OVERVIEW OF SUTTON'S ORIGINAL DISCOVERY OF THE ROUTES OF KNOWLEDGE CONTAMINATION

Fooled Again

Don't get fooled again

The Loudon Brief: Why do Darwinists wilfully suffer from Loudon Naturalist Blindness?

The simple hard and independently verifiable newly discovered facts explain why Darwin and his worshipping Darwinists have fooled us with a complex tissue of lies and fallacies for 155 years. Read the hard facts here: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/hvzAKNvWTdCSpt-Lu2mreg

What is Loudon Naturalist Blindness? See if you have contracted it. Here

Credulous Darwinists Hoodwink the Deluded Public

PatrickMatthew.com

Test for Loudon-Naturalist-Blindness

Naturalist, biologist
 and polymath
John Loudon

Please be aware that it is newly discovered that readers and writers of the works produced by the so-called Darwin Industry are likely to be suffering from Loudon-Naturalist-Blind Syndrome (NLB syndrome) which is the inability to see the words "Loudon" and "Naturalist" along with a few others if those words prove that other naturalists did read Mathew's (1831) prior publication of the full original hypothesis of natural selection before Darwin and Wallace replicated it.  {Details of the 2015 discovery of NLB: here}.

The condition was initially contracted by Charles Darwin - who then spread it as a toxic super-meme in 1860, when he wrote the following words after having been informed in writing that the naturalist Loudon definitely did read Matthew's ideas:

(1) Darwin April 21 1860:  "I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr Matthew's views, "

(2) Darwin April 25 1861  (letter to the famous French naturalist Quatrefages de Bréau) : "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."

(3) Darwin (1861) wrote in the third edition of The Origin of Species:

' Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the Gardener's Chronicle,' on April 7th, 1860.'

A Test to self-screen for the existence of LNB

Try to see somewhere in the following texts written by Patrick Matthew the words:

1.  "Loudon" 
2.  "naturalist" 
3. "professor"
4.  "original" 
5. "discovery" 

And :

1. "He is however wrong in thinking that no naturalist was aware of the previous discovery"
2.  "origin of species".

(1) Matthew (1860) in his first letter to the Gardener's Chronicle ( Matthew, P. 1860a. Letter to the Gardeners Chronicle. Nature's law of selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (7 April): 312-13. Darwin Online: ) wrote:

'In your Number of March 3d I observe a long quotation from the Times, stating that Mr. Darwin "professes to have discovered the existence and modus operandi of the natural law of selection," that is, "the power in nature which takes the place of man and performs a selection, sua sponte," in organic life. This discovery recently published as "the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection" by Mr. Darwin turns out to be what I published very fully and brought to apply practically to forestry in my work "Naval Timber and Arboriculture," published as far back as January 1, 1831, by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, and Longman & Co., London, and reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity in the "Metropolitan Magazine," the "Quarterly Review," the "Gardeners' Magazine," by Loudon, who spoke of it as the book, and repeatedly in the "United Service Magazine" for 1831, &c. The following is an extract from this volume, which clearly proves a prior claim. ..'

(2)  Matthew, P. 1860b. Second letter to the Gardeners Chronicle. Nature's law of selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (12 May) p. 433.) by way of reply to Darwin's reply

'I notice in your Number of April 21 Mr. Darwin’s letter honourably acknowledging my prior claim relative to the origin of species. I have not the least doubt that, in publishing his late work, he believed he was the first discoverer of this law of Nature. He is however wrong in thinking that no naturalist was aware of the previous discovery. I had occasion some 15 years ago to be conversing with a naturalist, a professor of a celebrated university, and he told me he had been reading my work “Naval Timber,” but that he could not bring such views before his class or uphold them publicly from fear of the cutty-stool, a sort of pillory punishment, not in the market-place and not devised for this offence, but generally practised a little more than half a century ago. It was at least in part this spirit of resistance to scientific doctrine that caused my work to be voted unfit for the public library of the fair city itself. The age was not ripe for such ideas, nor do I believe is the present one,..'

(3) Before going on to edit two of Blyth's influential articles on evolution (which greatly influenced Darwin) The famous naturalist and biologist John Loudon’s review (1832): of Matthew's (1831) book contained the following sentence:

‘One of the subjects discussed in this appendix is the puzzling one, of the origin of species and varieties; and if the author has hereon originated no original views (and of this we are far from certain), he has certainly exhibited his own in an original manner.’

 How did you do?

 If you cannot see the five words and two phrases then there most definitely is something wrong with the wiring in your brain. We are working on a cure. Meanwhile, to reduce NLB infection rates you are advised not to write anything on the topic of the discovery of natural selection.

