Willi Hennig, “The Father Of Cladistics”, Got It All Wrong

Willi Hennig, “the father of cladistics”, got it all wrong.

He assumed that classes are real, when fact is the other way around, that is, that classes can’t be real.

He assumed (claimed) that change is fundamentally consistent, when fact is the other way around, that is, that change is fundamentally contradictory.

He asserted (claimed) that there is a single “true tree of life” (ie, single true generic bifurcating illustration of the origin of biodiversity) to be found, when fact is the other way around, that is, that there is no such thing to be found.

This fundamentally erroneous comprehension led him to the irrational belief that the class clade is consistent, ie, can be found, although this class is the subjective aspect of Russell’s paradox.

He thus gave rise to a sect in biological systematics resting on the fundamentally erroneous (ie, irrational) axiom that classes are real, and chasing the irrational brain ghost called the class clade, therefore entitled ”cladistics”. This sect is rationally termed “applied typology” and described as “a chase on your own classification”. Its chase is thus actually endless, because it is fundamentally contradictory.

Willi Hennig thus got all he possibly could get wrong. His spin is easy to fall into, but extremely difficult to get out of. The rational comprehension, which also is taught in school, rests on the axiom that objects (entities), instead of classes, are real. Willi Hennig just managed to tilt this axiom up-side-down into the axiom that classes, instead of objects, are real, that is, applied typology.

To get it all right again, we just have to tilt the axiom back to objects. - See the single object first and any class then, instead of a class first and the object then. Reality belongs to the single object, as William of Ockham expressed it. Classes are fundamentally artificial, and also fundamentally contradictory between finite and infinite classes (traditionally called “categories” and “classes”, respectively). A consistent (ie, non-contradictory) classification has to keep these two orthogonal aspects consistently apart, like the Linnean systematics does. Cladistics is in fact an eternal merry-go-round between contradictory solutions, behind Willi Hennig’s irrational spin.

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

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