This is How Uncomfortable New Data Upsets the Credulous

Care to see how paradigm changing new discoveries upset history of science belief systems? .Check comments section: https://t.co/OocIGchKM0

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 30, 2016

What are Irrational Fact Denying Darwinists Afraid of? A Professor of Psychology Perhaps?

Prof. Mark Griffiths (Ph.D)

Interestingly, it is rather telling, I think, that not one of the many active "New Data" fact denying Darwin scholars has yet dared to post a comment on Professor Mark Griffiths' blog on the topic of the veracity and significance of what really has been newly discovered in the field of the history of discovery of macro evolution by natural selection. Does he really look so scary? Or are they afraid of a diagnosis from this chartered psychologist?

Visit his blog site (here) to see what he has to say on my original and independently verifiable research findings (Sutton 2014 and 2016   ), which have so upset members of the scientific community that they are currently fact denying to the press and on social media.

NOTE Not one single Darwiinite has yet dared to comment on Professor @DrMarkGriffiths blog on the New Data on Darwin https://t.co/MXoXca3eJU

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 29, 2016

Patrick Matthew was a Famous Chartist Leader. Lindley and Owen all Despised Chartists, Darwin Certainly Feared Them

Both Lindley and Owen drilled militia's to confront the libertarian socialist Chartists (Sutton 2014). Darwin - a member of the landed gentry, like Selby and Chambers (BOTH OF WHOM  CITED MATTHEW'S 1831 BOOK) , despised Chartists. By way of a knowingly published falsehood Lindley - who wrote two papers on naval timber - never cited Matthew but believed in species transmutation was a friend of Loudon - who cited Matthew and his discovery. Lindley stole Matthew's glory for being first to import and propagate giant redwood trees in Britain.

Patrick Matthew, from whom Darwin plagiarized natural selection, was a Chartist leader. Darwin despised Chartists: https://t.co/dIPqFqucLV

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 29, 2016

For independently verifiable and peer reviewed newly discovered evidence of Darwin's more likely than not plagiarism. See:  "On Knowledge Contamination"

The Linnean Society has Dreadfully Biased History of Institutionalized Ignorance

To its shame, the linnean Society has a long history of dreadfully biased behaviour:
1. https://t.co/xDj1nzvjpr
2. https://t.co/dq5ygZlEv3

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) July 28, 2016

Psychology and Darwinite Irrational Fact Denial of the New Data

Selective memories: Charles Darwin, obsession, and Internet dating https://t.co/CtcpGWEfF9 via @DrMarkGriffiths

— macroevolution.net (@Macroevo) July 26, 2016

World's Greatest Conspiracy Theory

Newly discovered de facto fact denying scientists have argued themselves into an intellectual corner where their position is, logically, subconscious belief in a great 19th century conspiracy of silence. 

Get the facts, see the arguments and evolve faster than the speed of establishment science vested interests.

Public Domain

The Great Matthewian Conspiracy Theory

Get the newly discovered facts that Darwinities currently deny exist: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nullius-Verba-Darwins-Greatest-Secret-ebook/dp/B00M5DP46U   

Catch up with the latest scientific literature on evolution of the concept of knowledge contamination Here   

Read just some examples of fact denial of what has been newly discovered Here

Perhaps the reason this one conspiracy theory is so successful is because it mimics evolution in nature by appearing to be something other than what it really is; veracious knowledge.

NOTE: This is a parody. Reason suggests Darwin was a lying plagiarist.

World's most successful conspiracy theory is so cleverly camouflaged as veracity.https://t.co/FWBx2rHoWq pic.twitter.com/1eeefsNp5S

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 27, 2016

Additional Information on Knowledge Contamination

My article 'On Knowledge Contamination' (Sutton 2016) reveals who really did read Matthew's book and the original ideas on natural selection in it before 1858 and their relationships to Darwin and Wallace, their friends and influencers and influencer's influencers - as opposed to the myths started by Darwin that no naturalists/no one whatsoever did so before Matthew brought his work to Darwin's attention in 1860.

We know that in 1832, the naturalist John Loudon reviewed Matthew's (1831) book: Loudon, J. C. (1832) Matthew Patrick On Naval Timber and Arboriculture with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. In the Gardener’s Magazine and Register of Rural & Domestic Improvements, Vol 8 (1832), pp. 702-3:

"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."

