in this discipline to keep it above the hole. Simpson tried, Ashlock tried, Mayr tried, Brummitt tried, and many others tried, but the simplifying forces were simply unstoppable. So, now a large part of biological systematists drift in the space of insensible simplifications without any possibility to find an objective truth, because they have denied it.

The situation is exactly what Darwin warned for in his statement that “without a clear notion of species, the discussion risks an indefinite continuation in a vain search to define the indefinable” (that is, to nail the nail). The problem with a “clear notion of species” hasn’t been solved, as Hennig assumed, but actually can’t be solved, because species do not exist without acknowledging that “you can’t nail the nail”, instead distinguishing nail and nail, thus giving way for the finite class “all nails”, making up the species “nails”. The problem can’t be solved without acknowledging that it can’t be solved, instead constructing a distinction of an object and its infinite class, thus giving way for its finite class, that is, its species.

Species do in a conceptual sense (and thus in any sense) emerge from a distinction of objects and their infinite classes, like in the Linnean system. They are thus not possible to get a “clear notion of” (i.e., define) without distinguishing objects and their infinite classes (that is, a system of the Linnean kind). Species simply do not exist except in a system of the Linnean kind. Our comprehension of reality simply is a system of the Linnean kind. Species exist to the extent that a system of the Linnean kind is applicable on reality. Species are the opposite to nails, they exist to the extent that we accept that they are artificial, that is, a consequence of our conceptualization of reality. Species, contrary to nail and nail, can’t be distinguished from our conceptualization of reality. 

The reasoning above paints the picture of our conceptualization of reality in relation to reality. It tries to explain that conceptualization is orthogonal.  Science is, however, not a method to describe (classify) reality, but a method to distinguish incompatible statements (or descriptions of reality) that can be tested by facts. This does, however, mean that science can test the incompatible cladism and Linnean system, since cladism confuses space and time, meaning that time can’t be relative to space, whereas the Linnean system does not pose this restriction on time. A scientific test of these empirical restrictions does thus lead to the conclusion that cladism is wrong by being falsified by the fact that time is relative, whereas the Linnean system can’t be shown to be empirically wrong in any sense.

The fact that ”you can’t nail the nail” is thus ultimately shown in that the opposite is falsified by facts. Does this fact suffice to bar the way for cladism (against Gareth Nelson, Steve Farris, Per Sundberg, Mikael Härlin, Kevin de Quieroz, Diana Lipscomb, Mark Siddall, Pablo Goloboff among others), or will cladists succeed continuing confusing conceptualization for the rest of their lives (being payed by our taxes)?

Or, do anyone think that he can nail the nail?

On the concept natural group

The concept natural group is a leap of logic. In reality and in theory, there are objects, kinds, kinds of kinds, finite and infinite kinds, and objects of particular kinds, but there are no objects of kinds. The reason is that such a phenomenon has to be both one and several, and both consecutive and simultaneous at the same time, which is both theoretically inconsistent (self-contradictory) and practically (empirically) impossible.

Acknowledging only such leaps of logic (like in cladism) leads into a reasoning of Malte Ebach’s kind – totally somersaulted. This is, however, not the worst problem with this restricted acknowledgement. Worse is that it leads into a vain search for something that does not exist neither conceptually nor existentially, at the same time blinding one for things that do exist. It is a route from empirical science into one of all possible different subjective approaches, denying contrary approaches and instead only acknowledging it’s own approach, that is, it’s its own principle.

Unfortunately for cladists, and luckily for non-cladists, cladism’s fundamentally timeless principle, built into the impossible concept clade, is falsified by the fact that time is relative. If this fact had not been known, there would not have been any possibility to bar the route from empirical science into subjectivity in the form of cladism. Now that it is, we (non-cladists, or empirical scientists) can draw a definitional hyperplane separating empirical science (i.e., objectivity) and cladism (i.e., subjectivity) by their agreement with facts. Empirical science agrees with facts, whereas cladism doesn’t.   

