Background
Since August 2104, following the publication of my e-book Nullius in Verba , I have been presented with a number of attempted defenses against newly discovered data. The New Data proves that Darwin's friends and associates read Patrick Matthew's (1831) book, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, containing the full prior-published hypothesis of natural selection.
Contrary to what some Darwinists have argued online in defense of their namesake, it really is possible to 100 per cent disprove something. For example, the New Data 100 per cent disproves the prior Darwinist myth (started by Darwin in 1860) that no naturalists known to him or Wallace read Matthew's book. In fact, it is newly discovered that seven naturalists cited it in the literature many years before 1858. Four of the "citing-seven" were known to Darwin, and three of them played major roles at the epicenter and facilitation of the pre-1858 work of Wallace and Darwin on the exact same subject. The only way this could be refuted is if someone discovers that there has been a massive "invasion of the book snatchers" hoax that involved seeding fake 19th century science books in libraries, bookshops and homes throughout the world. Just how probable (or even possible) is that
Darwin scholars in a 'state of denial' since 1860
Stanley Cohen's (2001) book 'States of denial' explains how individuals and groups of people can fail to see and appreciate obvious facts that are right under their noses.He explains also how those who do see them may engage in typical behaviours to effectively deny them.What is particularly interesting in the history of discovery of natural selection is that this is exactly what Darwin scholars have done, and continue to do at the time of writing (2016),with regard to the fact that Darwin lied to deny the fact that Matthew's original ideas on natural selection were read before 1860.
Visit the 'States of Denial' page on PatrickMathew.com for the full details.
Darwin scholars in a 'state of denial' since 1860
Stanley Cohen's (2001) book 'States of denial' explains how individuals and groups of people can fail to see and appreciate obvious facts that are right under their noses.He explains also how those who do see them may engage in typical behaviours to effectively deny them.What is particularly interesting in the history of discovery of natural selection is that this is exactly what Darwin scholars have done, and continue to do at the time of writing (2016),with regard to the fact that Darwin lied to deny the fact that Matthew's original ideas on natural selection were read before 1860.
Visit the 'States of Denial' page on PatrickMathew.com for the full details.
The point
Brodie, A. (2007):jj
'The enlightened person accepts the word of authority not as something to which he has to say ‘yes’, but as something to which it is appropriate to subject to critical analysis. The question for the enlightened person therefore is whether the word of authority can stand up to cross-examination before the tribunal of reason. If it can then it is accepted because it is sanctioned not by authority but by reason. If on the other hand it cannot withstand the cross-examination then it has to be discarded, however exalted the source.'
Brodie, A. (2007) The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation. Edinburgh. Birlinn Ltd.
The Darwinist prior 'mere knowledge belief' that Darwin and Wallace 'independently discovered' Matthew's prior-published hypothesis is dis-confirmed by the newly discovered fact that those around Darwin and Wallace, and known to them, had read and cited the one book in the world they most needed to read because they replicated so much that was in it, while later claiming that neither they nor anyone known to them had read it.
As well as the hypothesis of natural selection, both Darwin (1844 and 1859) and Wallace (1858) replicated Matthew's unique and groundbreaking artificial selection explanatory analogy. In his unpublished essay of 1844, Darwin wrote to replicate that exact expert forester and arboriculturalist example .
‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’
Unlike Matthew, Darwin was not an expert on that topic. So, if not from the expert, Matthew who had uniquely prior-published it, where did Darwin get it? Perhaps from David Low - Matthew's old schoolmate - who was first to replicate it without citing Matthew, shared Matthew's publishers and was apparently first to replicate apparently unique Matthewisms (Matthew's first-coined terms ) in his books, which all followed Matthew's? Perhaps so, because Darwin successfully recommended Low to the Royal Society precisely for his work on the use of artificial selection to explain natural selection. In either scenario, direct or else indirect, Matthewian to Darwin knowledge contamination appears far more likely than not.
Darwin (1859) even uniquely four word shuffled Matthew's unique term 'natural process of selection' into 'process of natural selection.'
If Darwin and Wallace 'independently' discovered Matthew's hypothesis, and so many of his unique ideas, examples and terms, under such social conditions, surrounded by men whose minds were to some unknown extent, fertile with Matthew's ideas (because we know they read the book containing them), then a miracle happened that has its analogue in the Christian belief in The Blessed Virgin's Immaculate conception, by their "God", of the baby Jesus.
More likely than not, some degree of Matthewian knowledge contamination took place that caused Darwin's and Wallace's conceptions and replications of Matthew's unique prior discovery.
Darwinist defenses against the likelihood of knowledge contamination taking place are all refutable with reason, logic and hard facts. In no particular order, what follows is a list of the defenses attempted so far, each is followed by my refutations.
Defenses and Rebuttals
Who the hell is Matthew? What hypothesis? No one of consequence, anywhere, writes that Matthew discovered natural selection before Darwin / Wallace.
Rebuttal 1: Many top naturalists - including Darwin and Wallace and Richard Dawkins - admit Matthew got the full hypothesis first. See the first paragraph of Mike Sutton's (2015) Rational Wiki Essay for the fully cited references. As Dempster and Rampino have pointed out, Matthew's version of natural selection was actually superior to Darwin's, because Darwin (adopting his guru, Lyell's uniformitarianist principles) rejected the notion of meteorological and ecological catastrophes leading to the extinction and emergence of species. Matthew, it turns out, got the whole thing right.
Building upon the work of Dempster, it can be said that Matthew: originated the concept of Natural Selection in 1831 to explain the emergence and extinction of species between and after geological catastrophic events. He uniquely named it "the natural process of selection", which he described as a fundamental law of nature. He discussed divergence in terms of diverging ramifications, the mutability of species, rejected miraculous birth of new species following catastrophes, held to a steady state in nature interrupted by catastrophes, understood the importance of the complex multi-level phenomenon of power of occupancy and ecological niches, rejected simple development from nearly-allied species in favour of descent from common ancestor, recognized what constituted a species, recognized the difference between domestic and wild species and saw artificial selection as the key to both discovering and explaining the process of natural selection.
It is not enough to simply write something, you have to produce the evidence to prove it. And you have to convince the World you are right. Darwin gets all the credit because that's what he did.
Rebuttal 2: Under the Arago Effect Rules of the Royal Society, being first to publish in print is everything. Matthew was first with the full hypothesis of natural selection in his 1831 book. This rule has been in place since Arago's argument led the Royal Society to awarded the Copley Medal to Le Verrier in 1846, rather than Adams. This 19th century rule still applies today. In the case of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace it has been scandalously ignored . Wallace was well aware of the Arago Effect Rule when he wrote to Joseph Hooker in 1860 :
"...it has hitherto been too much the practice in cases of this sort to impute all the merit to the first discoverer of a new fact or a new theory, & little or none to any other party who may, quite independently, have arrived at the same result a few years or a few hours later."
Moreover, Fleming never worked out the details of how to produce and use penicillin as an effective wonder drug, Mendel failed to convince anyone in his lifetime that he had discovered anything about genetics. Nobel Prize winner Higgs never proved the existence of his Higgs Bosun Particle , others did so decades later. Should those three scientists be stripped of their status as immortal great thinkers in science?
Citing Matthew's book does not mean they read it and it does not mean they understood it. Why did they not mention Matthew's ideas? Why not replicate them if they understood them? Chances are they never understood it.
Rebuttal 3. Loudon understood it when he reviewed it in 1832 and wrote that Matthew may have had something original to say on "the origin of species" no less. Furthermore, In 1860 Matthew's published letter in the Gardener's chronicle made it clear that a naturalist Matthew knew had understood it but could not teach Matthew's ideas, because they were deemed heretical and he feared being pilloried by the church for heresy. in the year 1794 Pitt passed his notorious Two Acts against 'Seditious Meetings' and 'Treasonable Practices'. In particular, the former curtailed topics of discussion at institutional scientific societies by requiring them to be licensed and proscribing discussion of either religion or politics
Darwin and Wallace both understood Matthew's unique ideas - how else could they admit he had published the entire theory, and more besides, before they did? In addition, those who read Matthew's (1831) book did not need to understand all of it in order to be capable of imparting some degree of sufficient information about the radical ideas on the origin of species that were in the book, directly or indirectly to Darwin / Wallace. Some form ofknowledge contamination is all that was required. The fact that Darwin's and Wallace's influential friends and associates had, in fact, read Matthew's book dis-confirms the possibility of rational belief that Darwin and Wallace could have independently discovered the exact same thing and replicated so much that was uniquely Matthew's creative work.
Darwinists know full well about the taboo's of mentioning the work of other writers that involved either deduced hypothesis (as opposed to induced) and work that trespassed upon natural theology. Matthew's book did both. Darwinists have written upon how Darwin delayed publishing for 20 years because of these rules (e.g.Desmond and Moore 1992 ) . It is surely for the same reason that so few commented upon Matthew's work.
James Secord. J. A. (2000) wrote that there was great prejudice against simply posing a deducted hypothesis and it was against the code of 19th century gentlemen of science to do so or to cite such work. John van Wyhe (2007) writes that Darwin needed to gather more evidence to support the hypothesis before daring to publish it. Darwinists cannot rationally and reasonably have two explanations for Darwin's reluctance to publish on natural selection but then ever so conveniently cognitively bin both when it comes to criticizing Matthew for not taking his own bombshell ideas forward and when claiming that others would have written on them if they had read and understood them. That is most certainly shamefully desperate pseudo-scholarly cherry picking and selective amnesia born of Darwin worship manifested in cognitive dissonance to deal with the newly discovered data that Matthew influenced both Darwin and Wallace years before they replicated his work and claimed it as their own.