One very important point overlooked in my article is that Darwin's notebook of publications read, which contains an alphabetical list of books read by Darwin between 1838 and 1858, records that he may well have recorded in his own hand that he intended to read the 1832 edition of the Gardener's Chronicle.

In his notebook of books to read Darwin wrote in 1842 - in the same year he completed his first private essay on natural selection that he should read Vol 8 of  the Gardener's Magazine. That volume contained Loudon's (1832) review of Matthew's book.

Darwin wrote: "March 12th Gardener’s Magaz.  Vol 7th. & 8th. vol."

However, whilst this main volume ordering ran throughout the series, it must be added that each decade had a sub-order of volumes that began at vol 1 all over again. So we can see that volume VIII of 1832 is displayed as such:

We cannot know, but Darwin might have meant (though if he did he did not write it) that he wanted to read volumes 7 and 8 of the new 1840's decade - written as "new series". We can see how vol VIII of the new decade - "new series" - is displayed in 1842.

The fact Darwin made his notebook entry in 1842 and that Vol. 8 of the new decade was in that same year is highly suggestive that Darwin meant vol VIII of 1842.

Darwin's lies after 1860 - when Matthew's first letter to the Gardener's Chronicle informed him of Loudon's review - and his complete lack of curiosity regarding the conveyance of that fact, and of the fact - conveyed in Matthew's second letter to the Gardener's Chronicle - that another naturalist had read his original ideas and feared pillory punishment were he to teach them, should be weighed in light of the fact that before his Origin of Species (Darwin 1859) was completed, Darwin - apparently - did own Vol. 8 of 1832. And owned it from 1838 - the year he opened his first private notebook on evolution). I've not established the veracity of this (if its true, it's not easily verifiable online) but Andrew Norman  ( 2013) p. 173 writes with great exactness and certainty that Darwin owned these. Note however, that he tells us very clearly is only what is inside the front cover  of  Volume 7, of 1831 when (as his writing clearly shows he knows) Loudon's review is in Volume 8 of 1832:

'Volumes 2-13 (1827-37) of Gardener's Magazine (i.e. including the 1832 number which contained the review of Matthew's book) were also to be found in Darwin's personal library. However inside the front board of volume seven (for 1831), are to be found the initials of Robert Waring Darwin, Charles Darwin's father. Clearly, therefore, these volumes (which include those for 1831-36 when Darwin was sea on HMS Beagle) were acquired by Robert for his library at the Mount in Shrewsbury, and Darwin presumably acquired them  only after his father's Death in November 1838.'

NOTE If the initials RWD are not inside vol 8 of 1832 in Darwin's personal library (accepting for now the veracity Andrew Norman's confident published account that the volume is there - because I cannot detect it being their from any online accounts for the publications in Darwin's Library) that most certainly would not "clearly" mean that that one particular volume was acquired from his father's library.  All that we would know however, is that at some time before his death Darwin owned a copy of the all important vol. 8 of the 1832 Gardener's Magazine, containing Loudon's most telling review. The most telling question I have at the moment is to ask why Andrew Norman does not tell us what is or is not inside the front board - and elsewhere - on Vol 8 (1832) if it is actually in Darwin's personal library collection. If it is there then the Darwin Library project has not yet scanned it and has not listed it. If it is there, it is essential - in the interests of the veracious history of scientific discovery - that the entire volume, and in particular Loudon's review, is scrutinised for any annotations by Darwin or anyone else. 

Further Dysology attached to this story

At the time of writing a website of The University of South Carolina has confused the Gardener's Chronicle with the Gardener's Magazine

They write: 

And Who Was Patrick Mathew?

Patrick Mathew, “Appendix: Note B,” in his On Naval Timber and Arboriculture.
London: Longman, Rees, . . . 1831. Original glazed cloth.  Purchased from the C. Warren Irvin, Jr. and Josie B. Irvin Endowment.

