I Challenge Dr Mike Weale to put up or shut up.

Dr Mike Weale wrote on this website The Patrick Matthew project on April 29th a comment addressed to me:

“Mike, respectfully, I do think that the “exquisitely painful irony” here is that you, the coiner of the “supermyth” concept, are the creator and promulgator of an elaborate set of myths and supermyths of your own. You claim to be busting the myth, deliberately set up by Darwin and credulously believed by Darwinists ever since, that no-one read Matthew’s book. But the very existence of the myth you are busting is itself a myth. It’s not just a case of de-bunking the de-bunker of the myth, but de-bunking the very idea that there is a “myth and supermyth” narrative in the first place. It really is Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit-hole territory.”

As a result of his unevidenced claims, I, on the 2nd of May 2016, publicly challenged him to put up or shut up. The gauntlet is now thrown down for a public academic debate.

THIS IS MY REPLY TO DR MIKE WEAL:

‘And there we have it Mike. As always you cannot produce a jot of evidence to support what you write. You have written, once again, nothing but your mere unevidenced and now debunked opinion. That alone should worry you. But I expect it doesn’t. Because it’s a pseudo-scholarly habit of yours.

You can’t argue with facts – because you have absolutely no facts that can refute the New Facts, do you Mike?

And the new facts refute the old mere unevidenced “knowledge beliefs” of the so called “Darwin Industry”, don’t they Mike?

All you are doing is seeking to deny the facts that you don’t like, Mike.

It appears that you wish the newly discovered facts did not exist Mike.

But my dear Mike, you can’t wish them away. You really can’t. It just doesn’t work that way. And you can’t magic them away by writing totally unevidenced claims about me as though you hope that will make your debunked beliefs true. Moreover, the old Darwinist “knowledge claims” are completely debunked by the New Facts of who we now newy know both read Matthew’s book and the bombshell original ideas on natural selection in it.

With respect Mike, you don’t seem to understand that in order to, rationally, refute a myth you need independently verifiable disconfirming facts to deploy against it. That is how I debunked the pervasive “No one read Matthew’s (1831) original ideas before 1860 myth.”

Simply voicing your unevidenced bias as an opinion cannot magically transmute facts that disconfirm that mere opinion into something else. You are, with respect, engaging in embarrassing magical thinking in your – above – comment, Mike. And on this website you go around and around in ever evasive tall tale chasing circles doing the same old thing. But it’s too late Mike – your favourite tale of immaculate deception has already been well and truly bitten. Consumed in fact – by the facts!

With respect, Mike, you seek to claim the independently verifiable newly discovered facts are themselves a myth? How unscientific of you, with respect, Mike. That’s fact denial.

Answer the following questions if you dare Mike and also show me where in the literature it is written that another naturalist, scientist or biologist read Matthew’s ideas before 1860? Where does it say anywhere that Darwin was wrong to write that none had? Where does it say that so many top Darwin scholars before me were wrong to claim that none had. You won’t will you mike? And why won’t you? Because YOU can’t can you Mike?

Now let us turn to the New Facts shall we.

Now look at the newly discovered facts – the facts that I uniquely discovered. It is these new facts that prove you are, with respect, credulously worshipping a fact-denying supermyth Mike.

http://patrickmathew.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/insanely-jealous-dr-john-van-wyhe-madly.html

Ouch! Painful facts that Dr John van Wyhe misled the Scottish press about. How on Earth are such facts a “conspiracy theory”, as he claims? As if facts that 100 per cent disconfirm the prior historical “understanding” are not of value to history. What desperate nonsense. How is this a supermyth? Don’t, with respect, be so, with respect, silly Mike.

You claim I create a myth by sharing with the general public the newly discovered facts that 100 per cent disconfirm the myths published by the world’s leading Darwinist scholars – such as Charles Darwin (FRS) himself, Sir Gavin de Beer (FRS) and Ernst Mayr (FRS) – amongst so many others. The facts that disprove Darwin’s lying “no naturalist / no one at all / read Matthew’s (1831) original ideas before 1860 myth”. That IS, similarly, the debunked Patrick Matthew Supermyth – the myth upon which rested the now punctured paradigm of Darwin’s and Wallace’s independent discovery. And why is is that paradigm debunked? Because of the New Facts that you, with respect, cannot now refute. Because these New facts newly prove that routes of potential knowledge contamination are now 100 per cent newly proven to have existed. No myth on my part Mike, Why not? Because it’s all 100 per cent true. Isn’t it Mike. No myth at all on my part Mike. just uncomfortably disconfirming facts.

It’s not a bad dream Mike. It’s all true. All fact. All hard facts. All independently verifiable facts. And what do you have, with respect, to refute the New Facts Mike? What exactly have you got, with respect, beyond, with respect, your mere wishful thinking that facts are not facts? With respect, you have a big embarrassing nothing Mike, besides newly debunked unevidenced ideas that were dressed up as facts?

Facts Mike are facts. What I have is new facts Mike. Newly discovered facts. What have you got? All you have is something that has been wrong for 156 years. Now proven wrong. Just because something has been wrong for a very long time does not make it right Mike.

We find also now that the great friend of William Hooker – John Lindley (great friend of John Loudon – no less) did the exact same thing for 13 years to Matthew on Matthew’s priority for introducing giant redwood trees in the UK. Is that a supermyth too Mike – is that fact also a myth according to your, with respect, magical thinking, simply because you don’t like that uncomfortable and incriminating fact either? Funny isn’t it that Darwin, Wallace and Lindley were among the few naturalists at that time who thought species capable of evolving into new species.

Read the facts. The facts are newly discovered. And I discovered them. Deal with the facts Mike. I’m not interested in your factually debunked mere opinion – other than showing you that is all it is.

So, if facts – not debunked mere wishful thinking beliefs – are currency in the history of science, what actual facts do you have to disconfirm my disconfirming facts Mike? Or are you going to, with respect, admit that you are simply and credulously, in a state of denial, desperately worshipping a debunked myth. The fully fact-led debunked myth of Darwin the honest original discoverer?

With kindly, respect, bring facts not unevidenced beliefs to a fact fight Mike. Otherwise you will not stand a chance. On which note, I wish to make you an offer I think you dare not take up.

Would you like to publicly debate this with me Mike. Bring along as many of your Darwinist friends and colleagues and associates and contacts as you like. The more eminent the better. I will stand alone, completely alone, and debate my facts – the New Facts – against your mere opinions – and any facts you think are relevant – anywhere any place any time. A place of your naming Mike. I just insist that we film it and put the film on YouTube and Vimeo afterwards.

Consider that an academic gauntlet thrown down Mike.

This is a public challenge Mike

I dare you to debate this with me in front of your peers and students – or in front of mine! I have nothing to fear from the facts, or your mere opinions. Do you fear them?

Are you man enough to back up your accusations that I have created a supermyth of my own on this topic with substance? I am more than willing to debate against your accusations in public Mike! I would welcome it.

With respect Mike Weale – put up or, with respect, shut up!

So what is it to be then Mike?’

The existence of the uncomfortable New Facts, which have got so painfully under Dr Mike Weale's skin, and under the skin of Dr John van Wyhe, and many others, leading them to effectively to deny their very existence are reaching an ever wider audience (Sutton 2016 and Engber 2016) . 

Very pleased to say that the King of Meta-Skeptics has endorsed my article in no uncertain terms... https://t.co/kGZnwDXqYf

— Daniel Engber (@danengber) April 28, 2016