"No sh..... Sherlock".— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) November 11, 2017
On the Problem of Multiple Coincidences: Is this a genuinely historic new #SherlockHolmes mystery? https://t.co/uDN127cwTc pic.twitter.com/weoR3efOUK
In vol. 1 of the paperback edition of Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret (Sutton 2017) I pose the problem for science of how to determine how many multiple coincidences are required to sum to the probability that they are not coincidental at all. In my book, the question is raised with regard to the newly discovered evidence about who Darwin and Wallace knew, and who their greatest influencers and facilitators, and influencer's influencers, and friends knew who read and cited Patrick Matthew's (1831) book 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture', often cited as Matthew's 'Treatise On Naval Timber' (e.g. Jameson 1831) containing the complete original prior-published theory of macroevolution by natural selection before Darwin and Wallace replicated its bombshell breakthrough, terms and highly idiosyncratic explanatory examples decades later.
Professor Robert Jameson (1831) |
Today, I was made aware of a Sherlock Holmes story entitled The Naval Treaty (Doyle, A. C. 1894). In this story, I wish to draw your attention to the following text:
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
Coincidentally with the title of Matthew's book so often being called 'Treatise on Naval Timber', Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mystery 'The Naval Treaty' is about the theft and copying of a highly important document, which is a naval treaty.
Now, arguably, the catalytic multiple coincidence in this story is that Conan Doyle refers to flowers as providing evidence of a "goodness" in nature. Providence, in the context in which he uses the word in the quotation above refers to the Christian belief religious notion of a creator, their belief in what they see as "God's" intervention in our world.
‘Your's in tracing out the admirably balanced scheme of Nature all linked together in dependant connection—the vital endowed with avariation-power in accommodation to material change. Altho' this is a grand field for contemplation, yet am I tired of it— of a world where my sympathies are intended to be bounded almost exclusively to my own race & family. I am not satisfied with my existence to devour & trample upon my fellow creature. I cannot pluck a flower without regarding myself a destroyer.’
In 1831 (page 265) Matthew, who we know believed in a "Creator" in later life (see here) used the capitalised word Providence:‘That there is a principle of beneficence operating here the dual parentage and family affection pervading all the higher animal kingdom affords proof. A sentiment of beauty pervading Nature, with only some few exceptions affords evidence of intellect & benevolence in the scheme of Nature. This principle of beauty is clearly from design & cannot be accounted for by natural selection. Could any fitness of things contrive a rose, a lily, or the perfume of the violet. There is no doubt man is left purposely in ignorance of a future existence. Their pretended revelations are wretched nonsense.’
Did Wallace Serve as Muse to Conan Doyle's Naval Treaty?
I have no firm idea what we can make of these possible multiple coincidences or possible evidence that Conan Doyle was influenced by Darwin's replication of Matthew's valuable Naval Treatise. I suppose, for me there is not enough triangulating evidence to weigh in order to allow us to rationally suggest probability lays one way or the other. But those of you inspired to dig deeper for it might be interested to learn that Conan Doyle was a correspondent of the other supposedly immaculate conceiver of Matthew's prior published theory, namely Alfred Wallace (e.g. see here). Conan Doyle (1921) had this to say of Wallace:Furthermore, Conan Doyle was a great admirer of Darwin (see here).
Conan Doyle was also embroiled amongst the suspects and story of the great Piltdown Man fraud of the fake missing link that would support the theory of evolution, particularly of humans being descended from earlier apes (e.g. here).
Interestingly, another suspect in the Piltdown Man case was Sir Arthur Keith. Notably, he was the beloved mentor of Jim Dempster who has written three classic books on Patrick Matthew and Darwin's and Wallace's replications (see here). Dempster (1957) dedicated his book: 'Experimental Surgical Studies' to Sir Arthur Keith.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also a member of the "Ghost Club" along with Charles Dickens (e.g. here), in this case, the possible route for Matthewian "knowledge contamination" (see Sutton 2105) connection between Dickens and Conan Doyle being that Dickens and Darwin were both members of the Athenaeum Club, both having joined on the very same day (Sutton 2014). Moreover, in a gushing review of Darwin's Origin of Species. Charles Dickens's Magazine 'All the Year Round' (1860) quoted a paragraph word-for-word straight out of Matthew's (1831) original prose yet never cited Matthew as its source. The unjustly uncited quote is to be found here.
References
I wrote a blog on Matthew and his notion of flowers as evidence for Providence back in 2014. Here it is reproduced:
A Better Explanation for the Scientific Problem of Beautiful Flowers Than "God Did It".