Shortly before Darwin set out on his voyage with the Beagle, this book by an otherwise unknown Scottish orchardman and Chartist, Patrick Mathew (1790-1874), anticipated by nearly thirty years the theory we know as natural selection.  As Darwin later asserted, he could hardly be expected to know of Mathew’s work, when it had appeared as an appendix to a book on a different subject (but Mathew’s book was reviewed in the Gardener’s Chronicle, and Darwin did get old copies of that forwarded to him on his voyage . . .).

NOTE: Such mistakes are further confirmation of the Dysology Hypothesis.

Showing Scientists the Irrationality of Darwin Deification

It's not rocket science. But overturning irrational Darwin deification is arduous work: https://t.co/E8QuuMzsSL pic.twitter.com/tDIGpwbfuR

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) July 24, 2016

How do we defrost Darwinites?

How on Earth do we defrost frozen donkey Darwinites?

(1) https://t.co/oBIRDECJGj

(2) Frozen Donkey Hypothesis: https://t.co/TnMtwezQbo

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 23, 2016

Discovery - or not as the case may be Could be genuine. Darwin was a bad speller after all.

Darwin's lost diary discovered 1/2 burnt. Writes he hopes no one notices.the truth, which is https://t.co/LMpbVPMAh6 pic.twitter.com/EqbQ0V13Fn

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 23, 2016

Myths About Darwin (No, 4) The Darwin Got It but Matthew Never Extinction by Natural Selection Myth

According to William D Stansfield (1977) The Science of Evolution. Newy York. Macmillan,

(Stansfield, p. 31) Darwin wrote:

'I feel as if my book (Origin of Species) came half out of Sir Charles Lyell's brain.'

This is totally wrong. Darwin's Origin of Species was not published untill 1859. The closest Darwin got to writing what Stansfield claims is in an 1844 letter to Leonard Horner:

'I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell’s brains & that I never acknowledge this sufficiently, nor do I know how I can, without saying so in so many words—for I have always thought that the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one’s mind & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes— it would have been in some respects better if I had done this less—but again excuse my long & perhaps you will think presumptuous discussion.'

We should expect as much complete nonsense because there is so much of it in the Darwin deification industry. So Stansfield confirms the Dysology hypothesis, and it is not long before examples pop out of his book as further confirmation of the general acceptance of falsehoods about Patrick Matthew's influence, and the contents of his 1831 book, by the scientific community.

Dysology about Matthew has facilitated the enabling environment that enabled Stansfield to to get away with writing so much more nonsense to be published for consumption as though it were true. And his completely erroneous nonsense is published by the prestigious Macmillan publishing house, no less!

Clearly Stanstead had no more read Darwin's original correspondence than he had carefully read Matthew's (1831) original  book. Because on page 32 he writes:

'Matthew did not conceive of the role that natural selection could play in the extinction of species'

This is yet another Darwinite myth, told to enhance Darwin's reputation at the expense of the originator whose work he replicated. In reality, on page 381 of his 1831 book On Naval Timber, Matthew wrote:

Note that here Matthew is mocking the notion of divine interference in the creation and extinction of species: "Discover an almost complete difference to exist between the species... of one epoch from that of every other." And "...admit, either of repeated miraculous creation; or a power of change,..." Now, if Matthew is not explaining the role of natural selection to create new species though a power of change then I am one of the amazing golden unicorns that gave Darwin and Wallace their miraculous cognitive contraceptives!

What Matthew's extinction explanation explains is superior to Darwin's. Matthew's included catastrophic extinction events as well as how species evolved from branching from a common ancestor that would eventually become extinct as new species did better in the same ecological niche. Darwin - parroting Lyell's uniformitarian ideas - rejected catastrophic extinction events. Matthew was right and Darwin wrong.

See Sutton (2016, p. 176 for the respective references):

'From the third edition of the Origin onwards, Darwin (1861), a follower of Lyell’s erroneous uniformitarianism, jumped at the chance to bolster Lyell’s theory and denigrate Matthew by referring to him as a catastrophist. Dempster made this injustice abundantly clear. Punctuated equilibrium — essentially Matthew’s discovery — is accepted in science today but, as Dempster noted, its Darwinist purveyors sought to keep the originator of that theory buried in footnote oblivion. In a more well-known account, Rampino explains just some of the detail conveyed by Dempster'

Dear Royal Society About that Darwin Medal

.@royalsociety Can I win @TeessideSitP your "Darwin Medal" for originally proving it's namesake a liar & plagiarist? https://t.co/LMpbVPMAh6

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 19, 2016

Well?

