A US academic billed as David Cameron's new intellectual guru takes a Darwinian approach to economics and says it is wrong for the rich to pay higher taxes to help the less well-off.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professor of risk engineering at New York University, attacked Barack Obama for increasing his tax bill as part of a series of anti-recessionary measures.

The remarks by Taleb, the conservative author of the book Black Swan, were made during an appearance with Cameron at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on Tuesday.

Labour attacked Cameron, who says Taleb's work confirms his own prejudices, because the "eccentric" academic says economic crashes are a good thing.

In some of his most provocative remarks at his appearance with Cameron, the Lebanese-American academic criticised Obama for increasing his taxes as he harked back to Darwin's theory of evolution.

"I happen to do OK. I am paying more taxes," Taleb said. "How can you have evolution if those who do the right thing have to finance those who did the wrong thing? If you are making money in 2009 – that means you have a robust business in the cycle – you are paying more taxes. If you are losing money in 2009 you get a bigger tax break. It is the opposite of everything I believe in."

Taleb has become a conservative folk hero following the success of his book, which examines the phenomena of "Black Swans" or "low-probability, high-impact events" that can have a major impact on the world.

Cameron praised Taleb and said his book had confirmed his own prejudices. "I very much enjoyed Black Swan. I am trying to come to terms with Black Swan thinking and what it might mean for politics … The danger with reading somebody's book is that it just confirms some of your prejudices and that is why you like it," the Tory leader said.

But Taleb has beliefs which are outside the political mainstream in Britain. These include:

• Economic crashes are a good thing. "I like crashes. I just like the world to be robust with them. The world is not robust. In 2000 Silicon Valley was very robust."

• Debt is nearly always dangerous. "Christianity early on did not like debt. Islam banned debt. It is not without reason. The Romans had problems with debt. A lot of wars were caused by debt. So debt was not necessarily a good thing. You say in moderation. But we don't know what moderation is."

• Climate change may not be man-made. "I'm a hyper-conservative ecologically. I don't want to mess with Mother Nature, OK. Even I don't believe that carbon thing is necessarily anthropogenic [man made], right. I just don't want to mess with Mother Nature. I don't understand Mother Nature. It is much more intelligent than us. It has been around for longer than anything else." Cameron made clear he disagrees with Taleb on this.

Taleb yesterday criticised the British press for the reporting of his remarks, saying they may have become "lost in translation". His views on economic crashes had been distorted, he said. "I said that free markets generate fads, crashes, massive movements. Attempts to control the cycle proved futile – what we need is citizens to become robust to them, to be immune to their impact. My point is that we cannot predict Black Swans, but we know their impact and can be prepared for them. Again taken backwards: 'Taleb loves crashes'. This is incompetent journalism in its most insidious form."