Cognitive Contraception

On Influence in Science. @rwjdingwall So we have a case of another claimed virgin conception in science:https://t.co/Dil5TPVEzE pic.twitter.com/3OzNog9Fsf

— BlessedVirginDarwin (@OnNavalTimber) September 24, 2016

Facts cannot be magicked away by worshipping Darwin

We now living in an age of "Post-Truth Science"? No wonder we have "post-truth politics": https://t.co/SBJwPkZ477 pic.twitter.com/7aGzlUDmSB

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) September 15, 2016

Like stealing other people's work? @supermyths https://t.co/Lm3YQPF6B4

— Robert Dingwall (@rwjdingwall) September 18, 2016

The 10 Fact Groups that Prove Darwinities Undone

Postscript 13/02/2020 - I have added live links where older links no longer go to live sources. Otherwise, this blog post is as it was first published.  

Introduction

The paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's (1858) and Darwin's (1842, 1844 and 1859) independent conceptions of Patrick Matthew's (1831) prior published conception of the full and complex hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection is based on the premise (e.g de Beer 1962 and Mayr 1982 ) that no one known to Darwin or Wallace, indeed no naturalists at all, read Matthew's (1831) original conception before they replicated it. That Darwinite paradigm is based on a punctured myth. Because it is newly discovered  by me (Sutton 2014, 2016) that other naturalists, indeed naturalists well known to Darwin and Wallace, their facilitators, influencers, and their influencer's influencers and facilitators in fact did read, and then actually cite in the pre-1858 literature, Matthew's (1831) book before either Darwin or Wallace so much as put pen to private notebook on the topic.

Those seeking to maintain the paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's independent conceptions of Matthew's prior-published conception of evolution by natural selection are undone by the following ten groups of facts.

Veracity: the 10 groups of facts

FACTS 1. Only Matthew (1831) in his book On Naval Timber wrote about Natural Selection as an explanation for organic macro evolution before Darwin and Wallace (1858) and Darwin (1859) replicated his original ideas. This is established by many biologists including, for example, Dawkins (2010) in Bryson's edited collection, By Weale (2014) and by Royal Society Darwin Medal winner Ernst Mayr who wrote: 'The person who has the soundest claim for priority in establishing a theory or evolution by natural selection is Patrick Matthew.'

FACTS 2. Matthew wrote about natural selection throughout his book and not just in its appendix. Darwin wrote a deliberate lie when he claimed Matthew limited his orignal ideas on the topic to his book's appendix and he wrote to Joseph Hooker admitting as much (see Sutton 2014, 2016). The Matthew Appendix Myth is, therefore, bust by the facts. Furthermore, contrary to claims made by Richard Dawkins (2010) and others Matthew's (1831) book was far from obscure. As the citations in Nullius prove, it was heavily advertised in the first half of the 19th century, reviewed, frequently and cited (many times by Loudon in several books and many times by Selby in his 1842 book on trees. Significantly, it was very prominently advertised on more than half a page in the hugely popular Encyclopedia Britannica in 1842 and cited in the Encyclopedia Britannica again in 1842 in an article (citations to facts here) Moreover, pre -1858, Darwin's private notebook of books to read and books read lists five publications that are now known to cite or advertise Matthew's 1831 book.

