Hiram Caton

Hiram Caton (born 1936) was Professor of Politics & History at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, until his retirement. He is an ethicist and AIDS denialist [ [http://www.aidsinfobbs.org/apostates.html AIDS Info BBS database - Anthony Brink on The AIDS Apostates ] ] , a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Biology [ [http://www.aibiol.org.au/ Australian Institute of Biology] ] (since 1994) [ [http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/hcatton.htm HIV & AIDS - Hiram Caton ] ] , an officer of the International Society for Human Ethology [ [http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/ International Society for Human Ethology] ] , and a founding member of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences [ [http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/ International Society for Human Ethology] ] . He held a National Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in 1982-83 [ [http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/fellowships/ffellows1.htm Fellows of the National Humanities Center, A-G ] ] . He was the inaugural Professor of Humanities at Griffith University in Brisbane, and later the Professor of Politics and History [ [http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/author/C/Hiram_-_Caton.aspx Hiram Caton — www.greenwood.com ] ] and Head of the School of Applied Ethics [ [http://www.duesberg.com/media/nhconspiracy.html Duesberg on AIDS- Conspiracy of Silence ] ] there.

Education

Caton studied at the University of Chicago and received a PhD degree from Yale with an (earned) D.Litt degree for his work in modern history [ [http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/about%20us/officers/caton.html Hiram Caton ] ] .

Research

Caton's work has been concerned with ethics in the sciences (particularly in life sciences and medicine), the history of ideas, and on biological bases for individual, social, and political behaviour. Something of a polymath, he has published some 175 articles, across six or seven fields--medical ethics and bioethics, human ethology, modern political and economic history, anthropology (with special attention to the Freeman-Mead controversy), philosophy (with emphasis on rationalism and positivism), crowd studies, identity psychology, and problems of the integration of biological/evolutionary factors into the social sciences, especially political science.

He achieved notoriety as an AIDS denialist in the mid 1990s for his book "The AIDS Mirage" (1994), in which he charged Donald Francis with "inventing a viral epidemic" in 1982 at the Centers for Disease Control. However, his most significant book has been "The Politics of Progress: The Origins and Development of the Commercial Republic, 1600-1835" in which he explores what he considers to be the political forces surrounding the application of technology to subduing nature. Modern science, he argues, was born more from these political forces than from the ideological ones (such as the Protestant Reformation) that he feels are more usually credited with it.

The book was reviewed in more than 20 professional journals. Some reviewers stressed that it set forth a new interpretation of what drove the creation of capitalism, partly by tapping little-known historical sources. In it, Caton attributes the key phase to events and leaders in France, the Netherlands, and England in the 1650-1700 period. It offers interpretations of the French Revolution, of the founding of the United States of America, of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", and of the origin of the legend of wicked capitalism. Caton argues that Smith's conception of economics was pre-industrial (it failed to recognize that industrial technology had become a commodity) and states that the wicked capitalism legend was created in the 1820-1840 period by a clique of factory owners. In the book, Caton rejects the belief that the human species is evolving to a higher type.

In "The Origin of Subjectivity: An Essay on Descartes", Caton argues that Descartes based his epistemology on optics ('optical epistemology'); and that he used his metaphysics 'as a flag to cover the goods'-- a rationalist philosophy dedicated to the 'the mastery and possession of nature'.

Caton's publications on Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoa controversy are part of the standard literature.Fact|date=July 2008 His edited volume, "The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists Take Stock", remains the one comprehensive reader on the subject.Fact|date=July 2008 Among his contributions to the volume are two studies on Freeman's psychology. They were featured in 2005 in a lead article in the "Chronicle of Higher Education".Fact|date=July 2008 Also in 2005, Caton was a consultant to the BBC for its documentary on the Freeman-Mead controversy, "Tales from the Jungle".

His current work focuses on Charles Darwin. As an officer of the International Society of Human Ethology, he is working to integrate the Society into the web of activities celebrating the bicentenary of Darwin's birth (2009).Fact|date=July 2008 Caton also recently published a reinterpretation of Darwin's contribution to the establishment of evolution.Fact|date=July 2008 He has also devised a new interpretation of Darwin's famous illness, which he presented at the ISHE conference in Detroit, August 2006. This research is to be included in in "The Darwin Legend".Fact|date=July 2008

Publications

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* etext available [http://www.users.bigpond.com/smartboard/aids/ here]

External links

* [http://www.grumpyoldeman.com GrumpyOldeMan - The Hiram Caton Homepage]
* [http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=4047 Biography]
* [http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/ishe/about%20us/officers/caton.html Biography]

References

Reviews of "The Politics of Progress"

* cite journal
last = Coleman
first = William
year = 1991
month = July
title = [untitled review]
journal = Southern Economic Journal
volume = 58
issue = 1
pages = 282–3

* cite journal
last = Eden
first = Robert
year = 1989
month = Winter
title = Modern Republicanism and the American Founding, 1600-1789
journal = Polity
volume = 22
issue = 2
pages = 367–76
doi = 10.2307/3234840

* cite journal
last = Egnal
first = Marc
year = 1989
month = September
title = [untitled review]
journal = The Journal of Economic History
volume = 49
issue = 3
pages = 759–60

* cite journal
last = Jacob
first = Margaret C.
year = 1991
month = February
title = [untitled review]
journal = The American Historical Review
volume = 96
issue = 1
pages = 131–2

* cite journal
last = Matson
first = Cathy
year = 1989
month = Autumn
title = [untitled review]
journal = Journal of the Early Republic
volume = 9
issue = 3
pages = 383–5

* cite journal
last = Minogue
first = Kenneth
year = 1991
month = Spring
title = [untitled review]
journal = Policy

* cite journal
last = Narrett
first = David E
year = 1989
month = Autumn
title = [untitled review]
journal = The Business History Review
volume = 63
issue = 3
pages = 662–4

* cite journal
last = Richardson Jr.
first = Robert D.
year = 1990
month = October
title = [untitled review]
journal = History and Theory
volume = 29
issue = 3
pages = 375–83

* cite journal
last = Schaeffer
first = David Lewis
year = 1990
month = Winter
title = [untitled review]
journal = Review of Politics
volume = 52
issue = 1
pages = 131–5