We can see that in fact a few - unsurprisingly only a few given the taboo-conventions at the time - besides Loudon- did mention Matthew's heresy pre 1858:
- The anonymous reviewer of the Edinburgh Literary Review 1831 wrote that Matthew's book contained five parts but covered only four, which were covered at length, and never mentioned the fifth again. The fifth part being its heretical appendix. The reviewer instead very cleverly merely quoted Matthew's own words to dismiss any further thoughts of fair engagement with his heresy: "The very great interest of the question regarding species, variety, habit, has perhaps led him a little too wide.
- An otherwise very positive review in The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, disclaimed Matthew's idea of the natural process of selection (1831a, p. 457):
"In thus testifying our hearty approbation of the author, it is strictly in his capacity of a forest ranger, where he is original bold, and evidently experienced in all the arcana of the parentage, birth and education of trees. But we disclaim participation in his ruminations on the law of Nature, or on the outrages committed upon reason and justice by our burthens of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments."
- By way of block advertisement in the Quarterly Literary Advertiser (1831) , Matthew's publishers Longman and Co and Adam Black of Edinburgh wrote cryptically on the exact same theme that Darwin (1859) replicated in the very opening lines of the first chapter of The Origin of Species:
"In embracing the Philosophy of Plants the interesting subject of Species and Variety is considered the principle of the natural Location of Vegetables is distinctly shown the principle also which in the untouched wild keeps unsteady Nature to her law inducing conformity in species and preventing deterioration of breed is explained and the causes of the variation and deterioration of cultivated Forest Trees pointed out."
Clearly, Matthew's own publisher - as did others - in 1831 fully understood Matthew's unique and powerful 'Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences' - but the taboos described above by Secord and by van Wyhe account for their cleverly worded account of it. Darwin (1859) shows how much he understood it in those famous opening lines of Chapter 1 of the Origin of Species when he audaciously replicated it verbosely:
'When we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent-species have been exposed under nature.'
'Man's interference, by preventing this natural process of selection among plants, independent of the wider range of circumstances to which he introduces them, has increased the differences in varieties particularly in the more domesticated kinds...' "
In his unpublished essay of 1844 Darwin wrote:
'In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…"
In later text, to which Eiseley directs us, Darwin (1868) wrote:
"Our common forest trees are very variable, as may be seen in every extensive nursery-ground; but as they are not valued as fruit trees, and as they seed late in life, no selection has been applied to them; consequently, as Patrick Matthew remarks, they have not yielded different races…"
Matthew's (1831) and Darwin's (1844) trees are as still as rocks in the historical record. And no amount of Darwinist dysology can move them!
Matthew only published the hypothesis, the theory is Darwin's because he produced so much confirmatory evidence,
Rebuttal 4: Yes, arguably at least, only the hypothesis is Matthew's. But it is his! The hypothesis of natural selection is Matthew's, just like the published Higg's Bosun particle hypothesis alone was enough to garner Peter Higgs the Nobel prize. Others found the evidence to prove that the "God Particle" exists. Higgs won the Nobel prize for his hypothesis because no amount of confirmatory evidence can ever transmute a prior published theory - or hypothesis - into your own. And if the hypothesis is Matthew's can the theory be veraciously described as Darwin's? I don't thnk it can.
Matthew (1831, p.386) similarly invited others to test his hypothesis of 'the natural process of selection' when he wrote:
‘In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links of the particular chain of life, variety being often merely types or approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be embraced by our experiments.’
Matthew never understood the significance of what he had discovered. If he had then he would have trumpeted it from the rooftops.
Rebuttal 5 Firstly, Matthew wrote nothing to give such an impression that he failed to understand the importance of his unique discovery of natural selection. So, unless you have a newly discovered seance methodology. which can tell us what was in the minds of people now dead, you are merely speculating. Stick instead to the facts. Secondly, as Matthew pointed out to Darwin in his letter to the Gardner's Chronicle in 1860, and as Desmond and Moore explained, such ideas were heretical and seditious at a time of great social unrest in the first half of the nineteenth century when the church was ascendant in science and wider society. The rules of the Royal Society, the British Association for Advancement of Science, The London Geological Society, The Linnean Society, and so many others were founded in laws made in the 18th century; laws based upon the British Government's and royalist's great fear of their own revolutionary overthrow in the wake of the French Revolution. As Uglow (2002: p. 464) explains very clearly what happened in the year 1794:
''Pitt passed his notorious Two Acts against 'Seditious Meetings' and 'Treasonable Practices': the former hit particularly at the institutional societies, requiring them to be licensed and proscribing discussion of religion or politics'.
In addition to explaining very clearly and patiently to weirdly biased Darwinists the problem that what Matthew had written trespassed - heretically and seditiously - upon the sacramental territory of natural theology on the question of the origin and extinction of species, and that he had then woven his hypothesis of natural section into his seditious Chartist politics (see my book Nullius for further discussion of citations to wider published scholarship on this topic), a further most telling reply to this especially biased made for Matthew "he needed to trumpet" argument is to ask, alternatively, why should Matthew be required to have done any more than publish his hypothesis, which he actually invited others to test?
The Darwinist Wyhe claims that it was lack of evidence to support that very hypothesis that kept Darwin from publishing on the topic for 20 years. Why then should leading Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins demand more of Matthew than Darwin?
Matthew knew the unique and great importance of what he had written when he invited scientists to test it. That's exactly what Darwin and Wallace did, only they failed to cite the Originator. That's why Matthew laid claim to his hypothesis as soon as he heard Darwin had replicated it without citing its prior-published source In. Note F of his appendix he wrote:
"This circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety), does not preclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have over the configuration of the body. To examine into the disposition to sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external circumstance and how far on the will irritability and muscular exertion is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links of the particular chain of life, variety being often merely types or approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be embraced by our experiments."
The above hard facts should be weighed in the mind by anyone wishing to claim that there must have been some kind of conspiratorial cover-up of knowledge of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis - or that I am a conspiracy theorist. Obviously, the historically nuanced facts, about specific laws and conventions of early to mid 19th century Britain, suggest otherwise. In addition, I recommend that they should read my book
Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret
to learn just how many of those who cited Matthew's book - or were first to be second with unique Matthewisms pre-1858 - were very old men or else were dead by the time the Origin of Species was first published. Finally, they should read Rebuttal 15 below.
Matthew was not even a scientist.
Rebuttal 6 That is a fallacy, the published literature proves that Matthew was a noted botanist (John Loudon listed him as such) and an international award winning hybridizer of fruit trees with an international reputation. His book was based on over 20 years of practical hybridizing knowledge, sylva arable farming and forestry. Alfred Wallace even went as far as to describe Matthew one of the greatest original thinkers of the 19th century. The fact you were not aware of Matthew's importance as a great original thinker is due in no small part to the endeavors of Darwin and his Darwinists to bury his name in obscurity.
Matthew was content after Darwin admitted his priority in the Gardener's Chronicle and in the third edition of the Origin. The priority issue was settled in 1860.
Rebuttal 7 That is simply not true, There is a multitude of evidence, by way of his many published letters in the press and journals, that Matthew fought, unsuccessfully, until his dying day for the full recognition he thought he was due as a great thinker in science for his work as the originator of the hypothesis of Natural Selection. As well as being publicly mocked and shabbily treated by Darwinists writing in the press, and privately by Darwin in his correspondence to other naturalists - all after 1860 - Matthew was palpably livid after being platform blocked in 1867 from speaking on his own discovery at the Dundee meeting of the British Association for Advancement of Science - where others spoke on it in celebration of Darwin!. See my book Nullius and various materials on the Patrick Matthew Project for all the published evidence.
You are not even a scientist. What you claim is unconvincing and badly written. You obviously have some kind of hate-filled, nationalist or religious agenda.
Rebuttal 8 The facts are what matters. There are new ones. Many. And I, not you, discovered them. What dis-confirming new facts have you discovered on this topic?
How we best weight the facts I uniquely discovered is a rational but subjective exercise. Your assessment of my writing is no more than your opinion, which you are welcome to hold and share. Moreover, in addition to many peer reviewed cited papers , and other publications on other topics in my field,. I do have a peer reviewed article on this very subject.
Some desperate internet trolls are claiming my peer reviewed article is not peer reviewed. In answer to such desperate nonsense, here is the proof it is - from the British Society of Criminology journal editor Professor Millie , no less.
You are obviously a creationist.
Rebuttal 9. No. I am an a skeptic and an atheist. I have been so since the age of 14 or 15.
You have only circumstantial evidence. You have no letter to or from him that proves Darwin was made aware of Matthew before 1860, so your arguments don't stand up.
Rebuttal 10 Such a response in light of the discovery of new data that dis-confirms the Darwinist myth that Matthew's book went unread by anyone known to Darwin or Wallace, is indicative you might be suffering from cognitive dissonance . You ask for no such kind of "smoking gun" letter by way of a human admission of paternity of Jesus of Nazareth. The reason you don't is because immaculate conception when surrounded by men who were fertile, though fertile to some unknown degree, is so highly improbable you don't need one to know it's nonsense, because rational people know such conception would require a supernatural miracle. So why ask for one in the case of Darwin's claimed immaculate conception of natural selection, when he too was surrounded by men whose brains were fertile, to some unknown degree, with Matthew's ideas and great discovery after having read and cited him? Do you think a 20 year long and repetitive Darwinist mental-contraceptive miracle took place? Would you like to claim that now, in light of the New Data that have uniquely discovered about who Darwin and Wallace knew really did read Matthew's (1831) book before 1858?
