Richard Milton (born 1943) is a British

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and amateur archaeologist. An

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

by training, Milton has written on the topics of

popular history Popular history is a broad genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professio ...

, business, and alternative science, and published one novel.

Books

''The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism'' is a non-religious creationist attack on

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

, following the arguments of "

creation science Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without ov ...

". It presents an "idiosyncratic collection of scientific anomalies purported to support the fallacies of Darwinism", referencing fringe figures such as

Rupert Sheldrake Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worke ...

. In a review in ''

Third Way The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born f ...

'' 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". 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 Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

as he is a neo-

Lamarckian Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

who has supported the experiments of

Paul Kammerer Paul Kammerer (17 August 1880, in Vienna – 23 September 1926, in Puchberg am Schneeberg) was an Austrian biologist who studied and advocated Lamarckism, the theory that organisms may pass to their offspring characteristics acquired in their li ...

. ''The Facts of Life'' was met with intense criticism from many mainstream academic reviewers. Reviewing it in the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members o ...

'',

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

evolutionary biologist

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An at ...

described it as "twaddle that betrays, on almost every page, complete and total pig-ignorance of the subject at hand", characterising its central thesis as being as silly as "a claim that the Romans never existed and the Latin language is a cunning Victorian fabrication to keep schoolmasters employed". Milton's claims have been criticised as

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

by philosophy professor Robert Carroll. Milton appeared on ''

The Mysterious Origins of Man ''The Mysterious Origins of Man'' is a pseudoarchaeological television special that originally aired on NBC on February 25, 1996. Hosted by Charlton Heston, the program presents the fringe theory that mankind has lived on the Earth for tens ...

'', 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.The Mysterious Origins of Man
/ref> Milton's claims on the age of mankind have also been criticised for scientific inaccuracy. Reviewing ''Forbidden Science: Suppressed Research That Could Change Our Lives'' in ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...

'',

Harry Collins Harry Collins, (born 13 June 1943), is a British sociologist of science at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Career While at the University of Bath Professor C ...

was generally positive about much of the book but criticised Milton's failure to "draw a line between what might be worth a shot and what is simply daft": Collins concluded: "unlike Milton, I cannot see the scientific point of Kirlian photography or the theory of the

hollow Earth The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bougue ...

, however interesting they are to sociologists".

Works

Nonfiction

* ** published as ''Il Mystero Della Vita'', Editoriale Armenia, 1993 (Italy) ** published by Sinkosha Publishing, 1995 (Japan) * ** published as ''O Mythos tou Darwinismou'' 1996 (Greece), Park Street Press, 1997 (US Hardback, US Paperback) ** published by Forepace Publishing, 1997 (Thailand) * ** published as ''Verbotene Wissenschaften'', Zweitausendeins, 1996 (Germany) ** published as ''Verbotene Wissenschaften'', Kopp Verlag, 2014 (Germany) * * *

Fiction

References

External links

Debate on fossil hominid evidence between Richard Milton and Jim Foley

TalkOrigins Archive The TalkOrigins Archive is a website that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of young-earth, old-earth, and "intelligent design" creationists. With sections on evolution, creationism, geology, astronomy and homi ...