What is cladistics?

Cladistics has got Darwin’s theory on the origin of species up-side-down. The theory does not mean that living beings form a particular set of kinds, as is implied if it is interpreted in terms of clades  (i.e., cladistically), but only explains the origin of kinds in a generic sense, that is, the existence of the multitude of varieties of living beings.

 The cladistic interpretation is actually erroneous per definition, both by that kinds are ambiguous per definition (i.e., can’t be arranged unambiguously per definition), and by excluding the existence of populations (i.e., the generically distinct but specifically indistinct clusters of organisms that form the precursors to species), thereby actually contradicting the theory itself.

Darwin’s theory does thus not mean that kinds exist, but just gives an explanation of the origin of the existing diversity. The theory is a process model, not an existential claim. As an existential claim, it is just as inconsistent as the story of creation is. It is thus not an alternative belief but a scientific explanation, and scientific explanations are not lapidary (i.e., cut in stone), like beliefs, but, on the contrary, continuously under revision.

Darwin’s theory is thus not what cladistics interpret it as, but instead what cladistics denies. It leads to the question what cladistics is. My answer is the belief in subjectivity.