Can Dr Sutton @Criminotweet @Dysology win the "Darwin Medal" for originally proving Darwin to be a liar & plagiarist?

Make your guess...

— Emilio Cervantes (@BiologiaPensamt) July 21, 2016

You Can Delete but you Can't Hide: Because delete never means delete on the Internet

Check it out: https://t.co/tALARfQv2k pic.twitter.com/JNJtO8gjyA

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 18, 2016

The Patrick Matthew Burial project is Unearthed

Find out all the newly excavated facts in my peer reviewed science paper: On Knowledge Contamination: New Data Challenges Claims of Darwin’s and Wallace’s Independent Conceptions of Matthew’s Prior-Published Hypothesis

THE PATRICK MATTHEW BURIAL PROJECT

Unearth the facts that have been deliberately buried these last 155 years : https://t.co/6K7Wm5UvfI pic.twitter.com/BJXzYXk19Q

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 17, 2016

The Tangled Web of the Darwin Deification Cult is Unravelliing

Rational Wiki for rational people
(1) https://t.co/3Sca9Jy6X4

Wikipedia for irrational & corrupt fact deniers:
(2) https://t.co/Ypag00SgZM

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 17, 2016

Take the poll. Take action.

Anyone care @DrMarkGriffiths about reach of fact denial tentacles of a weird science cult? https://t.co/PO4HLYU74Z

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) July 17, 2016

A Poem On the Discovery of the Citing Seven

https://t.co/uOpDBsxlM8 pic.twitter.com/qrB3nh5ib9

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 16, 2016

We All Have the Duty to Tackle Fact Denial Behaviour in Science

In the Democratic World we All have this Responsibility to Tackle Establishment Fact Denial: https://t.co/MXoXcakQ8u pic.twitter.com/d12PRE9tnk

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 16, 2016

The Psychologist is In: "Next Darwinite please"

Many Darwinites should visit this psychologist for help & advice on rationality & reality https://t.co/TXI1CYH1CS pic.twitter.com/Rg31JGTRvq

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) July 15, 2016

 Top Psychologist Dr Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in England has read the recent research publications, which reveal so much uncomfortable new evidence that punctures the old myth that no one known to Darwin or his influencers, or his influencercer's influencers, read Patrick Matthew's prior publication of the full hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection before 1858.

Griffiths  concludes that the evidence is strongly in favour of Matthew having influenced Darwin and that Darwin lied from 1860 onward about who really did read Matthew's ideas before he and Wallace replicated them and each claimed them as their own independent conceptions without any citation to their original source. Read his findings here.

Sound Tautology: Knowledge contamination is proof of concept

Discovery of New Data Challenges Darwin's Story of Immaculate Conception https://t.co/Si2NOFWmBM #Science via @niume_official

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 14, 2016

Miracle...Innit! 

@TakeThatDarwin Na that don't fit what they wrote... innit. Miracle man: https://t.co/cPweJHYQo7 bruv. pic.twitter.com/NwPxHhI4Ca

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 14, 2016

Darwin's Ghosts are Ghost Busted

Ghost Busted on Amazon https://t.co/awPnhTRUzr pic.twitter.com/UTbL4je0y9

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 14, 2016

Dr A. Wilson on "Matthew Denial"

Dr A. Wilson on the hot historical, social and natural science topic of "Matthew Denial": https://t.co/KXlWT18rDo pic.twitter.com/tIcsNcDdgi

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) July 14, 2016

Among many, here is just one possible reason for Matthew Denial Behaviour in the 19th century

Another possible reason for the "Matthew Denial" behaviour in the 19th century : https://t.co/q7tjnoGCLV pic.twitter.com/JtTsVHR500

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 14, 2016

1831 was as much a politically and socially unsettled year in the USA, as it was in Britain. In 1831 Nat Turner led a violent and bloody slave rebellion in the USA. In Britain, Nottingham castle was burned to the ground during the violent Reform Riots. 

Unlike in Britain, slavery in the USA appeared to be nowhere near abolition. The British Slavery Abolition Act outlawed slavery throughout most of the British Empire, except for territories controlled by the Hooker's paymaster, the rapacious East India Company, which continued with the abhorrent practice until as late as 1843.