Why do some plants have beautiful flowers?
‘In earlier pre-Darwin centuries, of course, the purpose of flowers was to enhance the beauty of the world and make it more pleasant for the acme of divine creation – ourselves – by contributing to the colourful and scented environment. The advent of the theory of evolution by natural selection means that we have to look for a more hardheaded answer, one expressed in terms of the value to the species of putting a lot of investment into surrounding the inconspicuous reproductive organs with complex, ornate and highly visible appendages. And the answer is that plants that have colourful and imaginatively sculptured flowers are those that depend for survival on attracting insects to them to carry pollen – the male seed- from the interior of the flowers to the eggs of another member of the species, or even to other parts of themselves to fertilize the flowers and produce the seeds for the next generation.’
Why do other plants have dull, hardly discernible, flowers?
Take a few moments to contemplate the sinisterly seductive nature of beautiful flowers.
Is something going on between us and flowers?
‘…the various beauty of plants, the cunning craftsmanship of nature. First the rich array of spring-time meadows, then the shape, colour and structure of various plants fascinated and absorbed me: interest in botany became a passion.…Of course there are people entirely indifferent to the sight of flowers of meadows in spring, or if not indifferent, at least preoccupied elsewhere. They devote themselves to ball-games, to drinking, gambling, money-making,popularity-hunting.’
Anyway, back to natural selection and the question of objective beauty
‘Your's in tracing out the admirably balanced scheme of Nature all linked together in dependant connection—the vital endowed with avariation-power in accommodation to material change. Altho' this is a grand field for contemplation, yet am I tired of it— of a world where my sympathies are intended to be bounded almost exclusively to my own race & family. I am not satisfied with my existence to devour & trample upon my fellow creature. I cannot pluck a flower without regarding myself a destroyer.’
‘That there is a principle of beneficence operating here the dual parentage and family affection pervading all the higher animal kingdom affords proof. A sentiment of beauty pervading Nature, with only some few exceptions affords evidence of intellect& benevolence in the scheme of Nature. This principle of beauty is clearly from design & cannot be accounted for by natural selection. Could any fitness of things contrive a rose, a lily, or the perfume of the violet. There is no doubt man is left purposely in ignorance of a future existence. Their pretended revelations are wretched nonsense.’
‘I was driving through the English Countryside with my daughter, Juliet, then aged six and she pointed out some flowers by the wayside. I asked her what she thought wild flowers were for. She gave a rather thoughtful answer. ‘Two things’, she said ‘To make the world pretty, and to help the bees make honey for us.’ I was touched by this and sorry I had to tell her that it wasn’t true.’
Quantum physicist David Deutsch (2011) has something deeper than Dawkins to say on flowers and beauty.
‘Geologists discover a like particular conformity – fossil species – through the deep deposition of each great epoch, but they also discover an almost complete difference to exist between the species or stamp of life, of one epoch from that of every other. We are therefore led to admit either of a repeated miraculous creation; or of a power of change, under a change of circumstances, to belong to living organized matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior. The derangements and changes in organized existence, induced by a change of circumstance from the interference of man, affording us proof of the plastic quality of superior life, and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different in the different epochs, though steady in each tend strongly to heighten the probability of the latter theory.’
What about Darwin?
‘Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.’
“,,, a story told by Lord Avebury in his address at the Darwin-Wallace celebration of the Linnean Society of London on July 1st, 1908. It runs thus :— "One of his friends once asked Mr. Darwin's gardener about his master's health, and how he had been lately. 'Oh!' he said, my poor master has been very sadly. I often wish he had something to do. He moons about in the garden, and I have seen him stand doing nothing before a flower for ten minutes at a time. If he only had something to do I really believe he would be better."
As is always the case, human society cannot be reasonably distilled into convenient binary explanations. Jesus of Nazareth, Newton, Einstein, Matthew and Darwin were all great popularity hunters. Some were more circumstance suited than others to succeed, of course. But knowledge and our knowledge of history and veracity evolves - ultimately, we can but hope, it evolves towards a more accurate representation of reality. A representation that relies upon hard facts, firm evidence and not just the mere thoughts and lies of ambitious and popular men with beards.
'Implausible, I think, because one side only has genes for creating the patterns and the other only for recognising them.'
References
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes character had an elementary notion that flowers were evidence for the existence of "God". But the reason why is a new 21st century Sherlock Holmes mystery https://t.co/ZKV6ngOnfy pic.twitter.com/CQ99Rez9MC— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) November 11, 2017