Contemplating Charles Darwin's 'Naval'

 Although others explain that Darwin returned from the voyages of the Beagle still believing species to be immutable (see Sulloway 1982)  and only came to think about evolution by natural selection by reading books years later, according to his son, Francis Darwin (see Oldroyd 1984) [archived: https://archive.is/WGVww], Charles Darwin perhaps began to think and write in his private notebooks the first tiny germ of his thoughts about evolution (that would eventually led him to write about macroevolution by natural selection) in 1832 whilst on the voyages of the Beagle. That was the year following publication of Matthew's (1831) book, which contains the first publication of the theory. However, despite mentioning Eiseley several times, Oldroyd's article most conveniently completely ignores the evidence Eiseley found that Darwin plagiarised Matthew’s  theory, by way of the discovery that Darwin, in his private essay of 1844, replicated Matthew's highly idiosyncratic forester's explanatory analogy of differences between trees selected by mankind in nurseries versus those selected by nature. Indeed, Oldroyd conveniently fails to mention Matthew at all, despite the fact Darwin and Wallace each admitted Matthew got and had published the whole theory before they replicated it - supposedly miraculously independently of one another and completely co-incidentally.

Although it is only a rational possibility that Darwin knew about Matthew's (1831) book, poignantly entitled 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' whilst on the voyages of the Beagle - incidentally a a Royal Navy naval ship, the possibility should be considered a probability. Darwin is a proven serial liar about Matthew and his other influencers (e.g. see Sutton 2015 on his proven lies about Matthew, and see Hugh Dower on his proven lies about von Buch), so Darwin has lost all rights to be given benefit of the doubt on any of his stories about how he came to think and write about the theory of evolution by natural selection. 

Notably, 1832 was the year in which Loudon (a naturalist well known to Darwin and his closest associates) published a review of Matthew's bombshell book and wrote that Matthew appeared to have something to say on what he termed the 'origin of species'. That was the phrase Darwin would later adopt for the title of his book of 1859, which replicated Matthew's theory, originally four word shuffled Matthew's original name for it from 'natural process of selection' to 'process of natural selection', replicated Matthew’s artificial v natural selection analogy of differences and stole many more of Matthew's highly idiosyncratic explanatory examples. And we know Darwin was receiving publications, via correspondence sent by friends, when the Beagle was at various ports from as early as 1832 (e.g. here).

Darwin would later claim – as a direct lie after Matthew wrote to him in 1860 explaining that Loudon reviewed his book and another naturalist professor of an eminent university read but feared to teach the theory in it – alternately that no naturalist / no one whatsoever read Matthew’s book and the original ideas in it before 1860.

The fact remains that, whatever possibilities are determined to be rational probabilities by different writers on Darwin Wallace and Matthew, Charles Darwin is a proven serial liar and plagiarising glory thief.#

To conclude, readers of this blog post might wish to contemplate the fact that if Darwin did not plagiarise Matthew's (1831) complete theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858/59, Matthew's four word name for it (natural process of selection - shuffled by Darwin to process of natural selection) and highly idiosyncratic analogies and examples to explain it, in a book read and then cited pre-1858 by Darwin's and Wallace's key influencers and influencer's influencers and Wallace's Sarawak paper General editor, Selby, then the fact Darwin first found fame by writing about his voyages on a naval ship and the theory that made him most famous was fully published, years before he put pen to private paper on the topic, in a book entitled 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' is just one more of a multitude of incredible, miraculous, multiple coincidences in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace (see Sutton 2017 for the others).

Contemplating [@HughDower ] Charles Darwin's "Naval" ...(cough): https://t.co/M2HR5oY9uN pic.twitter.com/t2ayG2BBPl

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) September 5, 2020

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What kind of person sends porn spam to a blogsite on Charles Darwin's plagiarism of the Scot Patrick Matthew? Well, I have a mere unevidenced conspiracy theory that it's the Darwin Foundation at work. I suspect they might be behind the nonsense on Wikipedia's Patrick Matthew page pic.twitter.com/UqSux8d06h

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) September 6, 2020