Please note that if you are not infected with NLB, you can receive lifetime immunity by reading Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret - available worldwide from all Amazon books stores.

Famous Sufferers of Loudon-Naturalist-Blind Syndrome

In addition to Charles Darwin, other there are many other highly famous and less famous sufferers of LNB. Sufferers include the world's leading Darwinist Sir Gavin de Beer  - Royal Society Darwin Medal winner - who wrote in his 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.'

Top Darwinist Ernst Mayr was another sufferer (Mayr 1982 The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance p.499) :

'The person who has the soundest claim for priority in establishing a theory or evolution by natural selection is Patrick Matthew (1790-1874). He was a wealthy landowner in Scotland, very well read and well traveled (Wells 1974). His views on evolution and natural selection were published in a number of notes in an appendix to his work On Naval Timber and Arboriculture (1831). These notes have virtually no relation to the subject matter of the book, and it is therefore not surprising that neither Darwin nor any other biologist had ever encountered them until Matthew brought forward his claims in an article in 1860 in the Gardener's Chronicle.''

Richard Dawkins is the equivalent of Typhoid Mary when it comes spreading claptrap about the discovery of natural selection. He has Loudon Naturalist Blindness in its advanced stage, Stage III sufferers lose the ability to understand the meaning of the concepts "history"  and "context" {here}.

Dr Mike Weale (Reader in statistical genetics at Kings College London) who wrote in debate on September 21st 2015 on his Patrick Matthew Project website {here}:

"Darwin would have checked very carefully to make sure there really was no-one else who had read Matthew’s passages relating to evolution by natural selection. I disagree. It would have been a Herculean task for Darwin to have checked with every single naturalist personally, and unnecessary. If there were any “Matthew readers” out there, all they needed to do was to declare themselves. Darwin left some room for doubt in his original letter (“apparently no other naturalist…”). By the time the “Historical Sketch” came out a year later, no-one had declared themselves, and so the doubt was removed (“it remained unnoticed”). Thus, I continue to assert that there is a plausible, innocent interpretation of what Darwin wrote."

POSTSCRIPT (6th January 2016): Loudon Naturalist Blindness has a neuroscience psychological explanation known as blindsight  Read the facts, providing you are able to actually see them, here. 

Natural History of the Darwinist:Part II: Stupidly Loudon-Naturalist-Blind when cornered

Stupid is stupid does

The Darwinist is "apparently" just as stupid when cornered by its own original stupidity.   

It seems that over the past 155 years Darwin and his Darwinists suffered from a previously undiagnosed cognitive condition called "Loudon-Naturalist-Blindness". The condition caused Darwin to fail to see the name "Loudon" when Mathew wrote to him in the Gardener's chronicle in 1860 to inform him that (1) Darwin had replicated Matthew's (1831) original ideas and discovery of natural selection without citing him and (2) The naturalist Loudon had read those ideas and written a review of his book in 1832. and (3) that another (unnamed) naturalist had read Matthew's book but feared to teach the heretical ideas on natural selection that are in it for fear of pillory punishment.

The highly cognitively contagious nature of the condition is apparent in that Darwin totally ignored the Loudon factor when he later wrote that Matthew's ideas had gone unread until 1860. Darwin then ignored Matthew's second letter in which he very clearly and forcefully informed Darwin of yet another, (unnamed), naturalist, from an eminent institution, who had read his original ideas but feared to teach them.The Loudon-Naturalist-Blind "disease" thereafter spread in the literature as a toxic super-meme, evidenced by the fact that absolutely all the world's Darwinists caught it like a cold in the head and so failed to see the significance of the words "Loudon" or "other naturalists" in Matthew's letters to Darwin. Consequently for the past 155 years they have been writing the fallacy, based on Darwin's intentionally blinding lies, that no biologists and no naturalists, or even no one at all, read Matthew's ideas before Matthew told Darwin about them in 1860. In actual fact, after reviewing Matthew's book in 1832, Loudon wrote:

'One of the subjects discussed in this appendix is the puzzling one, of the origin of species and varieties; and if the author has hereon originated no original views (and of this we are far from certain), he has certainly exhibited his own in an original manner.'

Public Domain

Help Cure LNB Syndrome

Loudon-Naturalist-Blindless, which is endemic in the Darwinist community and the literature of the so-called "Darwin Industry" has led to further cognitive degeneration known as "Institutional Stupidity". Further symptoms include irrational postmodernist beliefs that the word "apparently" can alter the independently verifiable facts of the past in any way you desire.