By the way, Darwinist belief in their namesake's immaculate conception of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis is even more irrational than that held by Christians about St Mary's conception of Jesus (read the arguments here ).
Matthew only hid a few brief ideas in an appendix to a book with an obscure title on a topic that would not have interested naturalists. He merely glimpsed natural selection and simply wrote a couple of paragraphs on it. There is no evidence he grasped its full significance. Moreover, by way of analogy, what Matthew did is just the same as when Darwin came close to discovering, but did not fully comprehend Gregor Mendel's discovery of the Laws of Inheritance.
Rebuttal 11 These are self-serving Darwinists mere 'knowledge belief' myths, founded upon willful ignorance, that are easily rebutted with reference to the facts that cherry-picking pseudo-scholarly professional Darwinists, and associated armchair Einsteins on the internet, choose to totally ignore in order to deify Darwin. For example, in his two letters in the Gardener's Chronicle (1860) Matthew included large swathes of text on natural selection from the main body of his book and its appendix. In the first half of the 19th century Naval Timber was of great importance for economic botany. Timber drove the industrial revolution.The two earliest and most important books of the Royal Society were on Matthew's topic and area of expertise. Matthew chose the perfect title for a book in which he wrote his world changing ideas.Timber drove the industrial revolution. Chemicals derived from timber were essential for the textile industry. Britain is now - and was then - a small deforested island. Timber for shipping was essential for Britain's merchant navy and the Admiralty. Economic botanists - such as Darwin's great friend Joseph Hooker - in the employ of the Government and the East India Company were obsessed with the topic.
Matthew wrote huge swathes of text on natural selection. The internationally famous leading tissue transplant specialist, Darwin and Matthew expert, Jim Dempster wrote three booksproving the point. The appendix to Nullius in Verba contains Matthew's natural selection text, but the main body of the book contains as much again - and that fact is proven by the samples of text from the main body of the book that Matthew re-produced in the Gardener's Chronicle (1860) when laying claim to his discovery.
Furthermore, for the same reason Darwin held back on promoting the hypothesis of natural selection for two decades,Matthew would have been given short shrift if he had tried to promote his hypothesis without more evidences and at a time when that hypothesis was heretical and deemed scientifically unworthy because it was deductive.
In exactly the same way that you object to me discussing and revealing that I understand the full implications of what I have discovered for the history of the discovery of natural selection, people just like you would have objected to Matthew doing the same about his discovery. To add irony to insult, Matthew is today deemed by respected Darwinist scholars not to have understood what he discovered because people like you, in the first half of the 19th century, would probably never have let him - or others (as he explained to Darwin in 1860) discuss it.
Were I not prepared to take on the likes of you, as I do with these very words, would some future person - just like you perhaps - claim after my demise that I never understood the full force of what I unearthed about who really did read Matthew's book pre-1858? You can't have it one way but not the other. But that's exactly how you self-servingly want it. That's total hypocrisy.I despise hypocrisy. Don't you?
Turning to your "Gregor Mendel" analogy. This is the one that Richard Dawkins created in his book The Greatest Show on Earth. I make no apology for laughing at it and saying that Dawkinis's analogy is completely ludicrous. It's ludicrous for so many reasons. Not least because Mendel (1855), just like Matthew (1831) , published his ideas before Darwin came along and supposedly "immaculately" miraculously 'independently' replicated them privately - not least using Mathew's expert example of forest trees in his 1844 unpublished essay, and so many other ideas and unique terms in his book The Origin of Species in 1859, and using Mendel's expert example of sweet peas in his private letter to Wallace of 1866. So if there is any analogy to be had here, that is of any rational and truthful use, it is this one:
The Plodding Replicator Analogy
Just as Darwin replicated in his 1844 essay and in his 1859 book, without citing it, Matthew's prior-published discovery of natural selection, so did he - in a private letter of 1866 - near-replicate, without citing it, Mendel's (1855) prior published discovery of the laws of inheritance.
You can read more of my thoughts onDawkins' Plodding Replicator Analogy here.
If others read Matthew and then influenced him with Matthew's ideas they would have made the scientific community aware of Darwin's plagiarism after 1858.
Rebuttal 12 There are so many reasons why this is a most unlikely scenario. Here are the first 10 that spring easily to mind:
1, Not everyone who read Matthew and who then may have spoken or written to Darwin about Matthew's unique ideas would have named Matthew or his book (see Type-1 and Type-2 knowledge contamination)2, The times were very different than they are today. We cannot judge them by today's standards. Britain was a hierarchical class-dominated society to an extent that is virtually unimaginable today. By 1859, Matthew was a disgraced bankrupt who had lost the family fortune when such a thing was deemed disgraceful. He was a former Chartist leader, libertarian political reformer and agitator and was staunchly anti-religious during a period when religion dominated society at every level. His pre-socialist reform politics were woven into his 1831 hypothesis of natural selection for the betterment of the human race. Darwin was a successful member of the landed gentry and respected world famous gentleman of science. Many of Darwin's friends and associates and his friends friends were staunchly anti Chartist because they feared violent revolution, even the vote for all men, and loss of birthright privileges over the poorer classes. Selby, a friend of Darwin's father and Darwin's great friend Jenyns (among many others) was also a member of the landed gentry.A very religious man (as were most of those involved), Selby wrote he was glad the the Chartists were put down by armed troops in Scotland. Lindley (William Hooker's great friend) drilled a militia of young gardeners to put down the Chartists. Richard Owen, who also drilled an anti-chartist militia of gentleman, stood night-guard with a cudgel to protect museum pieces during fear of Chartist unrest.3. Darwin was known for his frail health and psychosomatic temperament.Had any accused him of plagiarism the result would have been completely ruinous to his mind and body and reputation. His family would also have shared the disgrace,4. Darwin was in many of the exclusive scientific clubs and associations of the day. Matthew was in none. Why then promote Matthew's interests if you are not by nature a troublemaker?5. Many who had read Matthew's book were dead or close to death by 1859. My book provides all the details, but Loudon was long dead, Baden Powel died in 1860 (his letter accusing Darwin of plagiarism is sadly lost). David Low died in 1859. Roget died in 1834. Buel died 20 years earlier. Cree died in 1860, Dovaston died five years earlier, Murray II died 16 years earlier, Norton died seven years earlier, Woodbury died eight years earlier, as did Hill. Rafinesque was dead by 1840. Mure died in 1860. Main died in 1846. Floy was dead by 1863. Mudie died in 1842. Wilkin died in 1862. Wison died in 1854.6. Chambers was not only staunchly anti Chartist, he had several other reasons to despise Matthew; not least because Matthew's book greatly mocked his patron, hero and professional benefactor Sir Walter Scott, but also because it broke all the conventions of the gentlemen of science into whose circles Chambers was desperate to enter. Not least, Darwin knew that Chambers was the secret author of the heretical Vestiges - because Chambers gave him the latest edition as a gift when they met. Darwin then spread the news to his friend Joseph Hooker.7, Not only did Matthew's book break all the conventions by containing deduced hypothesis as neatly explained by James Secord in his Book Victorian Sensation , it trespassed upon natural theology, mentioned political news from France, promoted Chartist politics, mocked the church and handed God his redundancy notice in its appendix. None that I am aware of who knew about Matthew's books were atheists. In fact most were extremely religious Christians. Any standing up for Matthew's priority would have feared dragging the theory of natural selection and inroads into the professionalism and increasing respectability and prestige of 19th century science greatly backwards. Who would wish to be blamed for such a thing?8. Many who read the first edition of the Origin, which failed to mention Matthew, would have been aware of Matthew's 1860 claim to his hypothesis and Darwin's 1860 reply that Matthew had priority. Many who read the first edition of the origin in 1859 would be unlikely to next go and read the third edition of 1861, in which Darwin cleverly mocked Matthew as both unread and a catastrophist.9. Despite the fact that Darwin wrote fallaciously that Matthew's ideas had gone unnoticed, Darwin's Gardeners Chronicle published reply of 1860 may have been believed to represent enough justice for Matthew by any "in the know". Most people are not trouble makers. Many such deliberately non-troublesome people are not particularly bothered enough about injustices perpetrated upon strangers to be the one brave soul who puts their head above the parapet and call others liars. Less so, when thoseothers, as was Darwin, are backed by great wealth and the scientific establishment. Knowing Darwin to be a liar, anyone claiming that Darwin had read or been told about Matthew's book would not expect him to confess the truth. Therefore, they would need hard proof. Or else they would need one or more witnesses prepared to tell the truth and stand steadfast, behind them to bring about Darwin's social and intellectual downfall.10. In support of point nine, let me ask: Why am I the first to have written to the Royal Society to demand that its own rules on priority are followed so that Matthew is given full priority over Darwin and Wallace? Rules being rules, and justice under the rules being obvious will you, dear reader, take one tiny action (far less than going to print against the mighty Darwin and his Darwinists) and vote - with a mere anonymous click - under that open letter in Matthew's favor? Click - for justice - to take minor action , or not, as the telling case may be.
You claim to have proven that Darwin and Wallace are guilty of "plagiarizing science fraud, but you have no proof of that. You have to prove it. You are being dishonest because you can't prove it.
