To date (4th January 2016) Darwin's biographers and other commentators have taken at face value the dates Darwin wrote on and in his private notebooks and essays as valid evidence of when they were written. They have done so in order to make the argument that those who went into print before Darwin did not influence his 'independent discoveries' of the same prior-published ideas. In this blog post I challenge logic and reason of this mere 'assumption of authenticity'. The challenge to belief in Darwin's essential honesty is made in light of the facts that Darwin is proven to have lied many times in order to successfully position himself above others whose ideas he replicated and passed-off as his own,
(1) Darwin's book 'The Voyages of the Beagle' was first published in 1839, but sold poorly. Switching publishers, he inserted swathes of new text in the 1845 second edition of the Voyages of the Beagle without a word of explanation. This conveniently created the false impression that he was interested in the question of the evolution of varieties and the origin of species whilst on the Galapagos Islands and elsewhere on his travels on the HMS Beagle - rather than when he actually became interested many years later from studying the published work of other authors. (Here)
(2) And we know Darwin lied blatantly in 1860, 1861 and thereafter about the readership of Matthew's prior-publication. (Here).
(3) And Darwin told a total of six lies to corrupt the history of the discovery of natural selection. (Here).
The time for celebration of Darwin's honesty and originality has been brought to an end by disconfirming facts
In the blog post I reveal that outside of Darwin's handwriting on the documents the Darwin family and others turned up from his home years after his death, that there is no independent evidence that this proven serial liar (who, incidentally, was as a very young child, according to his own private essay, an attention seeking inventor of deliberate falsehoods) really did write anything on natural selection before 1857. It is important that we admit to ourselves that anyone who was capable of the science fraud deceptions and lies that Darwin is 100 per cent newly proven to have perpetrated in letters and publications from 1860 onward would be equally capable of creating in his own private study an easily faked false paper trail by adding false dates to his unpublished notebooks and essays. Such faking the paper trail behaviour is standard practice in many white collar crimes - including science fraud This is a very painful reality to grasp. But the facts of what we do absolutely know and what we actually don't absolutely know do speak for themselves, We owe it to the veracious history of the discovery of natural selection to never again enter another credulous Darwin worshipping, assumption of authenticity, 'state of denial'. Our watchword should be nullius in verba.
In 1857, two years after seeing Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper, Darwin sent what he said was merely an abstract of a larger essay (which nobody had seen at the time) on the topic to Asa Gray. In 1858, the following year, soon after he had seen Wallace's Ternate Paper, Darwin sent an essay to Joseph Hooker. Darwin claimed to have written it as early as 1839 and had it transcribed in 1844. But there is no independently verifiable proof whatsoever that he did any such thing.
Given the proof of his lying plagiarising science fraud by glory theft, outside of any Darwin-love 'states of denial' we should no longer take anything he wrote at face value, because Darwin is 100 per cent proven to have been a lying, scheming and selfish dishonest rogue.
Here are the only independently facts of the matter. We must stick with the facts only in the story of the discovery of natural selection
- 25 th June 1858: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2294.xml Darwin writes to Lyell that Wallace's Ternate paper has nothing in it that was not in his [1844] essay that he claims Hooker read a dozen years earlier (if Darwin was telling the truth - that would mean Hooker read it in 1846).
- 29 June 1858 Darwin writes to Joseph Hooker https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2298.xml;query=2298;brand=default. He writes: 'But you are too generous to sacrifice so much time & kindness.— It is most generous, most kind. I send sketch of 1844 solely that you may see by your own handwriting that you did read it.' This letter, however, is not proof of the date Hooker read it and no proof of the date it was given to him] all we have is a letter of 1845 (a year after the publication of the Vestiges) that he has written some kind of essay.
- The Darwin Correspondence Project tells us what Darwin had written on the "sketch of 1844" :'CD refers to the extensive table of contents prefixed to the fair copy of his essay of 1844 (DAR 113). On the third (unnumbered) page, he wrote in ink: ‘This was sketched in 1839 & copied out in full, as here written & read by you in 1844’. CD probably refers to an occasion in 1845 when he invited Hooker to read his manuscript (Correspondence vol. 3, letter to J. D. Hooker, [5 or 12 November 1845]). See also n. 4, above.'
