archaeopteris

August 9, 2020May 2, 2022

Cladistics and Circular Reasoning

(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
(2 Corinthians 10:4-5) KJV

Despite the rigorous application of philosophical ploys to guard against circular reasoning in cladistic analysis it’s a poster boy for circular reasoning because it’s based in a paradigm which is the result of personal bias. In this case the personal bias is: do you love or hate God?

August 9, 2018August 9, 2021

August 9th

Archaeopteris and Devolution

“Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
(Jeremiah 21:8) NKJV

We (me and the Holy Spirit) didn’t realize it at the time, but the first nail we hammered into the coffin lid of our scientific career was a paper about using cladistic phylogenetic analysis to study the fossil Archaeopteris.

July 29, 2018September 21, 2021

O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge—by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.
(1 Timothy 6:20-21) NKJV

We’re critical of the philosophical construction of the scientific method because it’s been meticulously crafted to exclude any possibility that the truth can be either an acceptable premise, or a possible conclusion.

May 20, 2018May 23, 2022

May 20th

Fish Or Whale?

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
(Jonah 1:17) KJV

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,
(Matthew 12:40) KJV

In spherogenetic systematics Fish is a higher rank than Whale. The fish of the sea is everything created in the hydrosphere. Whale is a subcategory. The thing that swallowed Jonah was both a fish and a whale.

July 10, 2017July 31, 2020

Primitive or Advanced?

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
(Galatians 5:1) KJV

Cladistic phylogenetic analysis works by grouping species based on shared derived characteristics (synapomorphies). All of the members of a homologous group have a common ancestor. In this way it’s possible to develop a phylogenetic tree.

October 21, 2016May 19, 2022

Archaeopteris (Dawson): A case study in the applicability of phylogenetic analysis to fossil taxa

We didn’t realize it at the time, but the first nail we hammered into the lid on the coffin of our scientific career was a paper that we wrote about using cladistic phylogenetic analysis to study the Devonian fossil Archaeopteris.