Jim Dempster's Correspondence: The Wavertree Letters [Letter 10]

Written in 1996. Undated. But written immediately after publication of his second book. This is the last of the 10 transcribed of the 11 Wavertree Letters from the retired surgeon and pioneering human organ transplant research scientist Jim Dempster to Ian Hardie of the Patrick Matthew Trust

Jim Dempster

Dear Ian,

Thanks for yours of the 11th.

Please give the books away as I have done here. The prof of Zoology at Edinburgh seems a nice guy; send him one. Send them to the academic departments in each big town.

 Hutton. I told you the mess Simmonds got into without looking up my book’s index! I spend some time on Hutton. He is the father of British Geology. Lyell took most of Hutton and added some relevant points and called it Uniformitarianism which dispensed with catastrophes (of Cuvier) and mass extinctions; these are now back after 170 years! If you find some on or thing new – look up the index. Harper will speak on Biodiversity. Diversity was introduced by Cuvier – the four main branches of animal life; he denied any heredity link along the branches but Lamarck added ‘branches’. Matthew introduced ‘diverging ramifications of life forms occupying a new field’ after a catastrophe. Edward Blyth (1835-37) came in with reiterate diversity and ramifications. Darwinists try to argue that Darwin introduced diversity; some mad American thought Darwin lifted divergence from Wallace. See my book. See page 132 for what Darwin missed in South Africa.

Photographs. The only one I have I sent to Australia for a Scot, based in Queensland, who wants to include in his book a word about Matthew.

I am sending you a brief outline of evolutionary paradigms. Paradigm is the ‘in’ word: American, of course! I have given the historical development of the ideas. Now that Cuvier’s catastrophes and mass extinctions are back Matthew’s paradigm is up do date. Darwin hated Cuvier – for some reason. Jealousy? He wrote that the catastrophes had been invented. This is in my book.

I have the impression that Darwinists are not aware that the “Lyell-Darwin evolutionary paradigm’ had abolished catastrophes and mass extinction. Test the audience on this!

Simmonds will not be going to Dundee. There is so much in my book one has to spend weeks on it. Simmonds keeps on finding things and fails to look at my index. I have not missed much and the few points I have missed I have committed to essays. Did I send you ‘the Consequences of punctuated equilibrium’? I have discussed the theory in my book. Gould and Eldredge – lifelong Darwinist propagandists now have a new role an ‘anti-Darwin mode’ which is punctuated eq. This restores the catastrophes and mass extinctions and much else which disagrees with Darwinism. BUT little about Lamarck and Cuvier!

Kilpatrick. No enclosed article! The Scots have forgotten all their great men – Hutton, John Hunter (our Lamarck), Robert Grant (teacher of Darwin at Edinburgh and later prof. at University College, London – 1828). I deal with them in my book. Hunter is our link with Buffon and Lamarck. You could ask Kilpatrick who asked him to write on PM. Strange that pathologists should be interested.

By the way on the ecology front. Matthew was complaining about

Dempster's second book.
Published in 1996

the extravagant use of fertilisers in the 1860s. Guano had been discovered and imported. Also his concern about the forests. The poor nature of nursery trees – Darwin takes up this point and acknowledges Matthew.

For the organisers. Robert Smith is not in the Chambers Nat. Biographical Dictionary. Is he in the Scottish! If not send a brief statement to Prof John Horden, Univ of Stirling.

Addendum – Ecology.

If we accept that ecology is the study of plants and animals in their environment, then we are back to one of Lamarck’s main concepts approved of by no less than Darwin. See the Historical Sketch enclosed. Then turn to the first page, chapter 1 of all editions of the Origin of Species and there is a sentence with ‘the conditions of life’. Enclosed.

Then turn to the Historical Sketch where Matthew is considered and you will find Darwin pointing out that Matthew stressed ‘the conditions of life’. Enclosed. Darwin is very odd about the conditions of life. The phrase occurs all over the Origin and yet he admitted to Professor Semper in 1881! (See the book page 148) that he had not given sufficient weight to ‘the conditions of life’. Look at 2nd paragraph. Was he denying his Lamarckian attachment[?] Darwin was a Covert Lamarckian! Use the Historical Sketch and Lamarck’s concepts and you will find them all in the Origin without any reference to Lamarck. Lamarck referenced once; Cuvier once

The Creator referenced on average 6 times. Citation analysis would award first place to the Creator!

No Creator in Lamarck or Matthew. Stress that because the Origin is supposed to be completely natural science.

See my book page 212 – 2nd para – conditions of life

This is not in the [my] book.

Darwin elsewhere said that he could not find much evidence for ‘the conditions of life’ but that recently more evidence was appearing. Lamarck and Cuvier seem to have had enough evidence before Darwin was born; Matthew in the 1820s saw enough evidence. Some Darwinist may come in with this point. It seems to me that Darwin was hiding his Lamarckism.

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Notes and Comments by Mike Sutton

Here we see evidence that Dempster made sure free copies of his self-published book were distributed by the Patrick Matthew Trust, which funded its production.

Most importantly we see also Dempster's analysis of where Matthew's work fits into the various breakthroughs in thinking made in academic development of the field of organic evolution and natural selection. 

Note that Matthew was first with the divergent ramifications of life and that Blyth built upon that only after Matthew and only after, as my original discovery reveals (Sutton 2014), Blyth's editor! Loudon reviewed Matthew's book in 1832 and mentioned the question of Matthew's originality on the question of the "origin of species" no less!. 

 The importance of the bombshell discovery of this Matthew -> Loudon -> Blyth -> Wallace -> Darwin route of possible knowledge contamination is completely lost on many.

Note also that Matthew's book was complete heresy because he excluded any notion of a creator in it - which probably explains, in part, why it was not cited much in the first half of the 19th century. This fact is dealt with at length in Nullius (Sutton 2014). It explains also why, pre-1858, it was banned by the public library of Perth in Scotland and why, pre-1858, a naturalist professor of an esteemed university failed to teach the observations in it for fear of pillory punishment. 

Matthew's (1831) outright mockery of Christianity in his book would, in part, explain why Darwin lied from 1860 onwards that no one had read Matthew's original ideas on natural selection. Perhaps Darwin was afraid of his ideas being proven to have come via knowledge contamination from those of an outright heretic?