FACTS 3. Contrary to claims in many academic textbooks and in social media, Darwin did not coin the term natural selection, nor its scientific meaning. Moreover, he did not coin the term artificial selection (see Sutton 2014, 2016).  Matthew used the term the "natural process of selection" in his 1831 book. And Big Data analysis of over 30 million publications reveals he apparently coined that term. Robert Chambers (anonymous author of the "Vestiges of Creation"), who cited Matthew's (1831) book On Naval Timber in 1832, and then in 1840, cited his second (1839) book "Emigration Fields", which took Matthew's (1831) orignal ideas forward with regard to dealing with the social problem of overpopulation in Britain, was apparently 'first to be second' in writing Matthew's apparently orignal term in his review of  Darwin's (1859) Origin of Species. Darwin four-word-shuffled Matthew's term to 'process of natural selection' and in doing so, Big Data analysis reveals he apparently coined that term. See Sutton 2014, 2016 for  further details and fully cited facts. Furthermore, Matthew (1831) was first to use the Natural versus Artificial Selection Analogy of Differences as an explanatory analogy for macro evolution by natural selection. As the historian Loren Eiseley discovered, Darwin replicated this original idea in his 1844 private essay with regard to Matthew's highly idiosyncratic wild forest versus nursery grown trees example. And I discovered that Wallace (1858) did so more generally in his Ternate paper. When the arch Darwinite Stephen J. Gould (1983 and 2002) set out to rubbish Eiseley's findings he got his own facts wrong and conveniently cherry-stepped away from mentioning this, Eiseley's most compelling evidence of Matthew's influence on Darwin (see Sutton 2015 for the facts). What Gould did is the same grossly misleading biased "cherry stepping" and "cherry picking" misrepresenting de facto fact denial ploy tried by Grzegorz Malec in his so called "review" of my book. It is a shame Eiseley, having died in 1977, could not take Gould to task for his dysology, Malec does not escape. You can read my published right of reply: Here. Matthew's original general explanatory analogy of differences between artificial and natural selection is so important that Darwin used it to open the very first Chapter of the Origin of Species. An electronic plagiarism check reveals many examples of great similarity between the prose and ideas of both Wallace and Darwin compared to Matthew's. For example, Darwin replicated Matthew's unique creative process by replicating his examples of how the natural process of selection works. By way of just two examples, in addition to the example of plants grown in nurseries that Eiseley discovered, Darwin also replicated Matthew's examples of what happens when many seedlings spring up together in a forest. Moreover, he replicated what Matthew cited from Steuart (1828) about cattle eating young trees. Only where Matthew cited his source about the cattle example, Darwin audaciously pretended it was his own observation in nature. My e. book, Nullius has an entire chapter dedicated to many other uniquely discovered examples of Darwin's and Wallace's obvious plagiarism of Matthew's book. 

As I reveal (see Sutton 2014, 2016 for the full citations) Matthew’s original explanatory analogy was, apparently, replicated first by Mudie (1832), then Low (1844), Darwin (1844), Wallace (in Darwin and Wallace 1858)  and by Darwin again (1859; 1868). Most tellingly, the same Big Data analysis of over 30 million publications in the publication record reveals that Mudie was apparently the “first to be second” in print with the original “Matthewism” “rectangular branching”. Some Darwinists have used social media - as Mr Malec does in a journal book review - to criticise the "first to be second" method employed in Nullius as being unreliable and subject to refutation. (see my reply here)Typically, in their desperate criticisms they imply that the findings made with this method is all that underpins Nullius. In reality, this is a minor part of the book. One must not forget that Nullius contains the hard and orignal evidence that Naturalists actually cited Matthew's book and ideas pre-1858.  Nevertheless, what these critics fail to realise is that good explanations in science are those that are capable of being refuted and are difficult to change once refuted.

Most significantly, Mudie was both an associate and two times co-author with Darwin’s most prolific informant Edward Blyth. Blyth’s own work was edited by Loudon, who cited Matthew’s book in 1832.  David Low’s replication of Matthew’s artificial analogy of differences is, arguably, unlikely to be purely coincidental. They were schoolmates at Perth Academy!

