19th Century Bombshell for Biology: Darwin and Wallace Now Proven to have been Influenced by Patrick Matthew

This blog post was first published on Best Thinking on 23rd March 2014

Following one of the Most Important Discoveries of the 21st Century, Scotland has a new Science Hero and England has the World's Two Greatest Science Fraudsters.

Evolutionary biologists generally agree that the Scottish laird, farmer and orchardist, Patrick Matthew (1831) was the first discoverer of natural selection. He published his discovery with major London and Edinburgh publishers 27 years before Darwin and Wallace replicated it (see Dawkins 2010). However, the rules (Merton 1957, Stevens 2003) and the protocols of scientific priority are that a discoverer of unique knowledge must fulfill two conditions to awarded absolute scientific priority for their breakthrough. What we might term Condition I is that they must be the first to publish their breakthrough. And Condition II is that their publication must influence the work of at least one major scholar in the field.

Last week I sent a paper to a scientific journal. That paper reveals just some of the many new discoveries contained in my forthcoming book (Sutton 2014). Namely, that Patrick Matthew (1831) influenced what Darwin and Wallace wrote on natural selection in the years before their papers (Darwin and Wallace 1858) were read before the Linnean Society, and before the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ (Darwin 1859).

Hi-Tech research methods allowed me to search the 30 million documents in Google’s Library Project to find hidden publications that led to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest discoveries of the 21 century. Because the 19th century publications that I discovered prove – contrary to current Darwinian knowledge beliefs that nobody read it – that Matthew’s published (Matthew 1831) prior discovery of the ‘natural process of selection’ was in fact read by seven naturalists pre-1848. And we know they read it because they actually cited it in the literature. The Citing Seven are: Robert Chambers (1832), John Loudon (1832), Edmund Murphy (1834), Cuthbert Johnson (1842), Prideaux John Selby (1842), John Norton (1851) (see Stephens and Norton), and William Jameson (1853).

BOMBSHELL DISCOVERY!

The absolute bombshell for biology and the history of science is that three of these seven played central roles in influencing and facilitating Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on natural selection.

Proof Positive of Highly Likely Matthewian Knowledge Contamination, by Three Naturalists, who either facilitated, as both Editors and Publishers (Loudon and Selby), or else Influenced with their own writing (Chambers,) Darwin's and Wallace's Writing on Organic Evolution Years Before Publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'

• Robert Chambers (1845) published the best selling Vestiges of Creation, a book covering the topic of organic evolution that both Darwin and Wallace admitted was a major influence upon their thinking, that of other naturalists and the wider public.
• Loudon both edited and published Blyth’s (1835, 1836) influential articles on variation within species. Darwin (1861) admitted that Blyth was one of his most important influences and a most valuable informant on the subject of evolution and variety in species.
• Selby edited and published Wallace’s (1855) Sarawak paper, which set down his natural selection marker in the field of organic evolution.

The fact that three out of the total of seven naturalists newly discovered to have read Matthew's 1831 book pre-Origin were right at the centre of influence and facilitation of Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on organic evolution completely destroys the current knowledge-belief (e.g. Judd 1909; Dawkins 2010), in the field of evolutionary biology, that Darwin and Wallace discovered natural selection independently of Matthew's breakthrough.

Darwin and Wallace went to their graves claiming that pre-1860 neither they nor anyone else in the field was aware of Matthew’s published ideas. Darwin (1861) wrote:

‘In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal,' and as that enlarged on in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' on April 7th, 1860.’

And Contrary to Stott’s (2012) outrageous falsehood about Matthew happily handing over the mantle for the discovery of natural selection to Darwin, Matthew, by then bankrupt and impoverished, went to an unmarked grave, somewhere in Errol churchyard in Scotland, having fought all his life, without success, for the recognition he deserved for discovering natural selection many years before Darwin and Wallace. For example, at the 1867 British Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Dundee, Scotland, which was attended by Darwin’s friends Charles Lyell, Robert Chambers and Alfred Wallace – Matthew (1867), then aged 77 years, was platform blocked! He complained in the press that he was strategically prevented from speaking about his discovery. No one listened then, because Darwin and his adoring Darwinists had so cleverly, yet fallaciously, portrayed Matthew as a deluded crank.

146 years later, the whole world will listen now that we have 100 per cent proof of the fact that Matthew is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the naturalist who discovered natural selection, influenced other naturalists with his published ideas, who then influenced and facilitated the work of Darwin and Wallace in the same field of discovery.

Darwinians, who weirdly believe that their own failure to seek and find data is proof such data does not exist, will now have to embrace the newly discovered facts and dump their lazy rhetoric. There are many of them who have written on the Matthew problem, and they are fairly well typified by Bowler in their lack of curiosity and fallacious certainty (1983 p.158):

‘One writer has even gone so far as to hail Matthew as the originator of the modern evolution theory (Dempster 1996). Such efforts to denigrate Darwin misunderstand the whole point of the history of science: Matthew did suggest a basic idea of selection, but he did nothing to develop it; and he published it in an appendix to a book on the raising of trees for ship building. No one took him seriously, and he played no role in the emergence of Darwinism. Simple priority is not enough to earn a thinker a place in the history of science: one has to develop the idea and convince others of its value to make a real contribution. Darwin’s notebooks confirm that he drew no inspiration from Matthew or any of the other alleged precursors.’

