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| Wallace's Silly Malarial Brain Fever Cognitive Enhancement Claim v Knowledge Contamination |
Amazingly, the scientific community has never had the gumption to question Alfred Wallace's audaciously ludicrous claim to have independently conceived Patrick Matthew's (1831) prior-publication of the hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection whilst in a state of malarial delirium (e.g. Smith 2002, and Beccaloni 2015). If Wallace really did that, it is a miraculously unique case of malarial cognitive enhancement, the only one ever recorded in the history of medicine and science.
Helps having screws loose to believe Wallace conceived idea of natural selection suffering from Malarial brain fever pic.twitter.com/JZe8hCsw4j— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) August 29, 2016
Laughably, there is even a puppet show video which embeds this credulously daft quasi-religious shamanesque cultish, insight through delerium, indoctrination nonsense into our wider society. Of course, his own tale would have appealed to Wallace, because - when not suffering from malarial delirium - he was a most enthusiastic believer in occult nonsense such as parlor room seances.
The much more plausible and sensible answer for how Wallace suddenly conceived this complex idea is by knowledge contamination (Sutton 2016). Because, as I originally discovered, Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper's editor, Selby, had years earlier read and cited Patrick Matthew's (1831) orignal and prior-published conception of the exact same complex idea. Moreover, Wallace's mentor and correspondent was William Hooker, who was a friend and correspondent of John Loudon. And in 1832, Loudon reviewed Matthew's book and wrote that he appeared to have something orignal to say on "the origin of species" no less! Moreover, Loudon was co-author and friends with William Hooker's very best friend John Lindley. Hooker and Lindley both had their own books reviewed in the same prominent 1832 Gardener's Magazine publication that contained Loudon's review of Matthew's bomshel book. And Lindley, who went on to write two publications on the topic of naval timber (see Sutton 2014) was known to believe in the transmutation of species. Pre 1858, Lindley went on to claim the glory for being the first to propagate in Britain the much loved famous Californian giant redwood trees and to claim that Lobb was the first to import them into Britain. Lindley did so whist in possession of a letter from Matthew proving that Matthew was first to import and propagate giant redwood seeds. His son John Matthew being first to deliver them into the UK. By this act of deceptive glory theft, Lindley cleared the way for Darwin to make his excuses for replicating without citing Matthew's work by successfully labelling Matthew as an obscure Scottish writer on forest trees. Get the facts on Lindley's fraud here.
What follows is from an earlier blog post (Sutton 2015) - minimally updated.
It is obvious why Matthew (1831) the farming botanist and hybridising orchard owner, was able to see artificial selection and its effects as the key to understanding natural selection, but where in all his - Far East butterfly chasing, great ape shooting and rare wild bird shooting, netting and stuffing for sale - commercial endeavours are we supposed to believe Wallace independently alighted upon the same vital understanding? He claimed only to have gotten it all from the ideas of Malthus while in a recovering state of malarial delirium. Since Malthus wrote no such analogy about artificial selection, we might be led to wonder whether perhaps Wallace may have been delirious with fever when he dreamed up such a batty explanation.
Now see what Wallace (1858) took from the Originator, because audaciously, Wallace (1858) in the jungles of the Far East incredibly replicates Matthew’s discovery that artificial selection is the key to explaining natural selection:
‘…those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour - those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, "a struggle for existence," in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.’ [And]: ‘We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race.’
In his unpublished essay of 1844, Darwin wrote.
‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’
Eiseley (1979) was convinced that the number of similarities between these sections of Matthew's and Darwin's text was too great to be coincidental. But he would no doubt had been doubly convinced had he spotted that the above paragraph from NTA contains the phrase that Darwin (1859) four-word-shuffled into ‘process of natural selection.
If Darwinists are not yet convinced by this combined discovery that Darwin had read NTA by 1844, then they will need to explain why, as Eiseley (1979) discovered, Darwin’s same paragraph re-appears, shortened, with additional information from NTA in Darwin’s (1868) book ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’, where Darwin actually cites Matthew. Surely, if Darwin’s use of the example of trees raised in nurseries versus those in nature had not been ‘lifted’ by him, in 1844, from Matthew, then why else did he cite Matthew as the source when he reproduced the exact same idiosyncratic example twenty four years later in 1868 – seven years after Matthew challenged him for replicating his 1831 discovery of the law of natural selection?
In his book ‘On Landed Property, and the Economy of Estates’ (1844), on Page 546, Low was once again apparently first to be second with an NTA expression – once again without citing Matthew. In this later book it was Matthew’s original phrase: ‘overpowering the less.’ This discovery, of Low twice replicating Matthew’s unique phrases in different books confirms the veracity of the First to be Second Hypothesis. And the value of the method in identifying plagiarism of ideas is further confirmed by the fact that Low replicated Matthew’s exclusive theme that trees grown by means of artificial selection in nurseries were inferior to those naturally selected by nature:
‘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.’
