One question that is raised in Science Fraud, the book is: How many multiple coincidences in a real life story sum to the probability that they are not merely coincidental at all?
Some people think that the sheer number of individual remarkable coincidences in the Jim Twins story of twins who were separated at birth and led entirely independent lives before being reunited after more than 30 years, surely do sum to raise the hypothesis that some kind of strange unknown force governs the universe.
The Jim Twins (Information taken from the New York Times 1979).
■ Each married and then divorced a woman named Linda. Their second wives were both named Betty.
■ One named his first son James Allan, the other named his first son James Alan.
■ Each man grew up with an adopted brother named Larry.
■ During childhood, each owned a dog named Toy.
■ Both twins had law enforcement training and had worked part time as deputy sheriffs in their Ohio towns 70 miles apart.
■ They shared many common interests, such as mechanical drawing, block lettering and carpentry.
■ Both said their favorite school subject was math, their least favorite, spelling.
■ They vacationed at the same, three‐block‐long beach near St. Petersburg, Fla., both getting there and back in a Chevrolet. (but holidaying at different times from one another).
■ Their smoking and drinking patterns were nearly identical. Same brand of cigarettes smoked for example.
Taken together these coincidences do on the face of it appear extraordinary and many may see them as difficult to explain as mere coincidence.
But coincidences do happen, which is why we have a word for it, and if there really was no single or multiple knowledge contamination routes between the twins leading one to influence the other, or others to influence both, then it seems rational that the story requires a better explanation than genetic inheritance, or at least a more sophisticated explanation than what is currently available.
The Matthew v Darwin and Wallace Story
On this blog site, on the Patrick Matthew website and in the book Science Fraud you will discover how, not just that Darwin and Wallace replicated Matthew's (1831) original full theory of macro evolution by natural selection, but also used the exact four same words to name it and support and then explain it with the same explanatory analogy of differences between natural and artificial selection, replicated much of Matthews original prose but also his expert examples of fruit trees and apple hybridization to explain the importance of ecological niches and new varieties leading eventually to new species.
The Wallace and Darwin multiple replications would surely be as difficult to explain as mere coincidence as the story of the Jim Twins were it not for:
1. The multitude of examples of newly discovered (independently verifiable empirical data) multiple routes of direct and indirect knowledge contamination between Matthew and the two replicators Wallace and Darwin
2. The proven serial lies told by Darwin about Matthew's prior readership,
3. Wallace's letter to his mother that he dishonestly altered in his autobiography to conceal the evidence) that Darwin and his pals were paying him to play ball with Darwin's tall tale of independent replications of the same theory.
And so, what we have in the Matthew v Wallace and Darwin story as opposed to the Jim Twins story is not another supernatural hypothesis case of possible strange unknown forces governing human affairs but a simple case of science fraud by plagiarism and serial lies. And why does nobody really care about this? The answer is in the 2023 Springer Science book chapter by Dr Sutton and Dr Griffiths: The Patrick Matthew Effect in Science.
If you would like to ponder the Jim Twins story further in terms of asking yourself could it be more than pure multiple coincidence, then you might like to see this article on Elon Musk thinking we might be living in one big simulation, governed by aliens. If that explanation is true then perhaps the Jim Twins are a programming error (a The Matrix film type bug in the simulation) and perhaps not a bug, the Matthew v Darwin and Wallace Story is just a creative joke at the expense of the gullible (simulations of scientists and wannabee proper scientists known to those in the know as rabid Darwin worshipers) in the simulation? Have a look at this.