 Nullius 2014 reveals that Low was apparently twice “first to be second” with the Matthewisms: “long continued selection” and “overpowering the less”. He used each in different publications. Moreover, Low, just four years older than Matthew, was a highly esteemed Professor of Agriculture at the University of Edinburgh. He might, therefore, be the unnamed naturalist professor of a “celebrated university” who Matthew (1860) claimed, in his second open letter to Darwin in the Gardener's Chronicle, was afraid to teach his heretical and original ideas, or to mention them elsewhere, for fear of pillory punishment, long before 1859. Most importantly, Low was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as was Darwin’s great friend and mentor Charles Lyell. Laird Lyell’s manor house was just 20 miles from laird Matthew’s country seat. It seems improbable Lyell did not know of him and the scandal of heretical ideas in his book (more on Lyell and his connections here). Low's work was very carefully read by Darwin, according to Darwin's own notes, and then recommended by him to the Royal Society for the author's useful work on using artificial selection to explain natural selection.

A new fallacy has sprung up on social media that I am the only person to believe that Matthew influenced Darwin and Wallace through knowledge contamination of their influencers and facilitators and their influencers's influencers and facilitators or that Darwin more likely than not plagiarised Matthew. In reality, Samuel Butler (1887, p, 100) believed Darwin copied Matthew but then forgot he had done so. This same cryptomnesia explanation was proposed by Darwin's biographer Clarke (1984). Furthermore, Loren Eiseley (1981) was convinced that Darwin deliberately plagiarised Matthew, as is Milton Wainwright (2008) and (2011).

FACTS 4. Under the Royal Society imposed conventions for priority, as decided by the Arago Rule (Strivens 2003), in cases of non-plagiarised claimed dual or multiple independent conceptions, it is only those who are first to actually publish their original discoveries /original conceptions who have scientific priority for them.

FACTS 5. There is no independently verifiable evidence, other than that which Darwin (a proven serial liar) wrote on his private notebooks and essays in his private study, that Darwin wrote a single word on natural selection anywhere until 1857.  The earliest solid dated, independently verifiable, evidence we have that Darwin actually had definitely written any kind of note or essay on the topic pre-1858 is that he sent a mere abstract a private essay to Gray in 1857. See Sutton 2016 for the peer reviewed facts of the matter. Moreover, Matthew's (1831) book was published six years before Darwin is claimed to have written a single word on the topic in his private Zoonomia notebook of 1837-38, which opens on the subject of Matthew's area of professional expertise. Namely fruit trees. And contains many other examples (here). And Matthew's (1831) book was cited by Darwin's associate and correspondent Robert Chambers in 1832, by Loudon in 1832 (who edited two of Blyth's 1835, 1836 highly influential papers on evolution. Blyth being Darwin's prolific informant and correspondent on the topic) and by Selby in 1842 - the year Darwin is claimed to have penned his first private essay on the topic. Most significantly, Selby went on to be editor of Wallace's Sarawak paper on evolution. Loudon was well known to William Hooker, the father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker, who knew Loudon's work well and praised it to the skies in a book review (see Sutton 2016).

Loudon was also friends and co-author with John Lindley, who deceived the public pre-1858 in order to convince them that he and Lobb were first to propage and import the much loved and famous gaint redwood trees in Britain. All the while he possessed a letter proving that Matthew and his son were first to do so (get the facts here). Lindley's glory stealing fraud helped facilitate Darwin's later claim that Matthew was an obscure writer on forest trees.

FACTS 6.  It is propagandising pseudo-scholarly fact denial behaviour to claim  nonsense of the kind Richard Dawkins has written on this topic. Namely, that Matthew should have "trumpeted his discovery from the rooftops" to prove he understood what he had conceived at a time when it would have been criminally heretical to do so. Dawkins cherry-steps away from the fact that Matthew (1860) - using real examples - very forcefully informed Darwin of this fact in his second letter to the Gardener's Chronicle, where he told Darwin of an (unnamed) naturalist from a prestigious university who could not to teach his orignal work, or mention his orignal ideas elsewhere, for fear of pillory punishment - and that his book had been banned by Perth public library in Scotland (he called it by its nickname the Fair City) for the same reason.  For the very same reason, Robert Chambers (who is newly discovered to have cited Matthew in 1832) published his heretical Vestiges of Creation - the book that put evolution in the air in the mid 19th century - anonymously until the day he died. See Sutton 2014, 2016 for citations to the facts.

