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 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 his Environmental Microbiology opinion he 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 the mechanism
of evolution or an underlying law of nature.
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 next at Cornell University and then to
address the Science Teachers of Saskatchewan in Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan.
For more information contact:
Prof. Doug Caldwell
(306) 966-5026 - phone
(306) 966-8898 - fax
CALDWELL at SASK.USASK.CA
or
The Gaia Society
http://ibs.uel.ac.uk/gaia/
file: PressRelease990730.05
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Doug Caldwell
Microbial Colonization Laboratory
Department of Applied Microbiology and Food Science
51 Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5A8, Canada
Voice: (306) 966-5026 (office), -5042 (colonization lab), -7704 (laser
imaging facility), 934-0711 (home)
Fax: 306-966-8898
Email: caldwell at sask.usask.ca
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