I have newly acquired a violin that is some 100 years old. The instrument, has scribed purfling, and is made of London plane tree wood AKA lacewood). The internal construction and other characteristics are such that it may well have been made in England. However, it has no makers mark or label. Not yet it doesn't. But I'm going to label it "The Charles Darwin Violin".
The Lacewood London Plane Tree is well suited as a tree able to adapt to polluted environments and London was really heavily polluted in the 19th century due to amount of coal being burnt for heating etc. One needs only to read Charles Dickens book Bleak House for dreadful accounts of lethal "pea souper smog". Patrick Matthew (1831, e.g. p. 68) wrote of how pine trees thrive in good timber soil but were adapted by nature to grow in spare soil. neither Matthew nor Darwin wrote about why plane trees were so well adapted to very heavily polluted environments such as London. One proposed reason for their being so circumstance suited (a theme Matthew wrote about for many other species) is their thick leathery leaves that allow pollution to be washed away by rain and their regenerative bark.
We have seen how Darwin's and Wallace's great influencer Robert Chambers by 1832 had read and then cited Matthew's (1831) book on the subject of growing and pruning and training trees for plank timber. In On naval Timber and Arboriculture on page 7 Matthew (1831) wrote that plane trees were particularly useful for plank timber:
Empirical data found through original research (Sutton) shows Darwin held in his hands at least five publications that cited Patrick Matthew's 1831 book. One of these was an article by Cree (1832) that responded very defensively to Mathew's criticism of his ideas about tree pruning (
here). See
Science Fraud for the full empirical data detailed proof. In his 1832 article Cree is particularly upset by Matthew's ideas about how to grow tree for plank timber, the very subject of the 1832 Matthew (1831) text cited by Darwin's great influencer Robert Chambers in 1832!
On Lacewood (Plane tree wood) and interlaced complex evidence
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| Lacewood: London Plane |
In the criminal justice system it is universally accepted that juries are very often unable to comprehend the evidence due to its extreme complexity. The evidence of Darwin's lies about who he actually knew did read and fully understand Matthew's book and the theory in it, before he stole the theory and called it "my theory" thereafter is very involved and interlaced with those in his inner circle who aided and abetted him.
Here we are just examining a small interconnected segment of the evidence (see
Science Fraud for the full empirical evidence led story)
The Darwin and Gavin Cree connection to Patrick Matthew's 1831 Theory
Darwin’s own private notebook of the books he actually read records he read Volumes 7 and 8 of Gardener’s Magazine.. Now, although Darwin’s notebook gives no year for the publication of these two volumes, which is confusing because in every new decade this magazine started a new series with volumes restarting at 1 again.
One volume 7 covers 1831 and anther volume 8 covers 1832. The latter contains Loudon’s all-important review of NTA, in which Loudon (correspondent of Darwin and friend of his best friend's (Joseph Hooker's) father, William Hooker, write that Matthew appeared to have something original to say on the origin of species! Volume 8 also makes reference to observations made by Darwin’s grandfather on pp. 308 and 502 about forest trees—no less!
To be even-handed, however, it seems most likely since Darwin was compiling a list of things to read and things read on March12, 1842 that it was volumes of that decade—Volume 7 of 1841 and Volume 8 of 1842—that he recorded reading in his notebook, although we cannot know that for sure. But even in Volume 7 of 1841 on pp. 440 to 444 Matthew and his 1831 book is the subject of an article by the celebrity arborist Gavin Cree (Cree 1841) on tree pruning. In that volume on p. 216 Charles Darwin is mocked as being delusional regarding his observations on earthworms.
So, whatever decade Darwin was referring to in his notes there is a published reference to Matthew and his 1831 book in both! According to the facts, Matthew was hardly an obscure author of an unread book/theory in the first half of the 19th century.
To underscore the point yet further, Darwin’s private notebooks and his archived library reveal he read at least five publications that either cite or contain articles about Matthew and NTA:
(1) The Athenæum (1839) (block advertisement
for Naval Timber and review of Emigration Fields).
(2) Loudon (1831) (citing Matthew in Bibliography).
(3) Loudon (1838) (article citing Matthew).
(4) The Gardener’s Magazine (1841) (article throwing down a challenge to Matthew on tree pruning). Assuming this is the one Darwin refers to and not the 1832 one containing Loudon’s important review of NTA.
(5) Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society of Edinburgh (1814–1832) (block
advertisement for NTA).
This is just one more fact that tells us exactly why Matthew belongs at the very centre of Darwin’s story and not on the fringes, as the Darwin Industry wants you to believe.
The interlaced (like lacewood) facts prove Matthew wasn’t obscure in the 1830s and 1840s, and neither was NTA. Therefore, Darwin’s excuse-claim that Matthew's (1831) was unread is demolished by verifiable facts proving books about Matthew were held in Darwin’s own hands before he replicated the theory in NTA.
A prolific author, fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society, and a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Loudon was a friend and correspondent of William Hooker and co-published with Hooker’s close friend and fellow economic botanist John Lindley.
Lindley crops as a devious and malicious anti-Matthew character throughout the Patrick Matthew v Charles Darwin story in Science Fraud, the book. But here we have seen just one small segment related to Cree and his palpably intense dislike for his pruning critic Patrick Matthew.
The Gavin Cree to David Low connections to Charles Darwin via the 1831 book of Patrick Matthew
In 1834 David Low was
apparently First to be second into published print (F2B2) with the apparently original Naval Timber and Arboriculture (NTA) phrase “long continued selection” in his book Elements of Practical Agriculture:
Comprehending the Cultivation of Plants, the Husbandry of Domestic Animals and
the Economy of the Farm.