FACTS 7. The rationale (premise) for believing Darwin's and Wallace's claims to have each independently conceived Matthew's prior published origination is built entirely on total belief in Darwin's tale that no naturalist (as told in Darwin's 1860 letter of reply to Matthew in the Gardener's Chronicle)  or no one at all (as told by Darwin from the 1861 third edition onwards in every edition of his Origin of Species) is now a punctured myth because it is newly proven that naturalists well known to Darwin and Wallace, and to their influences and facilitators, their influencer's influencers and facilitators  in fact did read and then they cited Matthew's (1831) book in the literature years before 1858 (see Sutton 2014). Moreover, Darwin lied - and so committed glory thieving science fraud - when he claimed from 1860 onwards that no naturalist / no one at all had read Matthew's prior published conception - because Matthew had very plainly and forcefully informed Darwin, by way of his two letters published in the Gardener's Chronicle (1860), that the very opposite was true.

FACTS 8. We now newly have 100 per cent proven evidence that routes for knowledge contamination from Matthew's (1831) book to the minds of Darwin and Wallace did exist pre-1858. (See Sutton 2016). This is better than mere smoking gun evidence.

FACTS 9.  It is a fallacy that no one who read Matthew's ideas understood them before Darwin and Wallace replicated them and Matthew brought them to Darwin's public attention in 1860. In reality, in the first half of the 19th century, people would have avoided the taboo of writing about them, because they heretically trespassed on the realm of  natural divinity regarding the topic of the origin of species. This is why Chambers (who cited Matthew's book in 1832) had to publish anonymously his heretical Vestiges of Creation. Famously, as Darwin admitted from the third edition of the Origin of Species onwards,  it was the Vestiges that paved the way for public acceptance of his own book in the second half of the 19th century.  With regard to proof of the treatment of Matthew's work as taboo in the first half of that century,  The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine published an extended review of it in the 1831 Part II and 1831 Part III numbers of the magazine; it praised Matthew's book in around 13,000 words and would say no more  on natural selection other than: "But we disclaim participation in his ruminations on the law of Nature."  Today, it seems that the truth of this independently verifiable fact is heretical, because Wikipedia - in trying to claim that Matthew's orignal ideas were not understood - denies that this text actually exists in the 19th century publication record, immediately deleting each and every mention of it (get the clickable citation to that literature and the  facts on Wikipedia's fact deleting behaviour here).  As Matthew explained to Darwin in the Gardener's Chronicle in his second letter of 1860, his book was banned by Perth library in Scotland for its heresy and another naturalist feared to teach its contents for fear of pillory punishment (see Sutton 2016 for the full facts). Loudon (1832), however was so bold as to write that Matthew appeared to have something original to say on the "origin of species", no less. These facts all prove that Matthew's ideas were understood. However, most of those who we knewly know cited Matthew's (1831) book would be unlikely to mention its distasteful heresy in print. Moreover, logically, they did not have to provide evidence in the literature that they fully understood Matthew's then heretical ideas, and they did not even have to fully understand everything about natural selection in his book to know that Matthew had written something on evolution to, therefore, be in a position to give Darwin and Wallace any kind of "heads-up" that Matthew's book might be worth looking at. Because, rationally, knowledge contamination can happen in at least the following three ways (from Sutton 2016):

Prior published unique ideas may contaminate the minds and work of others in three
main ways:

(a). Innocent Knowledge Contamination: The spread of original ideas in
a prior-publication via (a) subsequent published sources on the topic,
which failed to cite the Originator as their source, or (b) word of mouth
and/or correspondence to the replicator by those who read the Originator’s
work or communicated with others who did — understood its importance
in whole or simply in part — but failed to tell the replicator
about its existence.

