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Cladistics and particle physics are not science
We can pose questions about reality and give answers to these questions.
However, the difference between reality and our talk about it means that the answers we give are only hypothetical until we test them against reality (ie, empirical testing), which we can only do by either verifying or falsifying them.
Now, a hypothetical answer can only be right or wrong. Empirical testing of this answer requires that we first assume that the hypothetical answer is either right or wrong, meaning that the empirical testing does not decide whether the hypothetical answer is right or wrong, but rather whether the assumption that the hypothetical answer is right or wrong is right or wrong.
This fact complicates the interpretation of the empirical testing. If we assume that the hypothetical answer is right and conclude that this assumption is right, then the hypothetical answer is undoubtedly right. If we assume that the hypothetical answer is right and conclude that this assumption is wrong, or assume that the hypothetical answer is wrong and conclude that this assumption is right, then the hypothetical answer is undoubtedly wrong. But, what about if we assume that the hypothetical answer is wrong and conclude that this assumption is wrong? Does this conclusion mean that the hypothetical answer (which was assumed to be wrong) is right?
The answer to this question is: yes. If an assumption that a hypothetical answer is right and a conclusion that this assumption is right is right, then an assumption that a hypothetical answer is wrong and a conclusion that this assumption is wrong is also right.
It means that empirical testing actually can give a positive answer to a negative assumption (if an empirical testing of it is negative). This fact may appear totally irrelevant, but is actually crucial in the battle between realism (like cladistics and particle physics) and nominalism (like traditional science) by meaning that if realism’s fundamental assumption that there is a single truth is right, then there is also an orthogonal truth, ie, the negative of a negative, and thus actually at least two truths.
This fact does thus demonstrate that if realism is right, then it is wrong (ie, falsifies realism). It does in practice mean that there isn’t any “true tree of life” (cladistics) or any “Higgs particle” (particle physics). It is impossible to test empirically whether there is any “true tree of life” or any “Higgs particle”, but it is possible to understand that there can’t be any.
I can thus promise that neither cladistics nor particle physics will ever find their Gods (ie, a “true tree of life” or “Higgs particle”). Instead, I can promise that these beliefs are religions of the same kind as Christianity and Islam, ready to fight the battle of belief on the arena of beliefs. In this battle, we have to understand that these beliefs are not science, but inconsistent offshoots from science.
Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/
Source: https://menvall.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/cladistics-and-particle-physics-are-not-science/
