Shattering the Myths of Darwinism [Hardcover]

Richard Milton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997 | ISBN-10: 0892817321 | ISBN-13: 978-0892817320

Compelling evidence that the most important assumptions on which Darwinism rests are wrong.

The controversial best-seller that sent Oxford University and Nature magazine into a frenzy has at last come to the United States. Shattering the Myths of Darwinism exposes the gaping holes in an ideology that has reigned unchallenged over the scientific world for a century. Darwinism is considered to be hard fact, the only acceptable explanation for the formation of life on Earth, but with keen insight and objectivity Richard Milton reveals that the theory totters atop a shambles of outdated and circumstantial evidence that in any other field would have been questioned long ago.

Sticking to the facts at hand and tackling a vast array of topics, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism offers compelling evidence that the theory of evolution has become an act of faith rather than a functioning science, and that not until the scientific method is applied to it and the right questions are asked will we ever get the true answers to the mystery of life on Earth.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With selective evidence and twisted logic, Milton (Alternative Science, Inner Traditions, 1996) attempts to discredit the concept of organic evolution. Although raising important questions about interpretation and methodology, he fails to overturn the neo-Darwinian framework as he attacks as "myths" the claims of modern science concerning the age of this planet, the geological column with its fossil record, and even the biological relationship between the great apes and our own species. He ignores most of the recent evolutionary literature (especially in paleoanthropology and primatology), and his chapters are full of dated illustrations, misleading generalizations, and glaring errors, e.g., "the evidence for humankind's own evolution is actually nonexistent" and "Today, 'Java man' is thought to be an extinct, giant gibbonlike creature and not connected to humans." His own interpretation of earth history remains ambiguous, leaving the reader to wonder about what hidden motive underscores this morass of falsehoods. Not recommended.?H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

. . . Significant and fascinating. -- Donald A. Yerxa, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, June 2001

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Inner Traditions (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892817321
• ISBN-13: 978-0892817320
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,402,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Milton is a writer, journalist and broadcaster on a wide range of subjects. He currently freelances for The Daily Telegraph and other papers. He is the author of six books including "Bad Company", which The Sunday Times made its Business Book of the Week, and which sets out to explain why large corporations sometimes behave in self-defeating and even insane ways. His controversial "Alternative Science" examines how and why good science is sometimes thrown out with the bad.

His novel "Dead Secret" is a mind-blowing paranormal thriller. His latest non-fiction title "Best of Enemies" looks at Anglo-German relations through two world wars and charts the origins of modern propaganda.

His controversial "Shattering the myths of Darwinism" has caused some members of the scientific establishment to start chewing the carpet and foaming at the mouth, by daring to demand real empirical evidence in support of their Darwinian beliefs, in place of conjecture and pseudoscience.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This, February 9, 2001

By 

Karl (England, Great Britain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Paperback)

Contrary to earlier reviewer who apparently doesn't understand that 'Natural Selection' is a SECONDARY process which does not *cause* or facilitate evolution but merely conserves or destroys the fruits of the core mutation process, THIS IS A GREAT BOOK.

Milton has worked for more than two decades as a writer for solid, mainstream scientific publications such as New Scientist. Does anyone 'seriously' believe that he is some kind of creationist 'sleeper'? I suspect that in their heart of hearts even his most trenchant opponents do not, though I note that evolutionists, broad minded rationalists that they are, have a remarkable inability to think outside of a strict "Them" and "Us" scenario.

Anyway, what Milton has provided in this book is simply a well-laid out description of the many 'facts' that conventional evolutionary theory seems unable to deal with and which therefore tend to get swept under the proverbial carpet.

Milton DOES NOT support creationism, he doesn't even discount evolution as a scientific reality - he merely asks WHY the self-styled Darwinists and neo-Darwinists don't stop mouthing off at anyone who disagrees with them and start finding some answers to these unanswered questions.
Alternatively, if Darwinism, in all its variations, CANNOT provide the answers, for goodness' sake let's move on and find a bigger and better theory.

Trouble is, of course, most academics owe their comfy positions to having toed the party line. How on earth do they admit they've got it at least partly wrong for so long without looking like total wallys?

Milton's only crime - if crime it is - has been to pull some highly inconvenient skeleton's out of rather a lot of closets. If you really want a reliable measure of the value of this book, check out its detractors. And see how many of them offer genuine scientific criticism, and how many do little but descend into childish name calling.

If you have the faintest interest in the evolution controversy, and your job doesn't depend on you sticking to the officially approved stories, I'm guessing that you'll love this book.

66 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The evolution debate continues..., March 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Hardcover)

Based on the one star reviews of this book I expected a "creationist rehash." As a biologist trained in animal behavor I read nothing of the kind. Milton's arguments are clear and well argued; he is at his best at demonstrating the circular and nonexplanatory arguments used to keep neo-Darwinian "theory" viable. A previous negative review tells the reader to go and read a book on Darwin's finches--Milton devotes a full chapter to the arguments for "speciation" taken from the finch research. The finches of the different islands mate with one another and are not geograpically isolated from one another--while their beaks may differ in size and shape the finches are no more separate species than a poodle is a separate species from a bull dog. Variation within a species does not prove neo-Darwinism as "the origin of the species." To the potential reader and Mr. Milton (if he reads these reviews), I would urge a review of the most recent research of Hall on the specificity of adaptive mutagenesis and a reading of Ted Steels's new book "Lamarck's Signature" on retrogenes. Both lines of research are mentioned briefly by Milton--I believe a third edition incorporating these new theories and findings is needed. Milton looks like a young man--I hope he keeps up the search for truth in evolutionary biology gives us a new edition of this important work.

63 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Milton not a creationist, November 15, 1999

By 

Dr. S. Chumbley ([e-mail]) (Iowa State University) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Hardcover)

After reading the reviews and then this book, I can't help but wonder - did the people who only gave this book one star read the same book I did? Milton is clearly not a creationist, all his arguements are based on documented scientific evidence. He does not even refer to evidence presented by many creationists, as valid as that evidence may be. The only conclusion I can reach is that the "one-star" crowd are the same people that Milton contends have accepted Darwin as their God and evolution as their faith, one they must fight to protect despite all evidence to the contrary. This was a great book!