(b). Reckless or Negligent Knowledge Contamination: (a) The replicator
reads the original publication, absorbs information such as original
ideas and examples and terms, but forgets having read it — and never
does remember. (b) The replicator reads the original publication and takes
notes, but forgets the source of the notes. (c) The replicator is told
about original ideas in a publication by someone — who understands
their importance in whole or simply in part — who explains they come
from a publication, but the replicator fails to ask the name of the author
and title of the publication.

(c). Deliberate Knowledge Contamination (science fraud): The replicator
reads the original publication, or is told about its contents, takes notes,
or is given notes, remembers this, but pretends otherwise.

FACTS 10. It is a fallacy (e.g see Stott 2013) that Matthew was quite content after Darwin's 1860 and 1861 acknowledgments of Matthew's prior-published the hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection. In reality, he fought untill his dying day for full recognition for his original and prior published (1831) ideas, which Darwin replicated and continued to call "my theory". See the fully cited facts here.

Further Information

My position paper on this topic and details of all known published Darwinite defences to the New Data, along with my detailed and fully evidenced rebuttals to them, can be found on the relevant page on PatrickMatthew.com - Here

WILL THE ROYAL SOCIETY BE INTERESTED IN THE FACTS?

New Data & Plagiarism Question.@rwjdingwall Any objective scientists interested?
(1)https://t.co/lTxlr3VxCE
(2)https://t.co/0gInk67cql

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Dysology) September 7, 2016

Conclusion

The facts re-write the history of discovery of natural selection.

Perhaps we need an independent Veracity Institute to address all issues where independently verifiable facts bust much loved paradigms and then meet fierce resistance from those whose career and financial interests are underpinned by keeping the punctured premises, which support those paradigms, inflated with de-facto fact-denial pseudo scholarship, cherry picking, cognitive  blindsight, propaganda, mythmongering, fallacy spreading, obscene abuse and downright lies.

Get You Some of That Veracity!
GYSOT-V

The 10 Fact Groups that Prove Darwinities Undone: https://t.co/u0xw0yzq8O pic.twitter.com/oYzomY2AbB

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) August 31, 2016

Towards a Veracity Centre 

I am very optimistic this morning Veracity Centre will be born with Prof.Bykhovsky on board - see comments section https://t.co/HWk3DtO4kk

— Supermythbuster (@supermyths) September 2, 2016

Joseph Hooker Married the Widow of Sir William Jardine

Sir William Jardine

In 1876 Joseph Hooker married Hyacinth Jardine, formerly Symonds, the widow of Sir William Jardine.

What is notable about this is that in the story of the discovery of natural selection is that Joseph Hooker was Darwin's best friend and Hooker's father - William Hooker - was Alfred Wallace's mentor and correspondent pre-1858.  And it was William Jardine - a great friend of Selby - who obtained from Scotland, at Selby''s request, a copy of Patrick Matthew's 1831 book, which contained the full prior published hypothesis of natural selection. Selby cited Matthew's book many time in 1842 (see Sutton 2014a; Sutton 2014b) and then went on to be editor of Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper on organic evolution. Notably, Darwin's great friend Jenyns and Darwin's father were guests at Selby's house pre-1858.  Jenyns (1885) went on to write a book about Selby.

Interestingly, William Jardine wrote a savage review of Darwin's Origin of Species in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1860). A copy of it is here. In his review Jardine - in as 19th century gentlemanly way as possible - points out Darwin's obvious plagiarism: "Many of the facts are second-hand, and without authority given."

Clearly more research is needed into the relationships pre-1858 between the Hookers of Kew and William Jardine.

Post Sutton (2016) Further Newly discovered routes of potential pre-1858 knowledge contamination of Matthew's original ideas to Darwin and Wallace. 

1. William Jardine made the acquaintance of William Hooker (father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker) in 1847 (see page 24 of Jackson).

