On confusion of concept with object (i.e., cladistics)

Confusing concept with object (like crocodile with single crocodiles) is a mistake that obviously is particularly abundant among biological systematists, today even acknowledged as an approach called cladistics, or cladism. Concept and object may indeed be difficult to distinguish, but they are as different as cladistics and single cladists are.

The main problems with this confusion (actually a returnal to the ancient Greek Parmenides’ comprehension of reality about 2,400 years ago or so) is that it is internally inconsistent by equalizing one with several, and that it is contradicted by the fact we know today that time is relative (i.e., between different speeds in space).  These two properties tell us that the approach lacks an unambiguous end point.

The main problem for biological systematics with this confusion (i.e., the approach cladistics) is that it is the mirror image of empirical science, thus pushing empirical science out of biological systematics like a cuckoo chicken pushes its competitors out of the nest. This is a problem both for scientific biological systematists (like Ashlock, Simpson and Mayr) and biological systematics itself, both as a scientific discipline and in terms of its aim.