Darwin's pals Joseph and William Hooker - and their pal John Lindley (who, it is newly discovered, cheated Matthew by fallaciously claiming another was first to import Giant redwoods into Britain), another employee of the East India Company -  had many reasons to suppress the facts about Matthew's discovery. Their vested interests in slavery could well be one of them. The same goes for Darwin's pal David Anstead, who rubbished Matthew in 1860, because Anstead too was employed by the loathsome and murderous East India Company as lecturer at its Military Seminary at Addiscombe, as well as Kings College London.

Curse the Future

pic.twitter.com/WR8z06Iegn

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 12, 2016

A Single Unified Voice? Just How Scientific is that Exactly?

What's very wrong with this picture @DrMarkGriffiths @royalsociety.
No wonder 'fact denial' https://t.co/nOpImotkf8 pic.twitter.com/DSUcmdUvJ5

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 12, 2016

Darwin Arrives in Hell

After 155 years delay, Darwin's train pulls into Bromley Station. He's arrived in Hell!: https://t.co/GIRRldc9vK pic.twitter.com/0SfKw4EEEy

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 12, 2016

Darwinists United v The Actual Facts

Darwinists United v Sutton Top Professor of Psychology offers diagnosis on who is irrational https://t.co/Drm19arP8C pic.twitter.com/jjIHrhYHMh

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) July 11, 2016

NEWS

Excellent choice. Outstanding! https://t.co/HIjCEmaTME

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 19, 2016

Belief has no place in scientific scholarship outside debunking beliefs

What do criminology, hate crime, debunking of myths & reactions to such debunking have in common? (A) = Gordon Allport

Think & Act on the Principle of "Nullius in Verba"!

Gordon Allport

Gordon Allport - a leading expert on bias and prejudice - studied what type of people are most likely to conform to evidence-led debunked beliefs. His research led to the conclusion that such conformity is evidence of a weak authoritarian personality, prone to unreflective obedience. See his work: The Nature of Prejudice   .

I have experienced exactly the same type of authoritarian instant knee-jerk rejection and - in addition - considered stubborn 'fact denial' blindsight behaviour from leading Darwinist scholars in the face of paradigm changing bombshell discoveries, which completely disprove their prior beliefs about the history of the conception of the principle of natural selection. See my article on the topic: Here.

Social Science informs Darwinists on something potentially very scary among their membership https://t.co/IXeSwA6nIR pic.twitter.com/7DyspT3hOo

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 11, 2016

GOTCHA!

GOTCHA! https://t.co/ICVRCeh01i

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 9, 2016

BELIEF IS THE ROOT OF DELUSION

"Extreme Skeptics" @TeessideSitP believe in absolutely NOTHING! Think & act on the principle of "Nullius in Verba"! pic.twitter.com/PpbaOFStpE

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 8, 2016

The Google Metal Detector Analogy

Try this out. Then happy treasure hunting with Google pic.twitter.com/NJUA0ylSDl

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) July 7, 2016

Myths about Darwin (No 3.) The 'Unique and Idiosyncratic Darwin Myth'

"Darwin" -  authored by Jonathan Howard and published in 1982 by Oxford University Press paperback has so far disseminated two myths on page 1 alone (see links at the end of this blog post) . 

In three blog posts on Darwin myths found so far in Howard's book, I have not yet progressed beyond page 1. The third myth on page 1 is the myth that Darwin was an original thinker and his work was highly idiosyncratic.

Howard (1882, p. 1) writes: 'Darwin wrote a series of personal notebooks which record the earliest developments of the theory of evolution in the most idiosyncratic and fascinating detail.'

This is the sort of thing that has steered scholars away from the actual facts. By way of example, Darwin's private unpublished essay of 1844 replicated Patrick Matthew's (1831) highly original and powerful artificial selection versus natural selection explanatory analogy of differences between trees raised by main in nurseries and those naturally selected in the wild.

"Matthew (1831) wrote   ,

'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...'