COGNITIVE DEGENERATION URGENT - VERACITY- HEALTH WARNING

Adapt or Cry

Public Domain

Loudon-Naturalist-Blindness

Scholars, ESPECIALLY STUDENTS, who are not infected are therefore advised to obtain full lifelong immunity from this "apparently" incurable condition by reading Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret. The book can, "apparently" be obtained, worldwide, from you nearest Amazon store.   

I am working, "apparently" on finding the cure, but to date have been "apparently" unsuccessful in treating "apparently" infected Darwinists, a sadly potentially famous "apparently" incurable case study of 'Loudon-Naturalist-Blindness' is available, "apparently" to view on The Patrick Matthew Project   

Public Domain

Darwinist's brains are toast 

Institutional Stupidity

The Patrick Matthew Supermyth

The Patrick Matthew Supermyth is underpinned by two deliberate lies that Darwin told in order to corrupt the history of discovery of natural selection {here}, and by the fallacious Loudon-Naturalist-Blinding toxic super-meme that the unique ideas on natural selection in Matthew's 1831 book were variously unread by any naturalists, biologists, anyone known to Darwin or Wallace, or indeed anyone, before Matthew brought them to Darwin's attention in 1860.

The Immunisation Against LNB Syndrome (that includes further cognitive inability to see important words and phrases such as *Loudon* and *he is however wrong* *naturalist" and "prior discovery" in the work of anyone other than Charles Darwin) Programme started in 2014. We are currently working on a cure for the infected. 

Visit PatrickMatthew.com    for updates on immunisation and treatment progress.

Please Note The neuroscience blindsight explanation for the Appendix Myth also explains perfectly Loudon Naturalist Blindness Syndrome. 

Treasure your exceptions

Visit the anomalist: http://t.co/AyHbVwRE96 Take a sojourn over at http://t.co/xBGGof5eY7 pic.twitter.com/o0BvEemrQE

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) September 25, 2015

Institutional Stupidity

pic.twitter.com/IAFoofoUDc

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) September 24, 2015

Punctured myths and paradigm shifts

The 155 year old paradigm that Darwin and Wallace discovered natural selection independently of Matthew's (1831) prior and original publication of the full hypothesis is premised on credulous Darwinist belief in the self-serving lie written by their namesake in his own defense the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860, and in his subsequent lies from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward (Darwin 1861), that no naturalist had read Matthew's original ideas on natural selection until he brought them to Darwin's attention in 1860. Darwin knew otherwise when he wrote his lies because Matthew informed him, before he wrote them, that naturalists had read his original ideas on natural selection. 

Get the hard and independently verifiable myth-puncturing facts at PatrickMatthew.com

On Veracity

You just know when it's time for a paradigm change. It's when the old paradigm is supported entirely by punctured myths.

A self-aggrandising trumpet from the rooftops. pic.twitter.com/6HJMLaIsKh

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) September 22, 2015

After the Big Data Bombshell: Can Darwin’s and Wallace’s Claims to Independent Discovery Remain Vertical?

Acknowledgements

For information personally communicated, I would like to thank Professor Donald Forsdyke, Professor C. R. Hallpike, Professor Sean Thomas and Professor Milton Wainwright for their most generously offered thoughts and advice on my e-book ‘Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret’ and in particular for volunteering either prior or else later details of several important publications that are cited in this article.

Science is truly an adventure in understanding and in making scientific discoveries, but to be successful one must be impeccably honest and truthful and must be openly objective to a diverse and broad range of ideas, both in current discussion and in the treasury of science history. - J. Marvin Herndon

Moreso:

‘The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.’

…I’m not talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.’ - Richard Feynman (1992)

Introduction

Social scientists have developed particular methodologically sophisticated techniques that enable us to study the confusing and complicated subject matter that constitutes our multifarious field (Gilovich 1991). For example, my own big data facilitated discovery and deployment of my ID research method and its associated unique ‘first to be second hypothesis’ (Sutton 2014) enabled me to exclusively disprove the 154 year old Darwinist myth that the unique ideas on natural selection in Patrick Matthew’s 1831 book ‘On Naval Timber and Arboriculture’ were not read by anyone known to Charles Darwin or Alfred Wallace, or any other naturalist or biologist, before the latter two both replicated many of those unique ideas, observations, explanatory examples and terms, within Matthew's prior-published book (Darwin and Wallace 1858; and Darwin 1859).