Low's book was identified through searching for unique Matthewisms. It was the Matthewism “overpowering the less” that fetched Lows book down from the virtual bookshelf. We can see how Matthew (1831 pp. 106-108) first used it:
'When woods are planted of various kinds of timber, the stronger, larger growing kinds will sometimes acquire room by overwhelming the smaller: but when the forest is of one kind of tree, and too close, all suffer nearly alike, and follow each other fast in decay, as their various strength of constitution gives way; unless, from some negligence or defect in planting, a portion of the plants have come away quickly, and the others hung back sickly for several years, so that the former might master the latter: or when some strong growing variety overtops its congeners. In the natural forest of America, when a clearance by any means is effected, the young seedlings, generally all of one kind, spring up so numerous, that, choaking each other, they all die together in a few years. This close springing up and dying is sometimes repeated several times over; different kinds of trees rising in succession, till the seeds in the soil be so reduced as to throw up plants so far asunder as to afford better opportunity for the larger growing varieties to develop their strength; and, overpowering the less, thus acquire spread of branches commensurate to the height, and thence strength of constitution sufficient to bear them forward to large trees.'
In Matthew’s paragraph below, we see the arbourist’s most natural choice of phrase ‘diverging ramifications of life’, which can be essentially visualized exactly as Darwin later drew his famous tree of life – the word ramify meaning to branch, and divergence meaning to spread outward.
Matthew (1831 p. 383) wrote:
‘…diverging ramifications of life, which from the connected sexual system of vegetables, and the natural instincts of animals to herd and combine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups, these remnants in the course of time moulding and accommodating their being anew to the change of circumstances, and to every possible means of subsistence, and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to have followed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation was completed affording fossil deposit of regular specific character.’
In addition to the same use of words, though slightly modified, readers can plainly see for themselves the exact same complex ideas, originated by Matthew and replicated by Darwin in the following three snippets of his text from the Origin.
Darwin (1859 - respectively p.383; p. 129 and 331):
‘…as before remarked, one order; and this order, from the continued effects of extinction and divergence of character, has become divided into several sub-families and families, some of which are supposed to have perished at different periods, and some to have endured to the present day.’‘…ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups…’
’Hence we can understand the rule that the most ancient fossils differ most from existing forms. We must not, however, assume that divergence of character is a necessary contingency; it depends solely on the descendants from a species being thus enabled to seize on many and different places in the economy of nature.’
From these three snippets of his text, we can see that Darwin bloated, dispersed and re-phrased Matthew’s text in an effort to hide its provenance. Unmistakably, in 1859, he used Matthew's (1831) book as a template for key text in the Origin.
As I uniquely discovered (Sutton 2014), Selby cited Matthew's book many times in his own book of 1844, he then went on to edit Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper. Darwin read that Sarawak paper and corresponded with Wallace, encouragingly, about its contents pre-1858. Knowledge contamination – however the knowledge contamination probably happened – from Matthew to Wallace is plainly in evidence in the few examples below that are sampled also from Nullius:
The following primary exercise is a simple comparative textual analysis that focuses on Wallace’s (1855) famous Sarawak paper only.
Wallace (1855): wrote
‘Most or perhaps all the variations from the typical form of a species must have some definite effect, however slight, on the habits or capacities of the individuals. Even a change of colour might, by rendering them more or less distinguishable, affect their safety; a greater or less development of hair might modify their habits. More important changes, such as an increase in the power or dimensions of the limbs...’
Going back twenty four years earlier to Matthew, we can see exactly where Wallace got his ideas. Matthew (1831) wrote:
‘This principle is in constant action, it regulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts; those individuals of each species, whose colour and covering are best suited to concealment or protection from enemies, or defence from vicissitude and inclemencies of climate, whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support…’
And there are many more audacious replications to be seen before we are done with Wallace. In the following presentation of them, I believe no further commentary is required. Wallace’s plagiarism unfolds clearly once followed by Matthew’s original text.
Wallace (1855):
‘We are also made aware of the difficulty of arriving at a true classification, even in a small and perfect group;- in the actual state of nature it is almost impossible, the species being so numerous and the modifications of form and structure so varied.’ [And] ‘Many more of these modifications should we behold, and more complete series of them, had we a view of all the forms which have ceased to live. The great gaps that exist between fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals would then, no doubt, be softened down by intermediate groups…’
‘It has now been shown, though most briefly and imperfectly, how the law that "Every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with a pre-existing closely allied species," connects together and renders intelligible a vast number of independent and hitherto unexplained facts. The natural system of arrangement of organic beings, their geographical distribution, their geological sequence, the phenomena of representative and substituted groups in all their modification.’
Matthew (1831):
‘… we have felt considerable inconvenience from the adopted dogmatical classification of plants and have all along been floundering between species and variety which certainly under culture soften into each other’.‘In endeavouring to trace in the former way, the principle of these changes of fashion which have taken place in the domiciles of life, the following questions occur: Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing intermediate species? Are they the diverging ramifications of the living principle under modification of circumstance.’