Rebuttal 13 The burden of proof in questions of plagiarism is actually on the replicator (or their spokespersons) to prove that they did independently discover what they replicated. This cannot be done in the case of Darwin and Wallace - not in light of the new data. Even the very first thing Darwin wrote on the topic of natural selection (in his Zoonomia notebook of 1837-8) was on the subject of trees. Inside that notebook is what Darwin's son Francis thought was his father's Eureka moment - it is about golden pippin apples - Matthew's area of expertise. Darwin could not even spell pippin correctly, but his notebooks show he read a journal that contained a pre-1831 article by Matthew on apple hybridization. Indeed, Darwin's notebook of books he read and wanted to read reveals he held in his hands at least five publications that advertised or otherwise cited Matthew's 1831 book, which proves Matthew's work was hardly obscure.
Even the very opening lines of Chapter One of Darwin's Origin of Species replicate Matthew's (1831) unique 'Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences'. And the only reason Darwinists failed to spot Darwin's replication of Matthew's most important and powerful explanatory analogy in the history of humanity is because most are biologists. As a disciplinary group biologists are unique in that they recognize analogies as being explanations of similarity only (see Sutton 2015; and my most revealing discussions on this topic with Dr Mike Weale in April 2015 .
What I have 100% proven with that New Data is that it is a myth that no naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace read Matthew pre-1858. My book Nullius contains a multitude of other evidence of Darwin's and Wallace's dishonest behavior. Wallace doctored one of the letters in his autobiography to hide the fact he extorted money and favors from Darwin and his cronies and Darwin told six lies to obtain priority over Matthew and Wallace. As in many cases of suspected crime, science fraud included, we must weigh subjectively the hard data. That is what I have done. Weighing all the data in that way, I personally, think it is proven more likely than not that Darwin and Wallace committed the world's greatest science fraud. In Nullius, I invite readers to weigh the evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions, much as a jury member would do.
You have not discovered anything new that has not already been found, examined, and discounted by scholars far more important than yourself.
Rebuttal 14 That is the same willfully ignorant nonsense spouted by Darwin's biographer James Moore. It's untrue and, in my opinion, is indicative that anyone saying this is suffering from the worst kind of apocryphal Semmelweis Reflex.
I can give you the facts but not the brains to check them. Here are the facts:
Before the publication of Nullius in 2014, it was known that the naturalist and polymath John Loudon reviewed Matthew's 1831 book in 1832 and mentioned its originality on "the origin of species," but none seem to have noticed that Loudon was a naturalist. it was I who looked at what Loudon did as a naturalist and so it was I who uniquely unearthed the fact that Loudon edited Blyth's first two highly influential articles on varieties of species. And, we must note, therefore, that from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward, Darwin admitted Blyth was his most valuable informant.
Until my research, no one had found a single person known directly to Darwin and Wallace who had read Matthew's book pre-1858. I uniquely discovered many. Even Darwin's publisher cited it! Three of the four naturalists, known to Darwin / Wallace, who cited Mathew's book pre-1858 played major roles at the epicenter of their pre-1858 work on natural selection. Given that Darwin and Wallace replicated Matthew's unique hypothesis, his unique prose and terms, and replicated his unique and world changing artificial selection analogical explanation, the New Data, in my opinion, means it is irrational to claim that some kind of knowledge was not more likely than not.
Before my unique and game changing discoveries in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace, universally, Darwin had been taken at his word when he wrote that apparently no naturalist had read Matthew's ideas. In fact, seven naturalists read them and cited Matthew's book. When Darwin wrote in 1860 that apparently no naturalist had read Matthews ideas he lied he because he knew that Loudon had read it. He knew that because Matthew (1860) had told him so in the letter to which Darwin replied with that lie. SeeRebuttal 23 for more details on this one particular Darwin lie.
My original discoveries create a big problem for Darwinists
Good scholarship in any field involves questioning: '...most the the data that best fit your expectations and focus instead upon the unsolved problems, anomalies, and paradoxes of your field.' (Root-Bernstein 1993).
Consequently, the new problem that Darwinists now have to solve is:
How on Earth did Darwin and Wallace discover Natural Selection independently of Matthew's prior published hypothesis of it; despite the newly discovered fact that they were influenced and facilitated on the same topic by naturalists they knew who had long before read and cited Matthew's book, which contains it?
If Darwinists can solve this new problem, rationally and convincingly, in light of just how many of Matthew's original ideas and examples Darwin and Wallace replicated, along with his powerful Artificial Versus Natural Selection Explanatory Analogy of Differences, and his terminology, then, and only then, can they solve what we might name the Anomalous Paradox Problem of Darwin's and Wallace's Immaculate Conceptions of Matthew's Prior Published Hypothesis.
Of significant note also, is the fact that the problem of claimed independent replication of a full, complete, appreciable, original and unique prior-published, problem solving and game-changing idea, hypothesis or theory, whilst in contact with those who are 100 per cent proven to have read the publication containing it, is unique in the history of scientific discovery to the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace. That makes it a most important anomaly, which has been ignored for the 155 years following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.
You are a conspiracy theorist
Rebuttal 15 Actually, I'm not. In Nullius I make it perfectly plain that I do not think any kind of conspiracy was afoot. If you see conspiracies in my writing, then it is you that is the conspiracy theorist.
The closest we get to finding evidence of any kind of 'conspiracy' in the story of Matthew, Wallace, and Darwin does not involve any weird green ink "conspiracy theory" thinking involving making something of nothing. Instead, what we see is the plain hard facts of very simple dishonesty engaged in by more than one person acting in consort. For example, Joseph Hooker and Charles Lyell in 1858 both misled the Linnean Society into thinking Wallace gave his approval for his paper to be read before the Society - when in fact he had not. And again we see Joseph Hooker in 1860 approving Darwin's letter to the Gardener's Chronicle where Darwin wrote that apparently no naturalist had read Matthew's prior published ideas. Hooker - a botanist - knew that was a lie because he and his father knew Loudon and his world famous botanical work very well. Moreover, Darwin knew it was a lie because his notebooks show he read many books by Loudon and heavily annotated them. There is no "theory" here. it is simple data. It's all hard fact. And it's independently verifiable. It is in the literature. All you just have to do is read it in order to see for yourself. If I have uniquely found evidence that two people put their heads together and told a lie that's not a conspiracy theory. If you think it is then you must see conspiracy theories everywhere. I'm afraid that I can't help you with that.
If you are ensconced in it, I respectfully suggest you step outside of the comforting safety blanket of the 'group-think' 'majority view' and consider the rational likelihood that, now we newly 100 per cent know (thanks to my unique and original research discoveries of who read and cited it) that - contrary to the now busted 155-year-old Darwinist myth - Matthew's book was read by naturalists pre-1858 and that it was read by those who influenced Darwin, and it was read by those he knew, that some form of 'knowledge contamination' seems more likely than not. And as my blog on the topic explains (by way of my typology) such knowledge contamination can be divided into three distinct types:
A typology of knowledge contamination
- Innocent Knowledge Contamination: The spread of unique ideas from Matthew's 1831 book via (a) other published sources on the topic, which failed to cite Matthew as their source, (b) word of mouth and/or correspondence to Darwin by those who read Matthew's book - understood its importance in whole or simply in part - but failed to tell Darwin about the existence of the book.
- Reckless or Negligent Knowledge Contamination: (a) Darwin read Matthew's book, absorbed many ideas and examples and terms from it, but forgot all about having read it - and never did remember (b) read it and took notes but forgot the source of the notes, (c) was told about ideas from Matthew's book by someone - who understood their importance in whole or simply in part - told they came from a book, but failed to ask the name of the author and book.
- Deliberate Knowledge Contamination (science fraud): Darwin read Matthew's book, took copious notes, remembered what he had done but always pretended otherwise.
Now where exactly is the conspiracy theory in that?
Darwin and Wallace simply,and independently, reconstructed the same complex hypothesis as Matthew's, and replicated Matthew's unique artificial selection analogy, by chance, rather like three children independently making the same building out of Lego bricks.
Rebuttal 16 Where else in the history of discovery of a complex and ground breaking idea has such a thing happened when the replicators were surrounded by friends and associates - who influenced and facilitated their work - who had read the original discovery before they replicated it?
Why ignore Dawkins' notion of the contagious meme in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace?
A better analogy than Lego bricks is one that at least bears some rational resemblance to the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace. Therefore, because the New Data has transformed the prior vexatious anomaly of Darwin's and Wallace's claimed 'independent' discoveries of Matthew's original prior published theory, his explanatory examples, artificial versus natural slection analogy of differences, and the same four words to name it, into a paradox of 'immaculate conception', that's an analogy that better fits the facts. So I offer you the analogy of the Miraculous Virgins Darwin and Wallace.
(c) Darwin and WallaceAttribution
Miracle Double Immaculate Conceptions of the Blessed Virgins Darwin and Wallace of Matthew's prior published hypothesis of natural selection
Evolution was in the air in 19th century and many contributed to it pre-Dawin's Origin of Species. It was only a matter of time before others got the whole theory of natural selection.
Rebuttal 17 The phrase "evolution was in the air" and variants about the very beginning of the 19th century, date back to at least 1941 (e.g. See ZIircle C. (1941). Natural Selection before the 'Origin of Species'. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc on page 104) and refer to the works of Buffon, Lamarc, Erasmus Darwin and Malthus etc - none of which got anywhere close to the full theory of natural selection as an explanation for divergence via ramifications from an ancestor causing new species etc. However, the popularity of this phase today may well originate from Millhauser's essential book on Chambers's book the Vestiges of Creation. Millhauser attributes Chambers with putting evolution in the air in the first half of the 19th century. But the New Data reveals that Chambers was one of the three influential associates and correspondents of Darwin / Wallace who had earlier read and cited Matthew (1831; 1839) before he wrote The Vestiges.Consequently, it was essentially Matthew who far more likely than not influenced Chambers through 'knowledge contamination' . Moreover, once again, only Matthew got the entire complex theory of macro evolution by natural selection first - including divergence. As Nullius uniquely shows, Darwin and Wallace not only replicated his original ideas, whilst surrounded by friends and influencers who had read Matthew's book and then cited it, they also stole his unique examples and Darwin even uniquely four-word-shuffled Matthew's unique name for it. See my Rational Wiki essay .