Thinker Media Inc.Used only with express written permission

The book that changed everything we once thought we knew about the discovery of natural selection

Since the publication of my book ‘Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret’ (Sutton 2014), one prominent Darwinist, among a number of others less well known who I shall spare the potential embarrassment of naming, appears to have developed quite rapidly the unfortunate duel symptoms of gumption and orthodox scientific knowledge deficiency in their own field of "expertise". In August 2014, Dr George Beccaloni, who is Curator of the Wallace Collection at the Natural History Museum London, published an arguably faux review of ‘Nullius’, only later admitting that he had not actually read the newly published book that he nevertheless so ‘knowingly’ disagreed with (see the review’s page of Patrick Matthew.com for further details with links) after giving the, arguably, powerful impression he had read it. In the August 2014 version of that ‘non-review’ publication on his personal website [1], Beccaloni, a public employee and salaried expert in the field, also admitted that he was curiously unable to decide for himself whether or not Matthew did fully discover and describe natural selection. Beccaloni went curiously further to reveal also his unawareness of the fact that other published experts on organic evolution have for over 100 years fully admitted that Matthew (1831) did discover and describe the entire theory of natural selection.

To set the record straight for historical veracity, in hope of remedying at least the later part of Beccaloni’s unfortunate duel scholarly impairment, and to assist anyone else ‘infected’ by it, or subsequently deploying the same uninformed arguments, as a social scientist I am obliged to make clear the fact that many experts, including the world’s leading biologist experts on organic evolution, have gone into print to explain that Matthew (1831) did uniquely discover and then fully explain natural selection – e.g.: Darwin (1860; 1861), Wallace (1879), Calman (1912; 1912a), Zon (1913), Dempster (1983, 1996, 2005), Hallpike (2008), Dawkins (2010), Wainwright (2008; 2011). Every one of these notable expert authors explained that Matthew had discovered and published the entire detailed and complex hypothesis of natural selection 29 years before Darwin replicated it in the Origin of Species. Moreover, Hamilton, (2001) and Dempster (2005) clearly noted just how clear Matthew’s writing actually was on his prior-discovery.

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On Gumption

Cock and Forsdyke (2008, pp. 643-644) with patently more grace, tact, refinement and subtlety than I am able to muster, note the dangers of gumption deficiency on the topic of Darwin’s replication of Matthew’s prior-published discovery of natural selection:

‘Robert Locke [1906] dismissed the natural selection ideas of W.C Wells (1813) and Patrick Matthew (1831) as “merely historical” since they showed “the direction in which thought was tending”. Lock was in no way alarmed. This has been an attitude of busy scientists both in the past and in our own time. The attribute of mere historicity implies scientists’ satisfaction with the reading and understanding of the literature by those they rely on to tell them the direction thought was (or is) tending.

Although this strategy often succeeds, there are many examples – of which Mendel appears the paradigm in the case of Biology – that reveal the folly of assuming that the foundations of one’s discipline are secure.’

The Obligations of the Social Scientist to inform and assist the Natural Sciences

Trumpet from the rooftops!Attribution Share Alike

Internet Dating with Darwin at Conway Hall 2014

On the 27th of July 2014 I was honoured to give the Sunday Lecture to the esteemed Ethical Society at Conway Hall in London on my discovery that Darwin and Wallace did not discover natural selection independently of Patrick Matthew (click to read, in the Ethical Record, the paper I presented) on my discovery that Darwin and Wallace did not discover natural selection independently of Patrick Matthew. This was a great honour for me personally felt, since many famous thinkers - including Bertrand Russell - have given Memorial Sunday Lectures to the Ethical Society at Conway Hall (see the first 25 here) . Of particular note on the topic of Darwin's work on natural selection is Sir Arthur Keith's Memorial Lecture. Because Keith was a scientist hoodwinked like almost all others by Charles Dawson's Piltdown Man fraud.

My lecture on Darwin's and Wallace's great science fraud was the very last in this series of such lectures dating back over 100 years. I am doubly honoured in that I have been invited back to Conway Hall - next time to talk about my work on stolen goods markets - at one of the first in a new series of Sunday Debates in 2015.

The Ethical Society began as a dissident congregation in 1787 in rebellion against the doctrine of eternal hell. I think some Darwinists think I am destined to go there for my heresy against Darwin and Wallace. For example, at the end of my talk at Conway Hall a member of the audience, who had unsuccessfully attempted to criticize the content of the lecture at several points before it was completed, chastised me “How dare you call Charles Darwin a liar!” he trembled. And yet I had informed the audience that my book, ‘Nullius’, contains absolute independently verifiable proof of six lies that Darwin told – discovered by cross referencing what he wrote to others, or else published, with what he wrote in his then private notebooks or in private correspondence. After I politely reminded him of this, he sat and pouted. It looks like science is, and its heroes are, as vulnerable to offence as religion’s books, dogmas, prophets and saints.

On the topic of the injustice of allowing ‘special pleading’ for the sensibilities of religious believers, what Richard Dawkins writes about religion should be reflected upon by those who simply have blind faith in Charles Darwin’s mythical honesty (2006 p. 42):

‘A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts – the non-religious-included- is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other.’