Although he never personally cited Matthew (1831), he was
founding editor of the Quarterly Journal
of Agriculture at the time it published Gavin Cree’s (1832) letter on
pruning that criticised NTA. Thus it
was Low who ruled as editor in favour of Cree against Matthew in that edition
of the journal (Canadian Agriculturalist
1859, p. 32). Low (1844) wrote about naval timber on pp. 583–585 of his book on
“landed property” and did so again on p. 88 of his book on forest trees (Low
1853).
63
Just four years older than Matthew, Low was a highly
esteemed professor of agriculture at the University of Edinburgh. Most
importantly, like many who cited NTA—or
else apparently first duplicated apparently original Matthewisms from NTA—Low was a fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture
of Sweden.
Darwin adopted the exact same original NTA Matthewism in his essay of 1842 (Darwin 1842, pp. 32 and 33)
where he writes in secret:
“Now according to analogy of domesticated
animals let us see what would result. Let us take case of farmer on Pampas,
where everything approaches nearer to state of nature. He works on organisms
having strong tendency to vary: and he knows only way to make a distinct breed
is to select and separate. It would be useless to separate the best bulls and pair
with best cows if their offspring run loose and bred with the other herds, and
tendency to reversion not counteracted; he would endeavour therefore to get his
cows on islands and then commence his work of selection. If several farmers in
different regions were to set to work, especially if with different objects,
several breeds would soon be produced. So would it be with horticulturist and
so history of every plant shows; the number of varieties increase in proportion
to care bestowed on their selection and, with crossing plants, separation. Now,
according to this analogy, change of external conditions, and isolation either
by chance landing a form on an island, or subsidence dividing a continent, or
great chain of mountains, and the number of individuals not being numerous will
best favour variation and selection. No doubt change could be effected in same
country without any barrier by long continued
selection on one species: even in case of a plant not capable of crossing
would easier get possession and solely occupy an island.”
Then in Origin
(Darwin 1859, p. 192) he used it again:
“As every one would be surprised if two
exactly similar but peculiar varieties of any species were raised by man by long continued selection, in two different
countries, or at two very different periods, so we ought not to expect that an
exactly similar form would be produced from the modification of an old one in
two distinct countries or at two distinct periods.”
Low published a number if
notable books such as Elements of
Practical Agriculture (1834), The
Breeds of Domesticated Animals (1840), and An Enquiry into the Nature of the Simple Bodies of Chemistry
(1848).
On p. 546 in another of his books On Landed Property, and the Economy of Estates (1844) Low was once
again apparently F2B2 with an apparently original NTA expression—once again without citing Matthew. In this later
book he uses Matthew’s apparently original phrase “overpowering the less.” This
discovery of Low twice replicating Matthew’s unique phrases in different books
appears to confirm the veracity of the F2B2 hypothesis, the value of the method
in identifying plagiarism of ideas, and the influence that such plagiarism has
on others. This conclusion is further confirmed by the fact that in his F2B2
use of this NTA phrase 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
exact same highly important theme that Eiseley (1979) discovered Darwin
replicated in his 1844 private essay! Low (1844, p. 546) writes:
“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.”
It is of paramount importance at this juncture to note that
this newly discovered evidence in fact provides Darwin with a defence against
Eiseley’s (1979) claim that Darwin’s use of artificially selected trees to
explain natural selection in his unpublished 1844 essay is clear evidence of
plagiarism directly from NTA.
Although Low almost certainly got it from Matthew (1831), Darwin could just
possibly have got it from reading Low (1844).
Whatever the case, again we see Matthew’s progeny in the
relevant literature as influencing the man who influenced the man. Moreover,
and most importantly, we should note that Low published his book containing the
analogy in 1844, which is the very same year Darwin’s private essay replicated
the exact same highly idiosyncratic tree analogy.
This is strong evidence of NTA influencing Low and passing it on to Darwin, or of NTA directly influencing Darwin, or
both.
Interestingly, in his notebook of “Books Read and Books to
Read” Darwin writes in December 1839, “Advertised. David Low Treatise on Domestic Animals; also
Illustrations of the Domestic animals of Gt. Britain—must be read carefully.”
However, in that same notebook Darwin makes no mention of having read Low’s Elements of Practical Agriculture or of On Landed Property. In Origin, however, we know Darwin went on
to use the same apparently NTA-coined
phrase “long continued selection” as several other writers did following Low’s
1834 first replication of it. Whereas Low
hyphenated the phrase, Darwin used it without the hyphen just as Matthew
had it in NTA. This is suggestive
Darwin got the phrase from NTA, not
from Low, who probably got it from NTA.
But we cannot be sure one way or the other.
Twice replicating phrases apparently first coined in NTA is unlikely to be purely
coincidental given that Low was apparently twice to be first with these
apparently original Matthewisms in different publications and, most
significantly, was a former Perth Academy schoolmate of Patrick Matthew.
Professor David Low of Edinburgh University might even be
the unnamed professor that Matthew (1860a) referred to in the Gardeners’ Chronicle as the professor at
an esteemed university who could not teach NTA’s
heretical hypothesis of natural selection for fear of pillory punishment on the cutty stool.
Conclusion
The evidence of Darwin's science fraud by plagiarism is extremely interlaced, like lacewood. In just this very small snippet of the empirical evidence in "Science Fraud" the book we can see how this complexity has protected Darwin and his fact denial superfans and authoritarian supermyth supporting and facilitation toadies.
The Darwin Lacewood Violin is a perfect tool to help explain the facts.