Chambers would have had a multitude of reasons to personally despise Matthew - not least that Matthew (1831) lampooned Chambers's mentor and patron Sir Walter Scott and that Matthew was a Chartist leader. Chambers' letters and published work proves he feared and despised Chartism (as did Darwin and his wealthy upper-class landed gentry cronies). Unlike Matthew, Chambers, a full hexadactyl, believed in the Development Hypothesis of evolution - namely, that all organic species are evolving towards perfection.
Your writing constitutes an ad hominem attack against Darwin and Darwinists.
Rebuttal 18 Actually it does not, because nowhere do I need to engage in criticism of the character or personal traits of Darwin, Wallace or Darwinists in my evidence-led arguments. I do not deny that at times my prose is outlandish and rude, but the evidence is enough on its own to prove that plodding replicating liar Darwin was wrong, dishonest and unethical. Darwin was a prolific liar and I use that epithet without caution because the facts of what he was initially told, or wrote, in one place and then what he wrote in another prove it so.
Some have argued that the Blessed Virgin Darwin analogy is an ad hominem attack, because its implications are that anyone who does not agree with my conclusions is irrational. On the contrary, I think good arguments by analogy have the power to change the world. Matthew's unique artificial selection analogy proves the point. Unlike many analogies his is very close to the comparable truth - artificial selection is not the same as selection by nature - but that is the very point: selection is going on in both but the essential outcome is quite different. I think the Virgin Darwin analogy is similarly perfect, though intrinsically a fallacy because Darwin was not really the Virgin Mary. Therefore, in my position paper, I explain exactly what - independent of the Virgin Darwin analogy - relates to what and why, and why it is important as an explanatory device. If the Virgin Darwin analogy means that Darwinists, who believe in Darwin's immaculate conception of a prior published theory, whilst surrounded by and corresponding with men who read it, makes them irrational then that is hardly my fault for exposing it.
I purposefully adopt an aggressive strategy to get the attention of Darwinists. It got yours. So it appears to be working. And I do it, strategically, in order to seek to ensure that no Darwininst will in the future say of me, as they currently claim to know of Matthew's mind, that I did not understand the significance of what I uniquely discovered.
By criticizing Darwin you are providing fuel to creationists
Rebuttal 19 You have a point, but it is outweighed by the consequences of compromising dysology of the type you seem to propose. If we let creationists stop us from pursuing veracity, then they have won. More so, fear of fueling creationists, if it makes us into new fact significance denying pseudo-scholars, will make us into pseudo scholars who are no better than creationists.
I despise hypocrisy and injustice and the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace is riddled through with it. I am shaking the system until it reflects the truth, until justice is done to Matthew's great discovery and his reputation and until Darwinist hypocrisy, pseudo-scholarship, deifying Darwin credulity and Darwin Industry serving unethical gate-keeping peer review behavior is fully exposed and tackled.
You are just like Hitler
Rebuttal 20 I need more information to go on as to why that might be true. One thing is certain, however, and that is that you just confirmed Godwin's Law , which I always find hilarious. Perhaps you should get out more. Have you considered taking a European, Russian and African tour with your social Darwinist friends?
Your so called "First to be Second Hypothesis" (F2b2) of what you call "Matthewisms" is Unreliable. It proves nothing. Not all the books, journals, and other publications in the world have been scanned. So you could have easily failed to detect the same phrase or term in an earlier publication. Moreover, the document scanning and word reading reliability of Google is far from perfect. Much is likely to have been missed or corrupted.
Rebuttal 21
I agree. The First to be Second - or" F2b2" - hypothesis is not anything lnewr as 100 per cent certain as my discovery with the ID method that proves other naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace in fact had read and cited Matthew's book pre-1858. However, like all academic work, particularly like all discoveries, it enjoys the rigorously ever-present "threat" that dis-confirming evidence may turn up and refute my claims in each case where I claim Matthew was apparently first to use a term or phrase, and also in each of the cases where I claim another person was apparently the first to replicate that apparently unique "Matthewism". I make this point extremely clear in my book Nullius.
Most importantly, this method is not a witch hunt that involves finding a scholar and searching within all their publications for Matthewisms. On the contrary, the terms and phrases are used to search within the entire 30+ million documents in the Google Library pre-1858. The authors who are apparently first to be second with terms and phrases that Matthew apparently first used (because no author pre 1831 can be detected to have used them) introduced themselves to me. Some like Professor David Low - who I later discovered shared Matthew's publishers and was his Perth Academy school mate - was apparently first to be second with two apparently unique Matthewisms, and he was also apparently first to replicate Matthew's unique artificial selection analogy to explain how selection occurs in the wild. I then learned that Darwin read Low's books avidly and recommended him to the Royal Society for his work on artificial selection to explain natural selection.
If you wish to continue to argue that this method is simply unreliable - even in light of the one example of David Low - then I sincerely suggest you had better test yourself with The Frozen Donkey Hypothesis. Because Low is far from the only only example of Matthew's more likely than not pe-1858 influence on Darwin. Many more can be read in Nullius . I suggest, you read also the case of Robert Mudie - another much neglected naturalist who has now entered the story of the discovery of natural selection.
Neither Matthew nor Wallace nor anyone else fully understood Natural Selection as well as Darwin because, unlike Darwin, they never articulated the 'artificial selection versus natural selection' analogy.
Rebuttal 22
This sounds like an argument that the science historian Professor Peter Bowler used.
Bowler, it might be critically argued, appears to think that anyone engaging in critical scholarship in the area of contested discovery of the theory of natural selection is engaging in some kind of intellectual heresy against the deified science icon Darwin. He accuses others of "denigrating Darwin" in the Wallace and Darwin priority and plagiarism debate (Bowler 1996 p, 113 )
'The efforts to denigrate Darwin serve only to conceal the real differences between the two naturalists' approach to transmutation. Careful reading of Wallace's paper reveals that in several important respects his theory failed to duplicate the essence of Darwin's thinking. Wallace had no interest in artificial selection and refused to treat it as analogous to the natural process, even later years."
Not only is Bowler out of line for denigrating critical scholarship with his 'How very dare they denigrate Saint Darwin' posturing, he also gets his facts completely wrong. Because Wallace, in his 1858 Ternate Paper, does use the analogy of artificial selection to explain Natural selection - just as Matthew did when he originated that bombshell analogy in 1831, and just as Darwin did in his unpublished essay of 1844 and in The Origin of Species (1859). At least that is if we think of "artificial selection" in the same way it is defined by the experts who authored an article on it in the highly respected editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica :
"Artificial selection (or selective breeding ) differs from natural selection in that heritable variations in a species are manipulated by humans through controlled breeding . The breeder attempts to isolate and propagate those genotypes that are responsible for a plant or animal’s desired qualities in a suitable environment. These qualities are economically or aesthetically desirable to humans, rather than useful to the organism in its natural environment."
As far as I see it, if it is variation in an animal or plant that is brought about intentionally, or as an unintended consequence of actions by humans, under their means of culture – then that is the result of “artificial selection.”
Bowler repeats exactly the same mistake in his later book Darwin Deleted . In that later book Bowler writes (2013, p. 31):
`Alfred Russel Wallace also conceived a basic idea of natural selection, although we shall see that he understood its implications rather differently. Wallace also missed key elements of the case Darwin presented, most obviously the analogy between artificial and natural selection.’
In reality, the naturalists Matthew, Mudie, Low, Wallace and Darwin all saw the same thing in the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy - which all used as an explanatory model for what happens when "nature selects".
(1) Artificial selection, necessarily meaning a relaxation of natural selection, because it is happening within human culture and not in the wild, leads to more varieties any one point in time under human culture.
(2) Natural selection often leads to fewer varieties at any one point in time in the wild, but those varieties can survive better under wild conditions than domesticated varieties – which most usually cannot.
1. 'Matthew (1831 pp. 307-308)) wrote
‘The use of the infinite seedling varieties in the families of plants, even in those in a state of nature, differing in luxuriance of growth and local adaptation, seems to be to give one individual (the strongest best circumstance-suited) superiority over others of its kind around, that it may, by overtopping and smothering them, procure room for full extension, and thus affording, at the same time, a continual selection of the strongest, best circumstance suited for reproduction. Man's interference, by preventing this natural process of selection among plants, independent of the wider range of circumstances to which he introduces them, has increased the difference in varieties, particularly in the more domesticated kinds; and even in man himself, the greater uniformity, and more general vigour among savage tribes, is referrible to nearly similar selecting law - the weaker individual sinking under the ill treatment of the stronger, or under the common hardship.