The problem with the concept clade is difficult to understand. One can easily fall into the trap that it is OK, despite being inconsistent (self-contradictory) and empirically wrong - that it’s “natural” in some sense. This trap is only due to that it confirms our assumptions. The difference between how hard we fall into this trap is correlated with how much we assume as an axiom that kinds exist (i.e., are subjective) in relation to how hard we assume as an axiom that objects exist (i.e., are objective).  The most objective of us (e.g., Ashlock, Mayr and me) are immune to the trap, whereas palaeontologists and/or biogeographers and/or those considering species concepts (e.g., Gareth Nelson, John Wilkins and Malte Ebach) most easily fall into it.

There is, however, a certain predisposition among biological systematists in general to fall into this trap, since this science attracts people that assume as an axiom that kinds exist (i.e., are subjective). This predisposition has led to a mass psychosis within biological systematics wherein everyone confirm each other and their belief in a free fall into (a splitting) subjectivity. Biological systematics has simply gone mad in subjectivists’ vain search for an objective subjectivity. Leaders for this conceptual breakdown were from the beginning Gareth Nelson and Steve Farris, but is presently Malte Ebach. Nothing appears to be able to stop their insanities. They appear to lack ability to view reality from several different angles.  Objectivity is for them artificiality, whereas their own subjective comprehension(s) is “natural”. The lack of a single subjective truth is invincible for them. They can’t understand that the carrot is attached to a stick, which is attached to their respective necks, even if this truth is placed in front of their eyes. They lack ability to see that the Emperor is naked.

 The concept natural group is thus impossible. Such things simply don’t and can’t exist.Instead, we can classify reality in many different ways,  whereof the agreement with facts (i.e., reality) judges the truthfulness of the classification. The true process can never be reconstructed, but can only be estimated with as high accuracy as possible. We can approach the truth with empirical science, or leave the truth with cladism, but we cannot find the truth.

Natural group is thus an imposible concept. Such things do not, and cannot exist.

If you encounter a cladist, ask him…

If you encounter a cladist, ask him (her) whether he (she) actually believes that kinds exist, or that there is a single optimal transformation of a four-dimensional scene into a two-dimensional illustration of this scene. These two beliefs are the only reasons to adopt cladism.

If he (she) answers yes to any of them, inform him (her) that a kind has to be of something, that is, a kind of object, and that a double dimension reduction is doubly ambiguous and thereby ambiguous in all possible directions, that is, both across and along.

If he answers no, then he either doesn’t understand what he’s saying or is consciously talking crap. So, then ask him (her) whether he (she) doesn’t understand what he (she) is saying or is consciously talking crap.

Cladists belong to either or several of these four kinds, that is, those that:

1. belive that kinds exist,

2. believe that there is a single optimal transformation of a four-dimensional scene into a two-dimensional illustration of this scene,

3. don’t understand what they are saying, and

4. are consciosly talking crap.

All of them are thus both internally inconsistent (i.e., consistently inconsistent) and empirically wrong. (These facts do they, however, not wish to be informed of. They prefer to repress both them and those (we) that convey them. One of them (Malte Ebach) has even founded a price (Pewter Leprechaun) for conveying them most clearly. I really hope I’m a strong competitor for it. I’m at least doing my best. Getting it would be an honour. When is the winner decided?). It means that they must not be given the problem formulating initiative. If they are, they lead the discussion into the non-scientific question of whether paraphyletic groups are “natural” or not, instead of whether the assumption that kinds exist is consistent and empirically correct or not. Their inconsistent and empirically erroneous axiom does in a generic sense focus our attention on non-scientific questions. Instead, we have to return to their inconsistent and empirically erroneous axiom that kinds exist; every reasoning and discussion based on this axiom is inconsistent and empirically erroneous. We  have to view cladism objectively, that is, from the outside, evaluating its foundation compared to objectivity, that is, to science. Such an evaluation reveals that cladism is an inconsistent and empirically erroneous simplification of a four-dimensional reality into a two-dimensional illustration, denying the four-dimensional reality. It is an attack of nonsense on sense (led by Steve Farris and Gareth Nelson, for different reasons). It simply drives the claim that when reality and the illustration of it do not agree, the illustration is correct and reality wrong, although following such a map will, of course, lead us wrong.   