New Data Demands Paradigm Shift: https://t.co/LMpbVPMAh6 pic.twitter.com/P5IDcp4ry4

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) July 10, 2016

Darwin wrote (1844 - private essa) 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…"

Taking out the trees example, Darwin (1859), in opening words of Chapter One of 'The Origin of Species'  Darwin again used Matthew's powerful artificial selection versus natural selection explanatory analogy of differences - without citing Matthew.

What Matthew first originated in 1831 wrote was replicated by several naturalists who followed in his footsteps. Beginning with Matthew, the originator, it is useful to examine who wrote what on this precise analogy and when.

1. ‘Matthew (1831 pages. 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.'

Matthew (1831) pages.107-108

'... in timber trees the opposite course has been pursued. The large growing varieties being so long of coming to produce seed, that many plantations are cut down before they reach this maturity, the small growing and weakly varieties, known by early and extreme seeding, have been continually selected as reproductive stock, from the ease and conveniency with which their seed could be procured; and the husks of several kinds of these invariably kiln-dried, in order that the seeds might be the more easily extracted. May we, then, wonder that our plantations are occupied by a sickly short-lived puny race, incapable of supporting existence in situations where their own kind had formerly flourished—particularly evinced in the genus Pinus,more particularly in the species Scots Fir; so much inferior to those of Nature's own rearing, where only the stronger, more hardy, soil-suited varieties can struggle forward to maturity and reproduction?

We say that the rural economist should pay as much regard to the breed or particular variety of his forest trees, as he does to that of his live stock of horses, cows, and sheep. That nurserymen should attest the variety of their timber plants, sowing no seeds but those gathered from the largest, most healthy, and luxuriant growing trees..'

Matthew (1831) page 3:

There are several valuable varieties of apple trees of acute branch angle, which do not throw up the bark of the breeks; this either occasions the branches to split down when loaded with fruit, or if they escape this for a few years, the confined bark becomes putrid and produces canker which generally ruins the tree. We have remedied this by a little attention in assisting the rising of the bark with the knife. Nature must not be charged with the malformation of these varieties; at least had she formed them, as soon as she saw her error she would have blotted out her work.'

Matthew (1831) pages 261-263

' We ask if even the fact of these unnaturally tender varieties (obtained by long continued selection, probably assisted by culture, soil and climate, and which, without the cherishing of man, would soon disappear)..'

Matthew (1831) page 67:

'It is also found that the uniformity in each kind of wild growing plants called species may be broken down by art or culture and that when once a breach is made, there is almost no limit to disorder, the mele that ensues being nearly incapable of reduction.'

Matthew (1831) page 387: 'As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerable influence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probably occasioning the destruction of many species, and the production and continuation of a number of varieties or even species, which he found more suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of their condition—not having undergone selection by the law of nature, of which we have spoken cannot maintain their ground without his culture and protection.'

Matthew (1831) Here Matthew refers to crab apple trees – which are likely the closest to the original, and most hardy of the apple species. He crosses his unique heretical discovery of natural selection with is unique use of the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy with his seditious Chartist libertarian social reform politics to propose a bio-social explanation for why it is bad for human stock (as a national or regional variety) and bad for human society if there is not free crossing in complex human society as there is in societies which may be closer to 'nature'. He writes on page 366:

‘It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.’

Matthew (1831) Pages 381 - 382. It is here that Matthew, heretically, hands "God" his redundancy notice. To do so, he uses the analogy in question to demonstrate (provide what he believes is evidential "proof") that living matter has the plastic (malleable) quality necessary to create new species by way of their diverging from ancestral varieties with which they would thereafter be incapable of breeding :

' We are therefore led to admit, either of a repeated miraculous creation; or of a power of change, under a change of circumstances, to belong to living organized matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior. The derangements and changes in organized existence, induced by a change of circumstance from the interference of man, affording us proof of the plastic quality of superior life, and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different in the different epochs, though steady in each, tend to heighten the
probability of the latter theory.'

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 (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..”

3. Lyell (1832, p, 56)   , Matthew's Forfarshire neighbor and Darwin's great friend and geological mentor, wrote:

'…we have no data as yet to warrant the conclusion that a single permanent hybrid race has ever been formed even in gardens by the intermarriage of two allied species brought from distant habitations. Until some fact of this kind is fairly established, and a new species capable of perpetuating itself in a state of perfect independence of man, can be pointed out, we think it reasonable to call in question entirely this hypothetical source of new species. That varieties do sometimes spring up from cross breeds, in a natural way, can hardly be doubted, but they probably die out even more rapidly than races propagated by grafts or layers.'

