Cladistics is a meltdown of the entire scientific building
A clade is a set (in the cladistic interpretation originally consisting of “species”). A set is not, however, according to any axiomatic set theory like ZFC, a set, but instead a subset of itself (actually the product of the empty set). Neither a clade is thus a set.
If, on the contrary, a set could be a set, then it would be a paradox (ie, Russell’s paradox), which it thus isn’t, because it can’t be. Instead, the relation between sets are quite complicated. From Wikipedia:
“Set theory begins with a fundamental binary relation between an object o and a set A. If o is a member (or element) of A, write o ∈ A. Since sets are objects, the membership relation can relate sets as well.
A derived binary relation between two sets is the subset relation, also called set inclusion. If all the members of set A are also members of set B, then A is a subset of B, denoted A ⊆ B. For example, {1,2} is a subset of {1,2,3} , but {1,4} is not. From this definition, it is clear that a set is a subset of itself; for cases where one wishes to rule out this, the term proper subset is defined. A is called a proper subset of B if and only if A is a subset of B, but B is not a subset of A.”
This fact (ie, that a set is not a set) is indeed contradictory, but it is actually what all axiomatic set theories like ZFC have to state, because they can’t change reality, but can only design consistent (discrete) mathematics, which can only be achieved by making single sets contradictory in terminology. The reason is that classes can’t be real because classification is ultimately contradictory, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 with Russell’s paradox.
This fundamental fact does cladistics turn up-side-down by simply asserting that a clade indeed is a set, thereby also asserting that a set is simply a set, thus meaning that sets are paradoxically contradictory. This assertion is thus not only wrong, but moreover a meltdown of the entire scientific building. It razes the pinning that holds up the tent we call science. It is thus not only a “paradigm shift”, as some cladists, like Mikael Härlin, claim, but moreover the paradigm shift that erases science. If it is correct, then science is not correct.
The problem with cladistics is thus not whether “the tree of life” is “true” or not, but whether a set is a set or not. The problem is whether a set can be a member of itself, as the set “the tree of life” is, or not. If it can, as cladistics asserts, then sets are paradoxically contradictory, which, in turn, invalidates mathematics.
The problem for non-cladists is thus to falsify cladistics. The cladistic assertion that reality is paradoxical and that science is wrong appears stupid, but it is indeed much simpler than science is, and if it can’t be falsified by empirical evidence, it ought to be accepted by science on the basis of science’s criterion of simplicity. Cladistics is thus a challenge to science, maybe the worst of them. So, is there a single empirical evidence that falsifies cladistics?
I have just been able to find one empirical fact that falsifies cladistics: the fact that time is relative (with speed in space). The reason is that cladistics equalizes time with space (in reducing 4 dimensions, ie, the 3 dimensions of space and the dimension of time, into 3 dimensions, ie up, down and along on a surface), which excludes and thereby is inconsistent with, and thus also is falsified by, the fact that time is relative (with speed in space). This fact thus proves that reality is more true than a cladistic description of it is. Cladistics thus asserts that a map of reality is more true than reality itself is, which is contradicted by the fact that time is relative (with speed in space). This fact and only it thus saves us non-cladists from being forced to accept cladistics by our own criteria. Instead, we can deny cladistics by concluding that simplicity is not the main fundament for science, but that facts instead is.
Then we can thank God that the fact of the relativity of time was known before the advent of cladistics. (Cladistics is, by the way, nothing but the race biology advocated by Nazism and conveyed to us first by Willi Hennig and then by Steve Farris and Gareth Nelson. Hopefully, we can leave this nasty extremist branch of science by this empirical falsification of it.) We can thus throw cladistics on the scumbag it belongs to.
Source: http://menvall.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/cladistics-is-a-meltdown-of-the-entire-scientific-building/
