FW: evolution

[Mary Barkworth]

I came across this by chance and thought I would throw it in the pot.  So
far as I can recall, no one has mentioned Caldwell in the discussion to this
point.  I do not know him, nor have I asked permission for this posting,
assuming that is covered by the fact that I found it on the U of
Saskatchewan's Web site and have left in the publication information.

Organization: University of Saskatchewan Communications
Posted By: Eva Ogilvie
Email: communications.office at usask.ca
<mailto:communications.office at usask.ca>
Published: Monday, 09-Aug-1999 09:30:32 CST


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 6, 1999

99-08-01-AG



U. of  S. Professor Rejects

Conventional Evolutionary Theory as

Political Ideology



In an opinion to be published in Environmental

Microbiology later this month, Doug  Caldwell dismisses

conventional evolutionary theory as a politically

motivated form of superstition or mythology.



Caldwell's proliferation theory, first published in 1997

with three co-authors,  states that a universal

information system or life force resides within  all

physical, chemical, and biological  objects.  He attributes

evolution to the activity of this universal informational

system,  rather than to the natural selection of

organisms or DNA molecules.  This challenges the  central

role of DNA in evolutionary theory. He argues that if

nothing can evolve without  DNA, then how could DNA

have originated?



In the Environmental Microbiology opinion Caldwell

states that "Contemporary selection  theory requires

that any act of cooperation or altruism must be directly

or indirectly  caused by an act of competition or self-

interest.  However, if we are guided by scientific

reasoning, then making competition a precondition for

cooperation is an unnecessary complication and thus

must be regarded as superstition rather than science."



He  suspects that evolutionary science became immune

to normal standards of scientific  scrutiny during the

Cold War and stresses that neither communism

(cooperation) nor  individualism (competition) is likely to

be the mechanism of evolution or an underlying law of

nature.



The opinion contains a table with the results of

Caldwell's computer analysis of Charles Darwin's "The

Origin of Species".  This reveals that Darwin made

extensive use of words like destruction, killing,

extermination, death, individual, perfection, race,

victory and war while never using any alternatives like

cooperate, cooperation, symbiosis, associate,

association, collaborate, interact, or affiliate.  Scientific

reasoning normally requires that hypotheses be

scrutinized by considering logical alternatives, and this

is absent in "The Origin of Species".



The article also points out that the full title of Darwin's

volume was "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural

Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the

Struggle for Life" although most ecologists trained

during the past 40 years were unaware of the full title

because it was normally cited as "The Origin of Species

by Means of Natural Selection" or as "The Origin of

Species".



Caldwell was the lead speaker at a meeting of the Gaia

Society held at Oxford University  in April .   The Gaia

society is a new scientific organization that studies the

Earth as an  evolving self-regulating system. Conceiving

of the Earth as an evolving system is an  impossibility,

based on current evolutionary theory,  because the

Earth has no discrete pool  of DNA, does not grow, and

has no competitors to allow evolution by natural

selection.



Caldwell is scheduled to speak at Cornell University in

Ithaca, New York on October 14,  and to the Science

Teachers of Saskatchewan in Prince Albert,

Saskatchewan on October 21.





For more information contact:



Prof. Doug Caldwell

Dept. of Microbiology and Food Science

(306) 966-5026 - phone

(306) 966-8898 - fax

CALDWELL at SASK.USASK.CA