If you ask a cladist the questions above, he (she) at least has to acknowledge that he (she) either entertains an impossible belief or talks crap (conciously or unconsciously). Best is to leave it there. His (hers) questions are not our questions. Many questions are possible to pose, but not all of them are sensible nor have answers. The question whether a kind of object is a “natural” object or not, is one such question. A kind (of object) can’t be a (natural) object per definition, since a kind can’t be an object per definition. The problem is not “natural”, but that a kind can’t be an object. Comprehending a kind as an object requires a system of the Linnean kind. The word “natural” makes no difference for this fact.

On the priority order of evolution and classification

The core message of Malte Ebach’s postings under the heading “Paraphyly watch” is that “evolution and classification are separate entities and that only the latter is the key to the former”.

This message is correct, but Malte has got evolution and classification up-side-down. When we look at reality, we only see a mess. Organizing this mess, i.e., classifying it, is firstly done by distinguishing the kind object, consisting of spatially bounded phenomena. Then, we distinguish different kinds of objects, like chairs, flowers and planets. 

Classifying processes, like evolution, is, however, a little more complicated, since it’s a matter of catching change with classes. This problem was solved by Aristotle and his orthogonal classification using genera, species and specific differences. Using it, we can describe one change (i.e., one process) as a genus consisting of two species in a row, which differs in a similarity. ”Difference in a similarity” provided us with the bridge needed to overcome the aisle between classes.

Using Aristotle’s orthogonal classification, we can thus understand change, i.e., process, and thereby also evolution as superordinate change. Evolution is, however, even more difficult to classify than process, since it require double orthogonality. Double orthogonality is, moreover, very similar to non-orthogonality by being the mirror image of it. The former can be described by the expression “neither…nor…” and the latter by “both…and…”. The two expressions appear very similar, if not synonymous, but is totally (fundamentally) different.  There is thus a risk that a consistent, doubly orthogonal classification of evolution is confused with an inconsistent non-orthogonal classification of it (i.e., into holo- and paraphyletic groups). This risk is what Darwin warned for by his statement that “without a clear notion of species, the discussion risks an indefinite continuation in a vain search to define the indefinable”. The warning is correct, although a “clear notion of species” has been shown to provide a puerta to this search, instead of an immunization to it. What Darwin couldn’t foresee, is that inability to understand Aristotle’s orthogonal classification would turn into a force in biological systematics, collapsing double orthogonality into the non-orthogonality that is his “vain search to define the indefinable”, which today is called cladism and advocated by Malte Ebach. Darwin thought that the risk of this confusion resides in inability to conceptualization and to keep concepts apart; he couldn’t foresee cladism’s deliberate step from double orthogonality to non-orthogomality supported by the argument “parsimony” (actually populism). He couldn’t even imagine that scientists would abandon science, even deny it, for any reason what-so-ever. In hindsight, he was both naive and not understanding the problem. His naivity resides in believing that science would conquer other driving forces like need, greed, self-assertion and megalomania by idealism, and his non-understanding resides in not understanding that classification is ambiguous per definition, and thus not possible to “make” unambiguous even by ”a clear notion of species”.  His theory is simply ambiguous per definition, and this ambiguity is probably what he tried to disambiguate in the 20 years, or so, he waited to publish it. The problem is that it requires a genus consisting of two species in a row, which differs in a similarity, that is, an orthogonal classification, and that not even this classification can overcome the ambiguity resulting from the fact that reality is distinct from abstraction.