When it comes to evidence of science fraud should not Darwin and Wallace be accorded the same level of respect as any other human being suspected of guilt? Should we not equally apply to these men the civil law test of reasonable probability and the criminal law test of beyond reasonable doubt? Of course we should. It is only right that we should. Darwin and Wallace should be allowed no special pleading in a fair historical hearing!

As a criminologist, I am aware that in so many instances confidence tricksters and fraudsters create a persona of ‘super honesty and respectability’ so as to get way with the most audacious behaviour and allay suspicion that would otherwise arise when their stories and excuses first show signs of failing to add up. After all, that was most certainly the case with the solicitor Charles Dawson – the Piltdown Man forger who so cleverly duped Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the Geology Department at the Natural History Museum, London (See Walsh 1996).

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So people commit science fraud. We know that. And Darwin was no paragon of honesty. We now know that. So why should we expect great resistance to the logical conclusions that flow from the newly discovered data in Nullius that 19 people personally known to either Darwin or Wallace had read Matthew's (1831) book before Darwin's and Wallace's (1858) "findings" were jointly read out to the Linnean society?

In their excellent book on science fraud ' Betrayers Of The Truth: Fraud and Deceit in Science' Broad and Wade (1982, p. 8) write of their own research on the wider topic of science fraud in general:

'As more cases of fraud broke into public view, and whispers were heard of others more quietly disposed of, we wondered if fraud wasn't a quite minor regular feature of the scientific landscape. We noticed upon closer examination that the cases failed to conform to the model of science implied by the conventional wisdom. Logic, replication, peer review, objectivity - all had been successfully defied by the scientific forgers, often for extended periods of time. How had they managed to get so far for so long?'

The reason Darwin and Wallace got away with their fraud for so long is because no one chose to abide by the motto of the Royal Society: Nullius in Verba. Instead, the scientific community shamefully took Darwin's and Wallace's illicit excuses at face value and failed to investigate their incredible claims to have each, independently of Matthew's prior, prominently published, extensively reviewed, advertised and cited discovery - and Independently of one another -discovered the theory of natural selection, alighted upon the same key explanatory examples, and even the same unique terminology to describe it. In fact, big data analysis reveals that Matthew (1831) uniquely named his discovery 'the natural process of selection' and Darwin (1859) four-word- shuffled Matthew's term to uniquely name his replication of it 'the process of natural selection' (see Sutton 2014).

In his splendid book ‘How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life’ Thomas Gilovich (1991, p 193), arguably making too much of the fact that one research study suggests social scientists as a whole might be more rationally less likely to believe in ESP than natural scientists, writes of what he calls ‘the social scientist’s obligation’ to inform natural scientists when newly discovered facts change what we once thought we knew was true:

‘…what social scientists might best offer both their students and the general public is their methodological sophistication, their way of looking at the World, the habits of mind that they promote – process more than content. In fits and starts social science has advanced human knowledge a great deal over the years. Nevertheless, much of what we think we have learned will certainly change over the next 50 or 100 years. How we go about our business, on the other hand, and the methods we employ to advance our knowledge, will be largely the same. An awareness of how and when to question and a recognition of what it takes to truly know something are among the most important elements of what constitutes an educated person. Social scientists, I believe may be in the best position to instill them.’

As a social scientist specializing in criminology I am in complete concordance with Gilovich on the issue of our obligation to spread new and disconfirming hard and independently verifiable evidence if it disconfirms previous ‘knowledge beliefs’. Consequently, I accept that it is my dutiful ethical obligation to inform Darwinists that the ‘facts’ they once held as sacred have changed and of what the implications of that bombshell discovery now are.

A Bombshell for the History of Science

Solving problems with new technology often involves thinking about ways to make the technology work for you in ways never imagined by its inventors. Contrary to 154 years of Darwinist ‘knowledge beliefs’, newly discovered hard and independently verifiable data today proves, because they cited his 1831 book in print pre-1858, that Matthew’s prior discovery of natural selection was read by many others and by at least seven naturalists before 1858. Three of those seven naturalists – Loudon, Chambers and Selby (See Sutton 2014a for full details of these and others) - went on to play pivotal roles at the very epicentre of influence and facilitation of Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on natural selection. Consequently, it does not matter whether or not Darwin or Wallace read the works of Loudon (1832), Chambers (1832) and Selby (1842) that cited Matthews’s book. Moreover, it does not matter whether or not it can be established that Loudon, Chambers and Selby, or those such as Blyth, and Wallace, whose pre-1858 work on evolution Loudon and Selby respectively edited and published, particularly understood the full details and implications of Matthew’s discovery. Because the fact of the matter is that Loudon, Chambers and Selby all read Matthew’s book that contained those very ideas and Loudon and Selby commented specifically on those ideas in their own, newly re-discovered, publications. The telling questions that follow this are: (1) 'is it now more likely than not that Matthew's prior publication influenced Darwin;'s and Wallace's later replications of natural selection? (2) Is it more likely than not that Darwin and Wallace heard of Matthew's ideas pre-1831 and lied when they claimed no prior knowledge of them?

