Richard C Johnson

Richard Johnson is a man of many talents, including careers as research chemist, business owner, and, most recently, writer. After earning a PhD, Richard Johnson held research appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of Arizona, and Syntex, the pharmaceutical company famous for producing the first birth control pill. Subsequently he worked in the medicinal industry, producing two U.S. Patents. In 1980, Johnson founded Desert Analytics, a laboratory carrying out microanalysis on minute samples of research compounds produced in universities, corporations, and government installations.

Richard has had a lifelong interest in consciousness, fascinated by the paradox about human identity that it creates. His other books include: Religion, The Failed Narrative; The Human Identity Problem; Intuitive/Counterintuitive: The Structure of Religion and Science; and, Had Enough of God Yet?

Richard has three adult children, five grandchildren, and resides in Tucson, Arizona.

300-600 word bio

Richard Johnson was fascinated by the bright, shiny metal he saw in the debris of a broken light bulb. It was truly remarkable, he thought, that such a material could survive being heated to incandescence before the bulb was broken. Johnson was eight or nine years old at the time in the late 1940s. This simple preoccupation with the element tungsten launched him into a lifelong career in science, in particular, chemistry. After earning a PhD, Johnson held research appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of Arizona, and Syntex, the pharmaceutical company famous for producing the first birth control pill. Subsequently he worked in the medicinal industry, producing two U.S. Patents. In 1980, Johnson founded Desert Analytics, a laboratory carrying out microanalysis on minute samples of research compounds produced in universities, corporations, and government installations. This activity is integral to establishing the exact elemental composition of new chemical compounds which are intermediates in the production of pharmaceuticals that one day might appear on the shelves in pharmacies.

More recently, after the turn of the millennium, Johnson has focused attention on subjects that have long been of interest to him. At the center of this is the aspect that sets us apart from all other species, consciousness. He has delved deep within the mind in an attempt to explore the thinking process, hopefully giving light on how consciousness gives rise to human identity, the wellspring of all religion; which essentially comes down to: who are we anyway and why are we here doing this thinking? How does inherent intuition figure in all of this, and what has been the impact of reason?

During the past couple of years, he has sat in awe of the technical revolution which has exploded all around us. He has asked how our history has led up to this. Our thinking process has clearly changed, or developed with the admixing of reason. More specifically, how is this coming about, and why now? And religion apparently has been affected. Fewer people attend church. What is the likely implication on religion apparently in decline?

Johnson has three children, all adults; there are five grandchildren. They have been a major part of molding the contours of his life, the greater share in Tucson, Arizona, where he continues to reside.

And how about that! It all began with tungsten in Jackson, Michigan.