Malte is thus correct in that “evolution and classification are separate entities and that only the latter is the key to the former”, but he is wrong in that a non-orthogonal classification (like cladism) can  classify a doubly orthogonal relation consistently. Double orthogonality has to be treated as double orthogonality and not as non-orthogonality. Malte thinks that evolution is his lines on a paper, failing to see that these lines is a classification, thus erroneously believing that his classification is evolution instead of evolution. He fails to understand that he cannot catch evolution unambiguously, instead believing that he can, and does, catch evolution with his lines on a paper. He looks at relity from the back side, that is, as already classified. In this aspect, dead is not distinct from living, instead of being distinct from living. He views reality from, and thus lives in, the up-side-down world (similar to Gareth Nelson and John Wilkins (and many others, i.e., cladists).

Malte’s conclusions are thus correct given his axiom (i.e., that kinds exist), but this axiom is empirically wrong (i.e., falsified by the fact that time is relative). It means that Malte is totally wrong. He’s thus wrong in every single aspect. He does not have a single right. More wrong than Malte is impossible to be. Please, take care of this guy.

If not if had been, cladism would have been correct

In Sweden, we have a saying that “if not if would heve been, the old lady would have shot the bear with the broom handle”. This fits cladism totally. If not if would have been, cladism would have been correct.

Cladism is almost, or very nearly, correct, that is, totally wrong. There’s nothing that is closer to being correct than being totally wrong. The reason is that totally wrong means contradicting one’s own axiom, because the two (i.e., the axiom and its contradiction) run parallell but do never meet. They are extremely close, but do never meet.

The only difference between cladism and earlier attempts of the same kind is that cladism defines that they do meet, that is, that totally wrong is correct, and denies correct. Some cladists (notably Mikael Härlin) is so excited by this unexpected conceptual melt-down in biological systematics that he even calls it a new paradigm. This paradigm is thus the perfect paradigm for the inhabitants of worlds in which there is no if, like Alice’s Wonderland. It makes one wonder whether cladists inhabit such a land? In our land, we have to live with Schrödinger’s cat. (I welcome any cladist to clarify this wonder in a comment to this post?)  

The story of cladism is thus the story of how biological systematics went from two dialectic approaches (i.e., Parmenides’ thesis and Heracleitos’ antithesis), via Aristotles consistent synthesis of these dialectics, and Linné’s hierarchical organization of Aristotle’s synthesis, back to Parmenides’ approach, only this time as a confusion of the synthesis with the thesis turning the synthesis up-side-down and in-side-out. The driving force of the story is the aim to find an unambiguous classification of the living world. The Linnean system is the scientific culmination of this aim, but since the aim is impossible per definition (as I have explained elsewhere), not even this system can fulfill the aim, so after about 300 years with this system, some biological systematists (notably Steve Farris and Gareth Nelson) took the revolutionary step to claim that it is the other way around, that is, “defining” that the aim is possible and ”denying” that it’s impossible. They thus defined that what is impossible is possible, and denied that what is correct is correct, calling it a “natural” approach.

The story of cladism thus started with a thesis and ended with the same thesis, first having to give it up due to the fact that it’s inconsistent and wrong, and finally claiming that it’s consistent and correct, the former being correct, and the latter being a long-shot.    

Recently, a commenter at Wikipedia’s discussion page of the concept clade used the expression “thoroughly buggered up”. I’m not totally familiar with the concept buggered up, but to me, it appears to catch today’s situation in biological systematics fairly well. Farris and Nelson have really “buggered up” biological systematics totally by invoking Hennig’s non-scientific book and it’s foggy conceptual framework (called natural). The question now is how biological systematics shall pull itself out of this black hole (which Mikael Härlin calls a new paradigm). The pull downwards by people like Farris, Nelson and Härlin is hard. I’m curiously awaiting the continuation of this drama, doing my part to defend science against cladism (which is our obligation as Brummitt has explained).