My reply On Amazon.com to George R. Dekle (Mar 9, 2016 1:07:24 AM PST)
Dr Mike Sutton says:
Nullius in Verba
George - I think that's a very fair and honest and well-balanced review. Thank you for buying and reading my book and for taking the trouble to review it. I see from your profile that you are an experienced attorney - but now a professor. My first degree was in law and I have for some time now wondered how a jury might weigh the evidence for the case I make in my book that Darwin more likely than not knew of Matthew's original prior published ideas on natural selection and his original explanatory analogies before he replicated them without citing Matthew.
In my book I argue that it seems more likely than not Darwin did read Matthew's (1831) book before 1858 on the evidence of who it is newly discovered (who Darwin and Wallace knew - who influenced them) did read it before he and Wallace replicated the original ideas in it without citing Matthew. I then prove Darwin lied in 1860 when he wrote the very opposite to what Matthew informed him about the prior readership of his book (that Loudon reviewed it, that another naturalist feared pillory punishment were he to teach the original ideas on natural slection it, and that Perth Public Library banned it) by claiming Matthew's original ideas went completely unread until Matthew brought them to Darwin's attention in 1860. As I write in the book, I think that when we add Darwin's weird lack of curiosity about Matthew to the New Data evidence that Darwin's and Wallace's associates and influencers - and their influencers influencers - in fact did read Matthew's book to the fact Darwin then lied about the prior-readership of Matthew's book by other naturalists that a jury would find Darwin guilty - beyond reasonable doubt - of plagiarism science fraud.
Of course, we can't know what a jury would decide, although a televised mock trial would be interesting - and highly entertaining and educational. But one thing is certain, and that is that by so lying (by all rational understanding of what a lie is - i.e. self servingly writing the very opposite to what you have been told) about the prior-readership of Matthew's book, Darwin successfully convinced the world that Matthew is relatively insignificant. That lie has stuck as a great myth. Consequently, the Scots demolished Matthew's house and grubbed up his ancient orchards in the 1980s. Today, they are now chopping down the giant monumental California redwood trees that he planted in 1854. As we can see - polemic or not - the facts prove that Darwin's falsehoods continue to reverberate through time to perpetuate injustice to Scottish cultural heritage and social, economic tourism, educational, historic, and bio-sustainability.
You might be interested to learn that since I published my book, I have originally discovered that John Lindley (who keeps cropping up in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace in my book) is proven to have perpetrated for 13 years a great fraud that he and Lobb were first to introduce, propagate and name (as Wellingtonia) the giant Californian redwoods in Britain. And Lindley was a correspondent of both Darwin and Wallace - and like them he believed in the mutability of species. In 1866 - a year after Lindley's death - his own journal proved Matthew and his son John were in fact first by producing the evidence from a letter Lindley had in possession from before he claimed he and Lobb were first. My website PatrickMatthew.com has all the details (click the Matthew's Redwoods page tab).
Next week, I am giving a public lecture at the James Hutton Institute (and further talks elsewhere in Scotland) on the story. Perhaps it's a polemic - I'm not sure - I suspect it is. Perhaps the facts are presented in a rather overwrought manner - of that I am sure. Regardless, facts are facts. I just want to get them out there and to get people to listen to them - because they are new facts - and weigh them and understand their significance. I know I'm not the best person to convey these facts. Others could do a far better job than I. But it falls to me alone to carry the burden at the time of writing, since I alone discovered them. No others seem willing to put their head above the parapet and point and shout that the kings (Darwin and Wallace) have no clothes. As the fairy story and now this story teach us, that is - to put it polemically - because most people are stupid cowards.
Hopefully, we can save the monumental Matthew trees in the Carse of Gowrie and elsewhere in Perth and Kinross Scotland from further destruction. It's a shame we could not save Patrick Matthew's wonderful old Regency manor house, because it would have made a superb museum to explain to the world how a farmer and politician discovered natural selection. Some of these Matthew Trees are currently under threat from a proposed quarry extension - others have been felled on spurious grounds. It is rather poignant, I think, that it was the initial destruction of giant redwoods in the 19th century that kick-started the national parks movement in the USA.
By the way I just had news from some Scots who went to New Zealand to meet the Matthew descendants there that Errol Jones is alive and well at 101 and is very pleased that her ancestor is beginning to finally get the recognition he deserved in his lifetime.