Mudie (1832) Page 368:
‘If we are to observe nature, therefore, we must go to the wilds, because, in all cultivated productions, there are secondary characters produced by the artificial treatment, and we have no means of observing a distinction between these, and those which the same individual would have displayed, had it been left to a completely natural state. The longer that the race has been under the domestication and culture, the changes are of course the greater. So much is that the case that in very many both of the plants and animals that have been in a state of domestication since the earliest times of which we have any record, we know nothing with certainty about the parent races in their wild state. As to the species, or if you will the genus we can be certain. The domestic horse has not been cultivated out of an animal with cloven hoofs and horns; and the domestic sheep has never been bred out of any of the ox tribe. So also wheat and barley have not been cultivated out of any species of pulse, neither have Windsor beans at any time been grasses. But within some such limits as these our certain information lies; and for aught we know the parent race may, in its wild state, be before our eyes every day and yet we may not have the means of knowing that it is so. The breeding artificially has been going on for at least three thousand years…’
Mudie (1832) Page 369-370
'But there is another difficulty. When great changes are made on the surface of a country, as when forests are changed into open land, and marshes into corn fields, or any other change that is considerable, the changes of the climate must correspond; and as the wild productions are very much affected by that, they must also undergo changes; and these changes may in time amount to the entire extinction of some of the old tribes, both of plants and of animals, the modification of others to the full extent that the hereditary specific characters admit, and the introduction of not varieties only but of species altogether new.That not only may but must have been the case. The productions of soils and climates are as varied as these are; and when a change takes place in either of these, if the living productions cannot alter their habits so as to accommodate themselves to the change there is no alternative, but they must perish.'
Mudie (1832) seemed to be recommending that humans engage in trying to approximate a kind of natural process of selection. Moreover, he replicated Matthew's heresy that it also explains human varieties in different environmental and cultural conditions (370-371):
“Cultivation itself will deteriorate, and in time destroy races, if the same race and the same mode of culture be pursued amid general change. Our own times are times of very rapid change, and, upon the whole, of improvement; we dare not, without the certainty of their falling off, continue the same stock and the same seed corn, season after season, and age after age, as was done by our forefathers. The general change of the country, must have change and not mere succession, in that which we cultivate; and thus we must cross the breeds of our animals, and remove the seeds and plants of our vegetables from district to district. There is something of the same kind in human beings..”
2. Low (1844) wrote:
‘The Wild Pine attains its greatest perfection of growth and form in the colder countries, and on the older rock formations. It is in its native regions of granite, gneiss and the allied deposits, that it grows in extended forests over hundreds of leagues, overpowering the less robust species. When transplanted to the lower plains and subjected to culture, it loses so much of the aspect and characters of the noble original, as scarcely to appear the same. No change can be greater to the habits of a plant than the transportation of this child of the mountain to the shelter and cultivated soil of the nursery; and when the seeds of these cultivated trees are collected and sown again, the progeny diverges more and more from the parent type. Hence one of the reasons why so many worthless plantations of pine appear in the plains of England and Scotland, and why so much discredit has become attached to the culture of the species.’
3. Darwin (1844 - unpublished essay) wrote
‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’
4. Wallace (1858 Ternate paper) wrote
‘…those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour - those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, "a struggle for existence," in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.’ [And]: ‘We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race.’
‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’
‘…those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour - those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, "a struggle for existence," in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.’ [And]: ‘We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race.’
Darwin was clearly not at all the only one to see the usefulness of the Artificial Selection to explain Natural Selection Analogy.
If, however, like Dr Mike Weale, you consider artificial selection as something other, or something more complex than described by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and as I understand it, then that is you prerogative. But in that case, unlike Professor Bowler, you really should explain what you think artificial selection actually means that sets it apart from my definition. In which case, I suggest you pick up from where Dr Weale and I shook hands on agreeing initially to accept we could not agree in our debate on that matter. The debate in question begins on the Patrick Matthew Project site here . However, that debate was ultimately settled by Dr Mike Weale acknowledging the fact that biologists, such as he, are unique as a group in that they think an analogy is only about comparing similarities. In fact, the Oxford Dictionary explains that the concept also covers analogies of differences. And the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy - originated by Matthew and replicated by both Darwin and Wallace was just such an analogy. Arguably, it is the most important analogy ever to be written down and published.
Just because someone Darwin knew read something does not mean they shared it with him. I read lots of things I do not tell me colleagues about and vice versa.
Rebuttal 23
Mike Sutton All Rights ReservedAttribution Non-commercial
Immaculate Deception - Oil on Canvas by Gabriel Woods (2015)
That sounds like a good point - but only on the face of it. Let's look at the actual - known - circumstance of this case.
Biographers of Darwin reveal (e.g Desmond and Moore ) that it was well known in their circles that both Darwin and Wallace were working on trying to solve "the problem of species". Matthew's 1831 book solved that problem. Three of those who we newly know read it pre 1858, because they cited it before then, played key roles at the epicenter of influence on Darwin's and Wallace's work on natural selection. Selby edited Wallace's Sarawak paper. And Chambers met and corresponded with Darwin and was a well known big influence on both Darwinand Wallace. Loudon - who in 1832 had written that Darwin's book probably had something unique to say on the "origin of species", no less, edited two of Blyth's influential papers on species and varieties, which are said to have greatly influenced Darwin. And Loudon was very well known to Darwin's friends William and Jospeh Hooker.
How was it that Darwin and Wallace were surrounded by men whose brains were fertile to at least some degree with Matthew's ideas (because they read them) - and knew Darwin and Wallace were working on 'the problem of species' never told Darwin and Wallace that the solution to the problem had been posed in a book they read and cited? We are supposed to simply believe instead that Darwin and Wallace each independently conceived those same ideas. How was it that they never read the one book in the world that each needed to read - because they replicated its original ideas and claimed them as their own - even though they were mixing and were being influenced by those who did read them?
Why did Darwin lie in his 1860 letter in the Gardener's Chronicle when he claimed no naturalist had read Matthew's book after Matthew (1860) had informed him in that very same publication that John Loudon (one of the most famous botanical naturalists of the first half of the 19th century) had reviewed it? Why did Joseph Hooker - who knew Loudon well, and whose father and friends knew him very well indeed - approve Darwin's defense letter before sending it on (re-dated) to the Gardener's Chronicle in which Darwin claimed in his defense that no naturalist had read Matthew's book pre 1860 - when Hooker had earlier read Matthew's letter telling Darwin that Loudon had reviewed it? Answer - they lied. Darwin was a liar, and his best friend Joseph Hooker was a liar! Hooker had two years earlier, along with Charles Lyell, deliberately misled members of the Linnean society into believing Wallace had approved the reading of his paper along with Darwin's at the Great Linnean Debacle of 1858. They lied to cover up the Matthew to Loudon to Blyth to Darwin proof of Matthew's influence on Darwin.
Darwin knew Loudon's work well, his notebook of books read showed he read Loudon's work and heavily annotated the pages of it. Small wonder then that Darwin and Hooker nicknamed each other "Wriggler" in their private correspondence!
And if that is not enough to convince you that Darwin was the same compulsive liar when it came to attention seeking as he was as a child (see his private autobiography admission) , a year after Matthew told him otherwise Dawin lied. Again!
In 1860 Matthew told Darwin that John Loudon had reviewed his book and that a naturalist feared the cutty stool if he were to teach its heresy on the natural process of selection, Darwin was spreading lies at an international level when he wrote to the French naturalist de Bréau: In his Letter to Quatrefages de Bréau (April 25, 1861) Darwin wrote a whopping lie in his sublime efforts to bury the orignator in oblivion and preserve his own reputation as an honest and original thinker and discoverer in science:
"I have lately read M. Naudin's paper; but it does not seem to me to anticipate me, as he does not shew how Selection could be applied under nature; but an obscure writer on Forest Trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly & clearly anticipated my views—though he put the case so briefly, that no single person ever noticed the scattered passages in his book."
Loudon 1832, as we know, had written that Matthew had written "on
the origin of species
". No wonder Darwin lied! He would not want anyone reading that review.
Why on Earth should we give a blatant pathological self-serving liar, who was far more than just 'quite prepared' to deny Matthew his dues as a naturalist who discovered and prior published what he had simply replicated, the benefit of the doubt, when that benefit requires belief in miracles of immaculate conception?
Rather than this dual immaculate conception Darwinist belief, which is now greatly disconfirmed by the new data I have discovered, and Darwin's many lies (see Nullius in Verba for all six ), surely some degree of Matthewian knowledge contamination is far more likely than a the belief that Darwin and Wallace each wore some kind of divine cognitive condom over their heads for 27 years? (See Sutton 2015).
Darwin never meant it to be taken literally when he wrote in the Gardener's Chronicle that apparently no naturalist read Matthew's ideas on natural selection before 1860. Similarity he did not mean it literally when he wrote afterwards, in the Origin of Species, that Matthew's ideas had not been read. Moreover, no other naturalist has ever written that Mathew's book went unread by naturalists, that would be ludicrous, because it was a book on trees.
Rebuttal 24
This is a new argument - raised privately by way of email by a senior academic biologist, who I shall not name in order to save him the professional embarrassment.The argument is clearly born out of his unfortunately palpably biased need to seek in any way possible to underplay the powerful significance of the fact Darwin knowingly lied when he wrote those words and the fact that I uniquely discovered - contrary to prior Darwinist 'knowledge beliefs' - that other naturalists (seven in total) had read and cited Matthews book pre -1858.
Darwin lied, because it is a fact that Darwin wrote his apparently no naturalists had read Matthew's ideas fallacy after he had read what Matthew had already written in the letters page of the Gardener's Chronicle, where Matthew had written in that first published letter that John Loudon, a world famous naturalist, had reviewed his book. Matthew then wrote a second letter telling Darwin of another naturalist who had read it but feared to teach its heresy. Darwin ignored all these facts and even took his fraud deliberately and strategically to the international level by writing to a famous French naturalist to tell him that no one in the world had read Matthew's book. Darwin wrote all of these lies in a serious defense of his work when faced in the press by Matthew. Of course, therefore, Darwin meant what he wrote, literally, on this matter be taken literally. And it has been taken literally by Darwinists ever since. That is until I uniquely discovered that other naturalists actually cited Matthew's book pre-1858. See The Patrick Matthew Supermyth for a detailed criticism of why this brand new 'Darwin did not mean it literally' argument is desperate Darwinist nonsense. See also Immaculate Deception for a fully detailed account of the chronology of Darwin's great lie - one of six he told in order to achieve priority of Matthew. The other five can be read in my book Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret.
