What is a clade?

A clade is a group of entities (eg, biological species) that both possess and lack specific properties (whereof possession and lack is said to be “apomorphic” or “plesiomorphic”, respectively).

Now, anyone can see that this definition is a contradiction (ie, “both possess and lack single properties at the same time), but cladists think that the distinction of “apomorphic” and “plesiomorphic” resolves this contradiction. Well, does it?

No, unfortunately not. The problem is that every property also is ambiguous between being an apomorphy or a plesiomorphy (often expressed as “every plesiomorphy  is also an apomorphy and vice versa, on some level”).  This ambiguity makes the contradiction between possessing and lacking a property ambiguous between being apomorphic or plesiomorphic, rather than non-contradictory, and “an ambiguous contradiction” is the definition of paradox.

A clade is thus a paradox (actually the subjective aspect of Russell’s paradox). So, what’s the problem with this? Well, the problem is that it means that an illustration of a clade is consistently contradictory in relation to the real clade it illustrates, that is, is contradictory in all aspects (ie, both process and pattern), that is, illustrates pattern as process and vice versa. It means that cladists think that they have caught a process as a pattern, when this “catch” actually lacks a specific (non-contradictory) solution. Cladists have simply entered a process (ie, a search for the absent solution) by their belief that they have caught a process as a pattern.

When the  fact is that we only can discuss either process consistently or pattern ambiguously or contradictory, cladists conflate process with pattern in a way that blinds them for that they do by depriving them means to understand that they do. They simply can’t understand this fact in their belief.

Specifically, the paradoxical cladistic belief concerns the internal lines in illustrations of clades: they are contradictory between belonging to the clade of their immediate ancestor or of the clade of themselves. It means that properties are contradictory over their preceding and succeeding nodes. This double contradiction makes a cladist contradictory both internally and externally. A cladist is thus contradictory both with himself and with everyone else. This is the reason why so many practising cladists only discuss specific hypotheses with themselves (concerning a single group of organisms). They simply have to resolve their own contradiction before they can deal with the contradiction with other cladists.  Never, however, will they thus arrive to a non-contradictory conclusion, because there isn’t any to be found.

Cladistics is thus a black hole in conceptualization. It is the orthogonal return to what conceptualization started with, and thus also to the problems that conceptualization solved. The cladistic belief that this return should be the solution of our problems in conceptualizing reality is thus a pie in the sky. These problems are not solved just by assuming (or asserting, or claiming, or even defining) that we’re correct. Instead, they hang heavier on cladistics than on anything else. None of its solutions can be correct, since all of them are contradictory. A single tree of life is simply not to be found (at least not non-contradictory).

Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/

Read more at Menvall’s Blog: change on different levels