Wallace (1855):
‘…being so numerous and the modifications of form and structure so varied, arising probably from the immense number of species which have served as antitypes for the existing species, and thus produced a complicated branching of the lines of affinity, as intricate as the twigs of a gnarled oak or the vascular system of the human body.’
Matthew (1831);
‘…one of the most evident traits of natural history, that vegetables as well as animals are generally liable to an almost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil, nourishment, and new commixture of already formed varieties..’ ‘…for new diverging ramifications of life…’
From this simple preliminary comparison of extracts from the Sarawak paper with NTA, it is patently obvious that, three years before he sent his Ternate paper to Darwin, Wallace had plagiarized Matthew’s hypotheses in his 1855 Sarawak paper. The similarities in wording, concepts and ideas are too great and to numerous for Wallace to have possibly come up with them independently the Originator. Most crucially, Wallace’s Sarawak articulation includes many of Matthew’s key natural selection concepts:
(a) Variety in species being restricted by necessary adaptations to conditions, (b) the importance of adaptation for survival (c) the extinction of others through competitive struggle (d) only the best circumstance suited most successfully reproducing (e), and the process of unlimited organic change through modification over almost unimaginable periods of time to originate new species. Wallace, like Darwin, took not only Matthew’s discovery and his invented hypothesis, he stole also his unique synthesis of ideas, phrases and examples. For example, in his Ternate Paper Wallace replicated Matthew’s unique use of artificial selection as a heuristic device to explain natural selection. It is blatantly obvious, by this replication of so many of Matthew’s original ideas, that Wallace relied heavily upon Matthew’s 1831 book to structure his thoughts on natural selection and then to explain them.
Without Matthew, the descriptive prose that changed the way we understand the world would have been completely different. Without Matthew, the discovery of the natural law of organic evolution would, most likely, have been penned not in the 19th century, but much later in the 20th century. Almost certainly, it would not have been called natural selection. Perhaps it might have been called The Development Theory.
How do we decide which story is true? Were the Replicators, Darwin and Wallace, Schnooks or Crooks?
As far as I can tell, the only way is to weigh all the relevant data we have (not just cherry pick out the odd bit that suits us) in light of what we know about the way the world operates. In other words, without a confession or a smoking gun, all we have is multiple whiffs of cordite. In the light of where that gun-smoke lingers, we act as jury members and weigh all the hard and independently verifiable evidence - subjectively. We do, however have better than smoking gun evidence that - as opposed to the old paradigm of "no natuaralist read it so Darwin and Wallace independently conceived it" Matthew's original ideas in fact - we now newly knw - were read by other naturalists. Indeed by naturalists at the epicentre of influence of Darwin and Wallace and their influencer's influencers (see Sutton 2016 for the 100 per cent independently verifiable facts) . And that represents smoking gun evidence for the existence of the rational likelihood of some form of Matthewian knowledge contamination of the pre-1858 minds of Darwin and Wallace through one of the newly discovered routes for it to have happened via one of the three subtypes of knowledge contamination outlined in Sutton 2016.
Some Darwinists, one or two of whom I have named and shamed for their unethical or desperately pseudo-scholarly behavior, and others here have sought to deny the importance of the New Data. From that cause, to seek to put a stop to such wormy efforts in original and new fact-burial, I have released here, into the public domain, a small part of my original research findings from my new book "Nullius".
I ask Darwinists to please avoid the temptation to engage in cherry-picking from the New Data only what suits them. To do so would be to seek to misrepresent the significance of my findings, rather than weighing the whole, as they know they should.
Many more important new findings are in my book Nullius. They are too numerous to be covered in full here, and I hope you will forgive my lack of altruism in not giving way all of my unique work for free. Both my publisher, their employees and I need to eat and we all have others for whom it is our duty to provide.
I hope that providing this information will serve as a freely available reference point for others to see some of what has actually been newly discovered, so that they might weigh its importance. I expect they will in some way weigh it as a jury member would. The idea is that people can now judge for themselves what the New Data means for the veracious history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection.
I would like to make here one essential argument that is independent of my on research. It is that Patrick Matthew, by virtue of the Arago Effect, as enshrined in the principles of priority for scientific discovery (Merton 1957 ) has always had full priority over Darwin and Wallace, because the accepted rule is that being first is everything. With regard to this fact I have a peer reviewed paper another here (Sutton 2016) on the topic.
The New Data, however, takes us even further to debunk the unjust, uniquely "made for Mathew", priority denial rationalization fallacies, created by Darwinists to effectively deny Matthew his rightful priority. The story of how these 'special privileges' for Darwin and Wallace and 'special prejudices' against Matthew have been effectively used by Darwinists occupying key positions in the British Association for Advancement of Science and in the Royal Society of London is told in Nullius.
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