Alfred Wallace's Miraculous Cognitive Brain Enhancing Malarial Fever

Wallace's Silly Malarial Brain Fever Cognitive Enhancement Claim v Knowledge Contamination

Amazingly, the scientific community has never had the gumption to question Alfred Wallace's audaciously ludicrous claim to have independently conceived Patrick Matthew's (1831) prior-publication of the hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection whilst in a state of malarial delirium (e.g. Smith 2002, and Beccaloni 2015). If Wallace really did that, it is a miraculously unique case of malarial cognitive enhancement, the only one ever recorded in the history of medicine and science. 

Helps having screws loose to believe Wallace conceived idea of natural selection suffering from Malarial brain fever pic.twitter.com/JZe8hCsw4j

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) August 29, 2016

Laughably, there is even a puppet show video which embeds this credulously daft quasi-religious shamanesque cultish, insight through delerium, indoctrination nonsense into our wider society. Of course, his own tale would have appealed to Wallace, because - when not suffering from malarial delirium - he was a most enthusiastic believer in occult nonsense such as parlor room seances.

The much more plausible and sensible answer for how Wallace suddenly conceived this complex idea is by knowledge contamination (Sutton 2016). Because, as I originally discovered, Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper's editor, Selby,  had years earlier read and cited Patrick Matthew's (1831) orignal and prior-published conception of the exact same complex idea. Moreover, Wallace's mentor and correspondent was William Hooker, who was a friend and correspondent of John Loudon. And in 1832, Loudon reviewed Matthew's book and wrote that he appeared to have something orignal to say on "the origin of species" no less! Moreover, Loudon was co-author and friends with William Hooker's very best friend John Lindley. Hooker and Lindley both had their own books reviewed in the same prominent 1832 Gardener's Magazine publication that contained Loudon's review of Matthew's bomshel book. And Lindley, who went on to write two publications on the topic of naval timber  (see Sutton 2014) was known to believe in the transmutation of species. Pre 1858, Lindley went on to claim the glory for being the first to propagate in Britain the much loved famous Californian giant redwood trees and to claim that Lobb was the first to import them into Britain. Lindley did so whist in possession of a letter from Matthew proving that Matthew was first to import and propagate giant redwood seeds. His son John Matthew being first to deliver them into the UK. By this act of deceptive glory theft, Lindley cleared the way for Darwin to make his excuses for replicating without citing Matthew's work by successfully labelling Matthew as an obscure Scottish writer on forest trees. Get the facts on Lindley's fraud here.

What follows is from an earlier blog post (Sutton 2015) - minimally updated.

It is obvious why Matthew (1831)  the farming botanist and hybridising orchard owner, was able to see artificial selection and its effects as the key to understanding natural selection, but where in all his - Far East butterfly chasing, great ape shooting and rare wild bird shooting, netting and stuffing for sale - commercial endeavours are we supposed to believe Wallace independently alighted upon the same vital understanding? He claimed only to have gotten it all from the ideas of Malthus while in a recovering state of malarial delirium. Since Malthus wrote no such analogy about artificial selection, we might be led to wonder whether perhaps Wallace may have been delirious with fever when he dreamed up such a batty explanation.

Now see what Wallace (1858) took from the Originator, because audaciously, Wallace (1858) in the jungles of the Far East incredibly replicates Matthew’s discovery that artificial selection is the key to explaining natural selection:

‘…those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour - those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, "a struggle for existence," in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.’ [And]: ‘We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race.’

In his unpublished essay of 1844, Darwin wrote.

‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’

Eiseley (1979) was convinced that the number of similarities between these sections of Matthew's and Darwin's text was too great to be coincidental. But he would no doubt had been doubly convinced had he spotted that the above paragraph from NTA contains the phrase that Darwin (1859) four-word-shuffled into ‘process of natural selection.