I have more examples of naturalists writing - or else massively implying - that Matthew's book went unread on my longer position paper (here) but blatant examples by the most eminent of naturalists exist. For example, Sir Gavin de Beer (FRS) wrote in the Wilkins Lecture for the Royal Society (de Beer 1962 on page 333 ):
"...William Charles Wells and Patrick Matthew were predecessors who had actually published the principle of natural selection in obscure places where their works remained completely unnoticed until Darwin and Wallace reawakened interest in the subject.'
What the expert Royal Society member Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer, British evolutionary embryologist, Director of the British Museum (Natural History), President of the Linnean Society, and receiver of the Royal Society's Darwin Medal for his studies on evolution never knew - that I have uniquely discovered (see Nullius in Verba ) - is that at least 25 people actually cited Matthew's book before Darwin's and Wallace's papers were read before the Linnean Society in 1858, seven of them were naturalists, four known to Darwin and two to Wallace. Perhaps the Royal Society needs to improve the quality of its membership and medal winners? Linnean society too. The pseudo-scholarly glee-club shame of it!
Similarly, but more specifically, referring to 'biologists' - who are essentially included in what we used to call naturalists in the 19th century - the leading evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1982, p. 499) wrote:of Matthew's unique ideas in his 1831 book:
'... it is therefore not surprising that neither Darwin nor any other biologist had ever encountered them until Matthew bought forward his claims in an article in 1860 in the Gardener's Chronicle.'
You can read more on the errors of Mayr, of de beer and even my own Darwinist hero -Dempster on this topic in a dedicated blog post (Sutton 2015) ..
We must not forget, of course, that all these errors stem from Darwin's lies about the readership of Matthew's book in the Gardener's Chronicle, his private correspondence and from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward. Darwin's lies influenced philosophical thinking on the lineage between an original idea and its replication by others by the a philosopher on biology - David L. Hull who was - of course - unaware of the New Data revealed in Nullius which shows who Darwin knew who we newly know read Matthew's book - when he wrote about Matthew's discovery is most revealing:http://patrickmathew.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-matthewian-revolution-and-identity.htmlin light of the New Data.
In effect:
The New Data regarding who did read Matthew's book before 1858 which was originally revealed to the World in Nullius in 2014, proves it rationally more likely than not, given Darwin's and Wallace's supposed immaculate conceptions being anomalous paradoxes without parallel in the history of scientific discovery, that identity by descent from Matthew's prior published work actually can be established in the case of Darwin's and Wallace's replications of it.
Darwin's proven deliberate self-serving lies - told in the highly relevant and specific context of being called-out in the press by Matthew in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860 for replicating his work without citing it - and their legacy of 155 years of credulous parroting by his Darwinists - did a very good job of hiding the truth for so long. Today, Darwin's game is finally up.
The trouble for them is that Darwin's incredibly biased Darwinists are not yet aware of their inevitable demise as trusted scholars telling the story of the discovery of natural selection. And so they cling on to the newly debunked paradigm of their namesake's immaculate conception of a prior published hypothesis, by making brand new irrational arguments that what was plainly written in the specific self-serving context of denying Matthew's possible influence on Darwin and Wallace - by writing that it went completely and totally unread - is now to interpreted by them (and they wish by anyone else gullible enough to swallow it) as mere metaphor, because the New Data originally revealed in Nullius in 2014 Makes Darwin and the World's leading Darwinists look very silly if we accept the that they actually meant us to believe literally what they very precisely wrote for very particular self-serving anti-Matthew reason. The shame of it! History will not treat Darwinists well for their 155 years of dysology.
How dare you call Charles Darwin a liar! His honesty, integrity and humility are legendary.In effect:
The New Data regarding who did read Matthew's book before 1858 which was originally revealed to the World in Nullius in 2014, proves it rationally more likely than not, given Darwin's and Wallace's supposed immaculate conceptions being anomalous paradoxes without parallel in the history of scientific discovery, that identity by descent from Matthew's prior published work actually can be established in the case of Darwin's and Wallace's replications of it.
Darwin's proven deliberate self-serving lies - told in the highly relevant and specific context of being called-out in the press by Matthew in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860 for replicating his work without citing it - and their legacy of 155 years of credulous parroting by his Darwinists - did a very good job of hiding the truth for so long. Today, Darwin's game is finally up.
The trouble for them is that Darwin's incredibly biased Darwinists are not yet aware of their inevitable demise as trusted scholars telling the story of the discovery of natural selection. And so they cling on to the newly debunked paradigm of their namesake's immaculate conception of a prior published hypothesis, by making brand new irrational arguments that what was plainly written in the specific self-serving context of denying Matthew's possible influence on Darwin and Wallace - by writing that it went completely and totally unread - is now to interpreted by them (and they wish by anyone else gullible enough to swallow it) as mere metaphor, because the New Data originally revealed in Nullius in 2014 Makes Darwin and the World's leading Darwinists look very silly if we accept the that they actually meant us to believe literally what they very precisely wrote for very particular self-serving anti-Matthew reason. The shame of it! History will not treat Darwinists well for their 155 years of dysology.
Rebuttal 25
I will answer this defense with the same response I gave when it was furiously leveled at me from the floor mid-way through the last historic Sunday Lecture at Conway Hall .
If Darwin was told something of the most fundamental importance that undermined his claim to priority for the discovery and public dissemination of the theory of natural selection - on more than one occasion - yet denied it subsequently, self-servingly, and on several occasions thereafter, that makes him a liar in any rational and honest person's book.
Darwin told at least six lies to achieve primacy over Matthew and Wallace for Matthew's prior-published hypothesis (see my book for all six), By way of just one example. Darwin lied in his 1860 letter in the Gardener's Chronicle when he claimed no naturalist had read Matthew's book before 1860 and he lied in every edition of the Origin of Species form 1861 onward when he claimed Matthew's ideas had gone unnoticed. Here is the concrete evidence that Darwin's legendary honesty is a Supermyth. Namely The Original Honest Darwin supermyth:
Famously, his biographer Ronald W Clark wrote in 1984 that the only reason he believed Darwin had not plagiarized Matthew's prior published hypothesis is because Darwin was so honest. In reality, Darwin told at least six lies to obtain priority over Matthew for Matthew's complete prior-published hypothesis of natural selection. There is no room for reasonable doubt that it is irrational to give a serial liar the benefit of the doubt regarding his claims to have independently discovered what Matthew uniquely discovered before him, which Matthew uniquely coined the natural process of selection when the New Data that I uniquely discovered proves that Darwin knew four naturalists who cited Matthew's book - containing the hypothesis he replicated and renamed by uniquely four word shuffling Matthew's name for it into 'the process of natural selection', naming the book that replicated it after the term Matthew's 1832 reviewer Loudon (1832) used to describe Matthew's unique discovery 'Origin of Species' and opening that book with the unique Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences that Matthew used to explain it.then replicating many of Matthew's examples of its operation in nature to explain it in his private essays in the 1840's and in The Origin (1859).. Darwin knew and was greatly influenced by Blyth. Loudon edited two of Blyth's highly influential papers on organic adaptation by evolution. Darwin knew and was influenced by Chambers - who also cited Matthew's book in 1832. Darwin also knew Selby who cited Matthew's book in 1842 and then went on to edit Wallace's Sarawak paper - which Darwin also read pre-1858 (see Sutton 2015 for the full references to these independently verifiable new facts ).
MacFarlane's Law in fact applies very well to bust the myth of Darwin's honesty and in so doing it debunks all the Darwinist' excuses for why they believe Darwin never read Matthew's book before 1860 . You can lean why - here. Moreover, you can see one of Darwin's major lies exposed for the first time on my Blog post "Immaculate Deception". A further five of Darwin's major self-serving lies, and much greater detail about those Darwin and Wallace knew who read Matthew's book before Darwin and Wallace replicated the discoveries within it - yet each claiming not to have known about it - can be found in my book
Discoveries don't, as a rule, come out of thin air. Rather they represent some kind of problem solving breakthrough arising through original synthesis of existing knowledge. The question of Matthew's priority, therefore is redundant. Because we should not think of Matthew's possible influence on Darwin as a zero sum question.
Rebuttal 26
The argument is Michael Shermer's (2002) . Shermer, Head of the Skeptic's Society at the time of writing it should be ashamed. Because his argument is complete flim-flam, for the precise reason that Darwin (in the Gardener's Chronicle 1860 and in every edition of The Origin of Species thereafter always maintained Matthew had zero influence upon him; as did Wallace. In other words, it is Darwin and Wallace who each claimed it was a zero sum game.
The new data in Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret shows that Matthew did have a very probable great influence on at least seven naturalists who cited it - more so, on other naturalists who cited it before influencing Darwin - such as Loudon who edited two of Edward Blyth's articles, Robert Chambers, and Selby, who edited Wallace's Sarawak paper.
".... Darwin's notebooks confirm that he drew no inspiration from Matthew or any of the other alleged precursors."