We now know Bowler is completely wrong, because we now have absolute solid proof that Matthew did directly influence Loudon, Chambers and Selby - who at turns influenced, edited and facilitated the work of Blyth Darwin and Wallace while in possession of Matthew's ideas and his great discovery. Moreover, surely it is Bowler who misunderstands that the whole point of the history of science is to question, to investigate, to unearth facts and to use new discoveries and related facts in order to understand the past - accurately. Good scholars never stop looking! And as a result of such curiosity driven research - of the kind that Darwinists such as Bowler surely deem heretical - we now know more about the influnce of Matthew during the smoggy 28 year span between his published breakthrough and Darwin's (1859) replication of it in theOrigin of Species.

Contrary to the handy Darwinian Appendix Myth, Matthew (1831) most certainly did not bury his discovery in an appendix; he mentions it throughout the book. Matthew even names it the ‘natural process of selection’ in the main body of his book. Incidentally, Matthew's unique term for his unique discovery was, in turn, uniquely four-word shuffled into 'process of natural selection' nine times by Darwin in the first edition of the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859). Ideas from the main body of Matthew's book, not its appendix, were cited by Selby (1842) and Jameson (1853) to explain Matthew's discovery of the complex relationship between an organism being 'most circumstance suited' and competing with others having a 'greater power of occupancy'. Such attempts as Bowler's, and those Darwinist's who cite his criticism of Dempster in a positive light, to selectively stifle critical scholarship by deployment of self-serving fallacies, myths and hero-worship of higher orthodox authority denigrates the scientific process that has taken us forward since the great enlightenment (see: Deutsch 2010). Furthermore, the dangers of such bias clouding reason are revealed in Bowler's desperate deployment of jumbled logic, because absence of any reference to Matthew in Darwin's notebooks proves nothing. Not only are many pages torn out from those notebooks, just as so many of his letters are missing, but Darwin started the notebooks that have survivedafter Matthew published his 1831 book.

Patrick Matthew is the greatest deductive thinker the world has ever known.

You can read the full story, of how I detected Darwin’s and Wallace’s great science fraud in my forthcoming book, which is packed with further new evidence of Darwin’s lies, Wallace’s extortion of Darwin and his friends, and details of who else Darwin knew who read Matthew’s book pre-Origin.

Nullius in Verba: The Hi-Tech Detection of Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s Great Science Fraud. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Books. By Mike Sutton [in Press – Spring 2014].

If you would like to know more, I have written an article on this topic, which I hope proves useful:

• Internet Dating with Darwin

Related blog posts

• On Darwin’s and Wallace’s great science fraud ,
• The Finch Myth .
• On Darwin and Dawkins and Plodding Selfish Replicators

Follow me on Twitter for further details of my forthcoming book on The World's Greatest Science Fraud.

References

Blyth, E. 1835. An attempt to classify the “varieties” of animals. The Magazine of Natural History. (8) (1), Parts 1-2.

Blyth, E. 1836. Observations on the various seasonal and other external Changes which regularly take place in Birds more particularly in those which occur in Britain; with Remarks on their great Importance in indicating the true Affinities of Species; and upon the Natural System of Arrangement. The Magazine of Natural History: Volume 9. p. 393 – 409.

Bowler, P. (1983) Evolution: the history of an idea. Berkeley. The University of California Press. p.158.

Chambers, W. and Chambers, R (1832). Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. William Orr. Saturday March 24th . p. 63.

Chambers, R. (anonymous) (1845) Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. New York. Wiley and Putnum.

Darwin, C. R. and Wallace, A. R. (1858) On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.

Darwin, C. R. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (First Edition) London. John Murray.

Darwin, C. R. (1861) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (Third Edition) London. John Murray.

Dawkins, R. (2010). Darwin’s Five Bridges: The Way to Natural Selection In Bryson, B (ed.) Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society. London Harper Collins.

Deutsch, D. (2011) The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World. London. Allen Lane: Penguin Books.

Dempster, W. J (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.

Jameson, W. (1853)Contributions to a History of the Relation between Climate and Vegetation in various parts of the Globe. On the Physical Aspect of the Punjab its Agriculture and Botany. By Dr. Jameson Superintendent of the Botanic Garden Saharunpore. In The Journal of the Horticultural Society of London. Volume 8. p. 273- 314

Johnson, C. W. (1842) Plantation. The Farmer’s Magazine January to June. Vol. 5 pp. 364-368.

Judd, J. W. (1910) The Coming of Evolution: The Story of the Great Revolution in Science. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Loudon, J.C. (1832). Matthew Patrick On Naval Timber and Arboriculture with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. Gardener’s Magazine. Vol. VIII. p.703.

Matthew, P (1831) On Naval Timber and Arboriculture; With a critical note on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Edinburgh. Adam Black.

Matthew, P. (1867) Letter in the Dundee Advertiser. In Dempster, W. J. (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.

Merton, R. K. (1957) Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science. American Sociological Review. Volume 22. No.6. December. pp. 635-659.

Murphy, E. (1834) Irish Farmer's and Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural Affairs Volume 1.

Selby, P. J. (1842) A history of British forest-trees: indigenous and introduced. London. Van Voorst.

Stevens, M. (2003) The Role of the Priority Rule in Science. Journal of Philosophy. 100. 2. pp. 55-79.

Stephens, H. (1853) With assistance from Norton, J. P. The Farmer’s Guide to Scientific and Practical Agriculture. Volume 2. New York. Leonard Scott.

Stott, R. (2012) Darwin’s Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists London. Bloomsbury.

Sutton, M. (2014) [In press – Spring 2014] Nullius in Verba: The Hi-Tech Detection of Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s Great Science Fraud. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Books.