- What the Darwin Correspondence site does not emphasise is that Hooker could not have read something in 1844 when he only first told Hooker about its existence in 1845! He did so in a letter to Hooker of 5 or 12 Nov 1845 http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-924 : 'I wish I could get you sometime hence to look over a rough sketch (well copied) on this subject, but it is too impudent a request.'
- There is no evidence Hooker replied to confirm any of this.
- To reiterate: There is no direct evidence at all (other than Darwin's letter telling Hooker he did read it a year before Darwin even mentioned it to him!). There is no supporting letter of reply from Hooker. So no evidence Hooker saw the essay until 1858! The earliest solid dated evidence we have that Darwin actually had written any kind of essay is that he sent a mere abstract of one to Gray in 1857!
- On 5th September 1857, Darwin wrote to Asa https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2136.xml;query=2136;brand=default: "You will, perhaps, think it paltry in me, when I ask you not to mention my doctrine; the reason is, if anyone, like the Author of the Vestiges, were to hear of them, he might easily work them in, & then I shd have to quote from a work perhaps despised by naturalists & this would greatly injure any chance of my views being received by those alone whose opinion I value.—"
There is no independently verifiable evidence whatsoever that Darwin definitely wrote a word on natural selection before 1857! This does not constitute any kind of evidence that Darwin fabricated the dates on his essays and diaries, But it is evidence that all we have is our belief in his honesty that he didn't. This is an important point, because Darwin is a newly proven lying plagiarising science fraudster by glory theft. Darwin could have doctored all other dates on the private essays and notebooks in the privacy of his home. And Hooker - as we have seen in his signed approval of the 1860 and 1861 lies Darwin wrote that no naturalists read Matthew's ideas - was quite prepared to collude in Darwin's scheming deliberate lies.
Robert Chambers's best selling book on evolution the Vestiges of Creation was first published in 1844. I originally discovered that In 1832 Chambers cited Matthew's book (See Sutton 2014). Darwin's correspondent and associate Robert Chambers - persuaded Huxley to defend Darwin in a historical debate against Bishop Wilberforce.
Chambers and Darwin met and corresponded in 1847 and thereafter engaged in further correspondence. In 1847 (See Letter from Darwin to Chambers Feb 28th 1847). Chambers gave Darwin a copy of the Vestiges, leading Darwin to write to his friend Joseph Hooker that he knew Chambers was its secret author.
Darwin told Lyel he thought Chambers was the author of the vestiges (see his March 1847 letter to Lyell and in his Feb 1846 in Letter to Hooker Darwin is quite convinced Chambers is author of The Vestiges. And by 18th April 1847 Darwin tells Hooker he is now convinced Chambers is the author of the Vestiges. And being more circumspect in
June 1848 - Darwin speculates with Lyell that Chambers is the author of the Vestiges of Creation.
So what we know for sure here - for an independently verifiable fact is that:
- Chambers read the first full publication of the theory of natural selection and then cited it in 1832.(See: Chambers, R. (1832) in Chambers, W. and Chambers, R. Chambers's. Edinburgh Journal. William Orr. Saturday March 24th. p. 63).
- Chambers then met and corresponded with Darwin in 1847. That is an entire decade before we have any absolute proof that that the proven liar wrote a word on natural selection.
- The route for plausible and possible direct knowledge contamination of Matthew's ideas- orally - from Chambers to Darwin existed in 1847. This is an entire decade before we have any absolute proof Darwin wrote a word on natural selection!
- In 1859 Chambers wrote a review of Darwin's (1859) Origin of Species. In that review he was the first person after Matthew to write Matthew's original term 'natural process of selection' - the very term that Darwin (1859) was first to four-word-shuffle into its only possible grammatically correct equivalent 'process of natural selection'! (see Sutton 2014).