Rebuttal 27
This is a very common yet exceedingly weak excuse used by Darwinists to seek to refute the strong evidence that Darwin did plagiarize Matthew's work. The above quote is from Peter Bowler (1983, p. 158) Evolution: the history of an idea, (1st and all revised editions). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p158 It has been completely rebutted in great detail with the "New Data" facts in my 2016 peer reviewed science journal paper (Sutton 2016 )
This silly Darwin biased argument holds no water. Let me explain why not:
- We no longer owe Darwin the benefit of the doubt that all scholars should start out with when it comes to their honesty. Darwin is newly proven a serial liar on the question of Matthew's priority and on the question of his own knowledge pre 1859 (see Sutton 2015) So it would be unreasonable of us not to accept the reasonable likelihood that Darwin fabricated the dates on those notebooks. Although his Zoonomia notebook of 1837-38 is accepted as the date and evidence for when Darwin first began writing about the broad concept of ideas approximating Matthew's (1831) earlier published work on natural selection, the earliest date that we might reasonably concur - from evidence beyond Darwin's own words - that we can be reasonably confident (unless his own letters are fraudulent) Darwin wrote anything (for sure) on natural selection is 1847. That is the year when Darwin claims, in a letter in his archive, to have sent a copy of his 1844 essay to Joseph Hooker. And 1857 is when Darwin, claims in another letter in his archive, to have sent Asa Gray an abstract of the same essay (see my previous blog post ), It is notable, therefore that 1847 was the same year that Darwin met with Robert Chambers, author of the (1844) Vestiges of Creation - who had earlier read Matthew's 1831 and cited it in 1832. Both Darwin and Wallace admitted Chambers was a great influence on their work on natural selection! Some kind of Matthewianknowledge contamination from Chambers to Darwin seems rationally more likely than not in light of this new discovery (Sutton 2014 ) that Chambers had cited Matthew.
- Darwinists repeatedly confuse Darwin's private notebooks and letters as some kind of objective fossil record of what he did or did not do or know. As I explain in my position paper, Darwin - like all of us - was no robot. Consequently, he did not write down or record everything he did or knew. Darwinists themselves know this - when it suits them - because they know that Darwin never could tell his publisher - who demanded to know - where exactly he found the term 'natural selection' in the literature. Darwin could only write. fallaciously, that the term was in abundant use in the literature. Moreover, Darwin's Darwinists even refer to some of Darwin's most important private documents as his "torn apart notebooks". And many have remarked on the extent to which letters in the Darwin archive are simple "missing". In reality, it is no secret that much of Darwin's correspondence - and letters he received - are "missing". Wallace's original Ternate paper is "missing". Darwin tore his own notebooks apart and ripped out many pages from his notebooks. What those pages contained we will never know. Darwin habitually rendered whole sections of his own handwriting illegible by scribbling over it. Relying therefore on the insensible argument that what survives of Darwin's letters and notebooks show that he slowly and independently of Matthew's prior published book discovered the bombshell hypothesis of natural selection is just plain silly. Darwinists do themselves a great intellectual disservice by relying upon such daft-as-a-brush reasoning as some kind of strong evidence that their namesake arrived at the theory of natural selection independently of Matthew, because we now newly know that both Darwin and Wallace were influenced and facilitated pre-1858 by naturalists who they knew - who they said were a great influence upon them - who had cited Matthew's 1831 book, which contained the full theory of natural selection , in the literature before 1858 (Chambers) and by another (Blyth) whose editor (Loudon) had reviewed it and remarked on its originality on the topic of "the origin of species" and by Wallace's own Sarawak paper editor (Selby) who sat with Darwin on various scientific committees many times pre 1858 and had both Darwin's father and his great friend Jenyns as house guests - where Matthew's book sat in his library, having been purchased for him in 1840 by the great and influential naturalist Jardine - no less.Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, Darwin not only tore pages for his notebooks he also burned his correspondence, which was common practice. Letters in and no longer in the Darwin archive prove it. For example, Hooker's 1862 letter to Darwin instructs Darwin to burn other stuff on receipt. Moreover, an account is given by Francis Darwin that his father systematically burned his letters .
"I don't trust you."
Rebuttal 28
That's a good start. I don't want you to trust me. Please don't even think about doing so. But don't trust the words alone of anyone else either. Go check for yourself. That's what I did. And that's why my book Nullius is jam-packed with unique and independently verifiable, brand new, discoveries in the literature. These unique discoveries disprove with hard facts the mere unevidenced 'knowledge beliefs' of Darwinists, who have, for the past 155 years, simply trusted the words of Darwin without looking any further than the end of hs pen. And then they managed to convince the world that these now proven fallacies and lies were true.
"Your research on this topic is really rather pointless. it's no better than writing a book on how many angels can dance on a pinhead."
Rebuttal 29
I was challenged, very politely, with that exact same classic criticism of certain scholarly endeavors at my Teesside Skeptics in the Pub presentation on my book Nullius at in 2014 . My reply here is the same as the one I gave then. Namely, that I think it is important that we have a veracious history of important scientific discoveries. Surely we don't want to read fallacies dressed up as fact. Do we? And surely we don't want to teach fallacies as fact in out schools and universities.
I think also that it is important to ensure that potential plagiarizers and fraudsters are put on alert that their reputations may be destroyed in their lifetime, or thereafter, if they transgress with idea and discovery theft. And I think it is important to see that justice is done for originators of game changing ideas and discoveries, and their families and descendants, either in their lifetime or thereafter. Finally, we may in the future seek to use data on how great discoveries were made in an attempt to increase their rate of generation. If so, it is important that the data of how those discoveries were made is veracious.
Charles Darwin was highly and uniquely influenced by the work and ideas of his grandfather Erasmus.
Rebuttal 30
There is no evidence for that. Darwin trained to be a parson whilst at Cambridge and believed in the Christian God at that time. It is not until some years after his return from the voyages of the Beagle that he began to write about natural selection. The earliest record we have is his private Zoonomia notebook of 1837-38. Started six years after Matthew's (1831) unique prior publication on that topic. Moreover, Erasmus wrote nothing original on the topic, His classic poem (with philosophical notes) The Botanic Garden shows that he believed in the progressive theory of evolution known as "the development theory" , which is that all of nature was set up an intelligent designer god to progress towards perfection. This is the same as Robert Chamber's (1844) adopted theory of evolution in the Vestiges of Creation. In The Botanic Garden (1791 edition) (page 8) Erasmus Darwin wrote:
'Perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress to greater perfection? An idea countenanced by the modern discoveries and deductions concerning the progressive formation of-the solid parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to the dignity of the Creator of all things.'
Matthew (1831) was the first to reject this development hypothesis in favour of random variation in nature leading to certain varieties being being subject to the 'natural process of selection' to be most circumstance suited to enjoy a power of occupancy in nature or to over-top those holding one.
Interestingly, in Part 1 of the Botanic Garden, Erasmus Darwin apologized for the deductive nature of general theory of organic evolution:
Matthew (18310 also apologized when he wrote that his ideas on species had perhaps led him a little to wide. And he also invited others to test his ideas by observation and experiment (see Nullius for the full details.).
Your research is not the majority view of expert scientists, so I choose not to accept it
Rebuttal 31
That is absolute nonsense, for so many reasons that will be obvious to anyone but a pseudo-scholar. I choose to rebut it with the most obvious reasoning. Namely, what on Earth leads you to think you know what the majority view is since the 2014 publication of my book, which uniquely busts the 155 year old majority view myth, started by Darwin, that no naturalist had read Matthew's prior publication of the full theory of natural selection? Have you taken a poll of those who have read the new facts? Of course not. So your reasoning is completely whacked-out!
The fact Darwin wrote to Lyell in 1860, following Matthew's claim to priority in the Gardener's Chronicle, to say he had ordered a copy of Matthew's (1831) book proves he never read it.
Rebuttal 32
Following Matthew’s (1860) first priority claiming letter in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, of 7th April, Darwin wrote on 10th April to his friend Lyell that he had ordered a copy of Matthew’s book. This might be taken as strong confirmatory evidence that Darwin had never read Matthew’s book or been influenced by its original contents. Rationally, it is nothing of the sort. Darwin’s letter to Lyell merely proves, and only then if the now proven serial liar Darwin was then telling the truth, that he did not have a copy of Matthew’s book in his possession in 1860. Darwin could easily have prior-borrowed a copy from an associate and made extensive notes. Or been supplied by others with such extensive notes. He could just have easily borrowed a copy many years earlier from the London Library, which was founded in 1841, the same year Darwin joined, and the year before he penned his private 1842 essay on natural selection. Or Darwin might have borrowed a copy of Matthew’s book years earlier from Mudie’s Library — founded in 1842 — because he was a noted keen member of both lending libraries
Conclusion
If any further Darwinist defenses evolve to try to refute the importance of the New Data, I will add them to the list above and try to respond. As yet, I believe that none of them can stand against the facts. But I try to keep an open mind. If any defense can refute the logical and rational implications of the New Data, I will warmly embrace it.
If you would like to add a new defense against the arguments (1) that the New Data makes it more likely than not that Darwin and Wallace were influenced - pre-1858 - by Matthew's 1831 book, and (2) that they more likely than not committed deliberate plagiarism, you are warmly invited to post it in the comments section below.
(c) Darwin and WallaceAttribution
Miracle Double Immaculate Conceptions of the Blessed Virgins Darwin and Wallace of Matthew's prior published hypothesis of natural selection
- These rebuttal's are written to be followed by reading my in-depth position paper on Matthew's influence on Darwin and Wallace.
- Visit the Patrick Matthew website for more information and news about Patrick Matthew [Patrickmatthew.com ]
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