Richard Milton (author)

Richard Milton
Born 1943
London
Occupation writer and journalist
Nationality British
Citizenship British
Period Contemporary
Genre Fiction and non fiction
Subject Controversies

Richard Milton (born 1943) is a British journalist and writer who deals with often highly controversial subjects. Milton, an engineer by training,[1] has published on the topics of popular history, business, scientific controversies and alternative science and has published a novel.

Books

The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism is a re-evaluation of the Darwinist evolutionary mechanism of the natural selection of genetic mutations. It reports on research in many fields by professional scientists that cast doubt on accepted ideas, which it describes as having become a dogma. In the first edition of the book Milton was supportive of alternative evolutionary mechanisms such as Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics.[2] Milton has criticised neo-Darwinism.[3] Milton also claimed in his book that the earth may be as young as 175,000 years old, based on the amount of helium in the atmosphere.[4] In a review in Third Way Magazine Douglas Spanner, while suggesting that it should be taken seriously by orthodox Darwinism, was dubious about his attempts to dispute traditional methods of estimating the earth's age and said "on matters of biological importance he can be off-course at times".[1]

Controversy

His books, especially those on scientific controversies, have been roundly rejected. To his critics Milton is a contrarian who engages in controversy for its own sake, while to his supporters he is a writer unafraid to tackle uncomfortable subjects and orthodoxies that have become dogmas. Milton is shunned in the field of evolution as he is a neo-Lamarckian who has supported the experiments of Paul Kammerer.[5]

The Facts of Life was met with intense criticism from many mainstream academic reviewers. Reviewing it in the New Statesman, Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins described it as "twaddle that betrays, on almost every page, complete and total pig-ignorance of the subject at hand".[6]

Milton's claims have been criticised as pseudoscience by philosophy professor Robert Carroll.[7] Milton appeared on The Mysterious Origins of Man, a television special arguing that mankind has lived on the Earth for tens of millions of years, and that mainstream scientists have suppressed supporting evidence.[8]

Milton's claims on the age of mankind have also been criticised for scientific inaccuracy.[9]

Works

Non-fiction

Fiction

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Spanner, Douglas (April 1993). "The Facts of Life (review)". Third Way. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  2. ↑ Book Review of Facts of Life in the Independent Newspaper
  3. ↑ Article by Richard Milton Online
  4. ↑ Milton, Facts of Life, pp. 62 - 65
  5. ↑ Milton in Forbidden Science, p. 229 discussing evidence for Neo-Lamarckism
  6. ↑ Dawkins, Richard (28 August 1992). "Review of Richard Milton: The Facts of Life: Shattering the myth of Darwinism". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 2007-10-28. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
  7. ↑ Carroll, Robert (2008). "The Alternative Science Pages of Richard Milton". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
  8. ↑ The Mysterious Origins of Man
  9. ↑ Thomas, Dave (March 1996). "NBC's Origins Show". Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Archived from the original on 2007-02-03. Retrieved 2007-02-19.
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