3. 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.’

4. 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…’

5. 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.’

6. Darwin (1859, p.7 (opening words) and then pp. 83-84)    wrote:

"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 more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature.”

"Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and the being is placed under well-suited conditions of life. Man keeps the natives of many climates in the same country; he seldom exercises each selected character in some peculiar and fitting manner; he feeds a long and a short beaked pigeon on the same food; he does not exercise a long-backed or long-legged quadruped in any peculiar manner; he exposes sheep with long and short wool to the same climate. He does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He does not rigidly destroy all inferior animals, but protects during each varying season, as far as lies in his power, all his productions. He often begins his selection by some half-monstrous form; or at least by some modification prominent enough to catch his eye, or to be plainly useful to him. Under nature, the slightest difference of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so be preserved. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?'

7. Darwin 1868 wrote    (misspelling Matthew's name) : "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 Mr Patrick Matthew remarks, they have not yielded different races…" The historian and anthropologist Loren Eiseley saw Darwin's use of this analogy in his private 1844 essay as too great a double coincidence (see Sutton 2014    for a deeper discussion) that Darwin could replicate both Matthew's unique hypothesis and his unique analogy to explain it, using trees, which were both the central topic of Matthew's book and his example in his original analogy.

The Man's Interference Analogy:

What did Matthew, Wallace and Darwin understand about artificial selection versus natural selection that makes the Artificial selection versus Natural Selection Analogy the perfect device to explain the natural process of selection?

An analogy is used as an explanatory device – a model.

An analogy is about what is analogous to what and why. In that way it must be kept simple. Simplicity is the most important criteria of a useful analogy – why else use one?

The next most important criteria of a good analogy is how close it is to reality (in my opinion). This is why the artificial selection analogy is so powerful, so useful.

Artificial selection is not natural selection, and so it is – like all analogies – a fallacy. But “selection” is the analogy. And it is close to reality as an analogy, because humans breed what they want into varieties they desire. Nature has no such cognitive purpose – selection in nature is born of random types being the most circumstance suited to survive and so they are better able to pass on their characteristics. But the outcome of this random generated process of natural selection leads to the most circumstance suited (in the wild) varieties – and, eventually, new species.

An analogy explains how two things are similar. What is similar in the case in point is “selection”. Selection is the only analogy. Selection is what is similar. Artificial selection by humans versus natural selection by nature. That is the analogy.Darwin, Wallace and Matthew all used it, and so did Low and Mudie.

Starting with the originator, Matthew, he Wallace and Darwin all understood that (1) a combination of artificial selection plus a necessary relaxation of natural selection leads, under human culture, to more varieties any one point in time kept within human culture. And (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. (3) Because in nature varieties come slowly to the fore that are more suited to survival in the wild than varieties selected relatively rapidly by human breeding programs, the analogy allows us to see that the process of natural selection is different to selection by humans. The natural process of selection is an unconscious and lengthy process leading to survival of the most circumstance suited. Humans are consciously selecting what suites immediate human needs and desires - even if that means those varieties need a greater deal of protection under human culture.

Test the hypothesis

Remember it is the 'Man's interference' explanatory analogy that we are looking for, not the full explanation of natural selection (although if you find that pre-1831 you will have stuck historical gold). Therefore, to dis-confirm the hypothesis we need to find evidence in the literature of others - pre-Matthew (1831) - realizing as a minimum that: (a) varieties consciously bred under human culture are less robust in the wild than naturally occurring wild varieties, because (b) in the wild, natural varieties must be most circumstance suited to wild conditions in order to survive and multiply. With that explanation in mind the essential hypothesis in question can be stated thus: (a) nature 'selects' varieties that are more suited to survival in the wild and that (b) distinct varieties bred by humans to suit human needs and desires are most usually less suited to the wild than natural wild species.

More here and also here on this topic.

Other Darwinist Myths

1. Myths about Darwin (No 1.) The Darwin Archive Myth
2, Myths about Darwin (No 2.) The 'Galapagos Conception Myth' and 'Notebooks Myth'