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The discovery of the new data that these influential naturalists cited Matthew's book is a complete game changer for the history of scientific discovery. We are left with the onerous task of weighing this evidence in with all the other evidence regarding Darwin's and Wallace's dishonesty, who they knew who read Matthew's book and the ideas in it - and the roles those people played in influencing them. That evidence includes, but is by no means limited to, our new knowledge about who did read Matthew's book because they cited it, and - certainly far more contentiously- who more likely than not read it because they were apparently first to be second to replicate apparently unique phrases from Matthew's (1831) book (what I refer to as the first to be second hypothesis). All that matters is not MY subjective opinion but that of the scientific community and wider public - who now are called upon to weigh ALL the evidence (not to cherry pick only what suits them) and then decide (1) whether or not it is right to conclude that Matthew now has full priority over Darwin and Wallace as the newly proven sole independent original discoverer of the full hypothesis of natural selection? And (2) whether or not Darwin and Wallace committed science fraud. This point, regardless of my affirmative beliefs on the matter, is made very clearly in my book (Sutton 2014).

It would be from a dreadfully uninformed, or else highly disingenuous, point (e.g. Dawkins 2010), that any would insist upon asking why, if he fully understood its great significance, Matthew did not trumpet his ground-breaking discovery from the rooftops. Similarly, it would be from an ill-informed position for any to insist upon the discovery of hard written evidence that other naturalists shared their knowledge and understanding of the discovery of natural selection within Matthew’s book. The reason being that eminent scholars, such as Secord (2000), Yeo (1984) and Desmond and Moore (1991) all explain in great detail the 19th century scientific conventions, which imposed great social strictures against members of scientific associations such as the Geological society of London, the Royal Society, The British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Athenaeum Club and the Linnean Society from writing about exactly the same kind of great heresy and political sedition that was in Matthew’s book.

Knowledge Contamination is established on the Balance of Reasonable Probability

Pre 1858, Loudon edited two important papers written by Darwin’s most prolific and helpful correspondent on organic evolution - Blyth (1835; 1836). Moreover, Loudon was a friend and correspondent of William Hooker, who in turn was an associate of Darwin and Wallace and father of Darwin’s best friend and botanical mentor Joseph Hooker.

Darwin met and corresponded with Chambers, who even gave Darwin a copy of his secretly authored book. Following his citation of Matthew's book in 1832, Chambers (1844) went on to write the bestselling ‘Vestiges of Creation’, a book that ran to more than ten editions and is said to have put ‘evolution in the air’ (e.g. Millhauser 1959) before Darwin’s ‘Origin’ and is the book that both Darwin (1861) and Wallace (1845) admitted was a great influence on their work.

Selby was an incredibly well-connected gentleman of science, a friend of Darwin’s father and many of his influencers including Gould, Jenyns, Yarrell and Jardine (see Jackson 1992). Moreover, Selby sat on committees with Darwin and shared membership of the same associations (see Sutton 2014 for the full details).

In light of this combination of newly discovered and uniquely synthesized existing information, are we to accept as mere coincidence the fact that some of Matthew’s most important and unique ideas about organic evolution were replicated in the highly influential work of Darwin’s most prolific informant Blyth (1835, 1836), which was edited and published by Loudon who earlier wrote in 1832 that Matthew’s book had something original to say on the subject the “the origin of species” no less! More of Matthew’s ideas were replicated in Wallace’s (1855) famous Sarawak paper that was edited and published by Selby – a paper that Dawkins (2010) advises us must be read in conjunction with Wallace’s later Ternate paper (Darwin and Wallace 1858). Those who knew about the bombshell discovery, or at the very least the general subject matter on the ‘problem of species’ that was in Matthew’s book, how ever much or little they understood of it, needed only to tell Darwin and Wallace about the one book in the world that both so needed to read, since it was well known in their respective scientific circles that both were working on solving the ‘problem of species’ (see Sutton 2014 for the full details). Surely that is a more likely than not scenario. Alternatively, are we expected to otherwise believe that there was a ‘don’t tell Darwin or Wallace’ about Matthew’s discovery’ conspiracy afoot?

The Irrational Darwin Defense Trinity Goes like this:

‘It is a mere tri-coincidence, improbable beyond rational belief, that three out of only seven naturalists known to have cited Matthew’s prior-published book before 1858, containing the full hypothesis of natural selection, played such pivotal roles at the very epicentre of influence and facilitation of Darwin’s and Wallace’s published work on natural selection.’

In 1620 Francis Bacon wrote a great treatise on academic confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, associated irrational reasoning and cherry-picking pseudo-scholarship:

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‘The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.’

Any scholar cherry picking which of the newly discovered facts in 'Nullus' to critique, whilst ignoring others, will be engaging in pseudo-scholarship and should receive short shrift for doing so in the academic press and elsewhere. Moreover, even though we might know such bias is common, there is still a danger that we will weirdly believe that we alone are specially exempt in terms of what we have ‘discovered’ and how we assess its significance (Dowd, 2013). I am no exception that to rule. Any believing Nullius is unfairly biased should critique it accordingly - but with honesty, integrity and evidence not with mere rhetoric, pseudo-scholarship and ignorance of the literature and lazy gumption intolerance peacocking.

Bearing in mind the importance of Bacon’s observations on human bias in science, reason has it that anyone wishing now to claim the insignificance of my new discovery that Matthew’s book was, contrary to prior ‘knowledge’, read by other naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace would have to base their arguments for non-knowledge contamination – from Matthew to Loudon, Chambers and Selby and then to Darwin and Wallace - upon an irrational premise that I have chosen to name the ‘Darwin Defense Trinity. Or else they must do as Bacon implores and address all the newly discovered facts in ‘Nullius’. Therefore, to refute the evidence that Darwin and Wallace are not independent discoverers of natural selection, and to refute the additional evidence that they committed science fraud, those defending Darwin and Wallace are required now to do more than write un-evidenced and pseudo-scholarly cherry-picking and hard fact avoiding rhetoric. Instead they must now deploy gumption and scientific expertise to personally explain precisely and in fully evidenced detail exactly why they believe the experts are wrong about Matthew having fully discovered and articulated the complete hypothesis of natural selection. If reasonably skeptical experts on the biology of organic evolution can uniquely achieve that breakthrough then they must make yet another by using their scientific knowledge and expertise to disprove that the Darwin Defense Trinity is irrational. And even if it were possible to achieve both of these herculean tasks that alone would not be enough; because it would then be necessary to explain away the entire 52 individuals newly discovered (Sutton 2014 ) to have either definitely (because they cited it) or more likely than not (because they were apparently first to be second with apparently unique Matthewisms) read Matthew’s (1831) book, 19 of whom were in either Darwin’s or Wallace’s social circle. Moreover, all such explaining away would need, objectively, to take into account, and so weigh in the balance of reasonable probability for science fraud, the fact that Darwin told six lies to achieve primacy over Matthew, had a prior history of academic dishonesty, sought to change the scientific rules of priority so that better known naturalist such as he would be automatically awarded priority over original first discovers such as Matthew. Moreover, it would finally be a requirement for those seeking to successfully establish Darwin’s and Wallace’s innocence, in light of the multitude of newly discovered incriminating facts contained in ‘Nullius’, to objectively explain away the devastating results of a computer assisted plagiarism check of the work of Darwin and Wallace compared with Matthew’s prior publication (see Sutton 2014 for full details and considerably more weighty circumstantial evidence, besides, against Darwin and Wallace).

Conclusions and the Way Forward

All that is left currently to support Darwin’s and Wallace’s respective claims to have each discovered natural selection independently of Matthew and independently of one another is the Darwin Defense Trinity of irrational faith. Logic and reason establishes that the ‘Trinity’ is no more than a serviceable yet irrational Victorian smog-screen for the world’s greatest science fraud.

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Used only with express written permission

The Blessed Virgin Darwin

If you would like to fight science fraud by assisting society and the veracious historical record by way of alleviating the symptoms of ignorance, gumption intolerance, and irrational beliefs within the natural science Darwinist community and its so-called ‘Darwin Industry’ then you could perhaps do worse than to read and then trumpet from the rooftops the bombshell discovery contained in my book that changes everything we once thought we knew about the discovery of natural selection.‘Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret’ (Sutton 2014)tells the full and hard-evidenced, independently verifiable, story of the men and women behind the world’s greatest science fraud.

In the aftermath of the bombshell discovery in ‘Nullius’ that naturalists, and others, known to Darwin and Wallace did read Matthew’s book pre-1858, and - more so - they commented upon the unique ideas on natural selection in it,  there can now be only one independent discoverer of natural selection and he is Patrick Matthew – the greatest deductive thinker the world has ever known. And it is beyond reasonable doubt that Darwin and Wallace perpetrated the world's greatest science fraud rather than  experienced a miracle of dual immaculate conception of a prior published hypothesis whilst surrounded by, influenced by and in communication with other men whose minds were fertile with it.

References

Bacon, F. (1620) The New Organon or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature. English translation: http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm

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

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

Broad, W. and Wade, N. (1982) Betrayers Of The Truth: Fraud and Deceit in Science. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

Calman, W. T. (1912) Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) The Journal of Botany. British and Foreign. pp.193-194.

Calman, W. T. (1912a) Patrick Matthew of Gourdiehill, Naturalist. British Association, Dundee Meeting, 1912. Handbook. David Winter and Son. Dundee. P.451-457.

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

Chambers, R. (anonymous) (1844) Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. New York. Wiley and Putnum.

Darwin, C. R. (1860) Natural selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette no. 16 (21 April): 362-363.(This is Darwin’s letter in response to Matthew’s in the Gardeners Chronicle where Darwin clearly indicates he had no prior knowledge of Matthew’s book). See Darwin online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1705&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

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

Dawkins, R. (2006) The God Delusion. London. Black Swan.

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

Dempster, W. J. (1983) Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection. Edinburgh. Paul Harris Publishing.

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

Dempster, W. J. (2005) The Illustrious Hunter and the Darwins. Sussex. Book Guild Publishing.

Desmond, A. and Moore, J. (1991). Darwin. London. Penguin Books.

Dowd, W. (2013) A Room with a Conspiratorial View. eSkeptic Magazine. June 19th 2013:http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-06-19/ .

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Cock, A. G. and Forsdyke, D. R. (2008). Treasure your Exceptions: The Science and Life of William Bateson. Springer.

Gilovich, T (1991) ‘How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life’ The Free Press. New York.

Hallpike, C. R. (2008) How We Got Here: From Bows and Arrows to the Space Age. Author House. Milton Keynes.

Jackson, C. E. (1992) Prideaux John Selby: A Gentleman Naturalist. Christine E. Jackson. Northumberland. Spredden Press.

Lock, R. D. (1906) Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity and Evolution, John Murray. London.

Loudon, J.C. (1832)[3] Matthew Patrick On Naval Timber and Arboriculture with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. Gardener’s Magazine. Vol. VIII. p.703.

Matthew, P (1831) On Naval Timber and Arboriculture; With a critical note on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Edinburgh. Adam Black. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DmYDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=of%20selection&f=false

Millhauser, M. (1959) Just Before Darwin: Robert Chambers and the Vestiges. Middletown Connecticut. Wesleyan University Press.

Secord. J. A. (2000) Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago and London. The University of Chicago Press.

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

Sutton, M. (2014) Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret. Thinker Media Inc. USA.

Sutton, M. (2014a).Internet Dating with Darwin: New discovery that Darwin and Wallace were influenced by Matthew’s prior discovery. BestThinking.com

Wainwright, M. (2008) Natural Selection: It’s Not Darwin’s (Or Wallace’s) Theory. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences 15 (1) 1-8 June, 2008.

Wainwright, M. (2011). Charles Darwin: Mycologist and Refuter of His Own Myth. FUNGI Volume 4:1 Winter. pp.13-20.

Wallace, A. R. (1845) Letter to Bates. December 28th. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum. Unique WCP identifier 346.346 http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/346/346/T/details.html

Wallace, A. R. (1855) On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Series 2. 16. 184-196.

Wallace, A.R. (1879a) 9 May. Letter to Samuel Butler. Unique WCP identifier: WCP1586. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1586/1365/T/details.html#2

Walsh, J. E. (1996) Unravelling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and Its Solution. Random House.

Wells, W.C. (1818) Two Essays: One Upon Single Vision with two eyes; The other On Dew. A Letter To The Right Hon. Lloyd, Lord Kenyon. And An Account of A Female of the White Race of Mankind, Part of Whose Skin Resembles that of a Negro; With Some Observations on the Causes of the Differences in Colour and Form Between the White and Negro Races of Man. By the Late William Charles Wells. With a Memoir of his Life Written by Himself. London. Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh.

Yeo, R. (1984) Science and Intellectual Authority in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Victorian Studies, Vol. 28. No.1. Autumn. pp. 5-31. Indiana University Press.

Zon, R. (1913) Darwinism in Forestry. The American Naturalist. Vol. 47. No. 561. September. pp.540-546.

Footnotes

[1] I have archived this publication for the historical record of early responses to the publication of ‘Nullius’.

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[2] Although the actual review was anonymous, in his 1860 letter in the Gardener’s Chronicle Matthew says it was penned by Loudon, the magazine’s editor.