If Darwinists are not yet convinced by this combined discovery that Darwin had read NTA by 1844, then they will need to explain why, as Eiseley (1979) discovered, Darwin’s same paragraph re-appears, shortened, with additional information from NTA in Darwin’s (1868) book ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’, where Darwin actually cites Matthew. Surely, if Darwin’s use of the example of trees raised in nurseries versus those in nature had not been ‘lifted’ by him, in 1844, from Matthew, then why else did he cite Matthew as the source when he reproduced the exact same idiosyncratic example twenty four years later in 1868 – seven years after Matthew challenged him for replicating his 1831 discovery of the law of natural selection?

In his book ‘On Landed Property, and the Economy of Estates’ (1844), on Page 546, Low was once again apparently first to be second with an NTA expression – once again without citing Matthew. In this later book it was Matthew’s original phrase: ‘overpowering the less.’ This discovery, of Low twice replicating Matthew’s unique phrases in different books confirms the veracity of the First to be Second Hypothesis. And the value of the method in identifying plagiarism of ideas is further confirmed by the fact that 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 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.’

Low's book was identified through searching for unique Matthewisms. It was the Matthewism “overpowering the less” that fetched Lows book down from the virtual bookshelf. We can see how Matthew (1831 pp. 106-108) first used it:

'When woods are planted of various kinds of timber, the stronger, larger growing kinds will sometimes acquire room by overwhelming the smaller: but when the forest is of one kind of tree, and too close, all suffer nearly alike, and follow each other fast in decay, as their various strength of constitution gives way; unless, from some negligence or defect in planting, a portion of the plants have come away quickly, and the others hung back sickly for several years, so that the former might master the latter: or when some strong growing variety overtops its congeners. In the natural forest of America, when a clearance by any means is effected, the young seedlings, generally all of one kind, spring up so numerous, that, choaking each other, they all die together in a few years. This close springing up and dying is sometimes repeated several times over; different kinds of trees rising in succession, till the seeds in the soil be so reduced as to throw up plants so far asunder as to afford better opportunity for the larger growing varieties to develop their strength; and, overpowering the less, thus acquire spread of branches commensurate to the height, and thence strength of constitution sufficient to bear them forward to large trees.'

In Matthew’s paragraph below, we see the arbourist’s most natural choice of phrase ‘diverging ramifications of life’, which can be essentially visualized exactly as Darwin later drew his famous tree of life – the word ramify meaning to branch, and divergence meaning to spread outward.

Matthew (1831 p. 383) wrote:

‘…diverging ramifications of life, which from the connected sexual system of vegetables, and the natural instincts of animals to herd and combine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups, these remnants in the course of time moulding and accommodating their being anew to the change of circumstances, and to every possible means of subsistence, and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to have followed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation was completed affording fossil deposit of regular specific character.’

In addition to the same use of words, though slightly modified, readers can plainly see for themselves the exact same complex ideas, originated by Matthew and replicated by Darwin in the following three snippets of his text from the Origin.

Darwin (1859 - respectively p.383; p. 129 and 331):

‘…as before remarked, one order; and this order, from the continued effects of extinction and divergence of character, has become divided into several sub-families and families, some of which are supposed to have perished at different periods, and some to have endured to the present day.’

‘…ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups…’

’Hence we can understand the rule that the most ancient fossils differ most from existing forms. We must not, however, assume that divergence of character is a necessary contingency; it depends solely on the descendants from a species being thus enabled to seize on many and different places in the economy of nature.’

From these three snippets of his text, we can see that Darwin bloated, dispersed and re-phrased Matthew’s text in an effort to hide its provenance. Unmistakably, in 1859, he used Matthew's (1831) book as a template for key text in the Origin.

As I uniquely discovered (Sutton 2014), Selby cited Matthew's book many times in his own book of 1844, he then went on to edit Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper. Darwin read that Sarawak paper and corresponded with Wallace, encouragingly, about its contents pre-1858. Knowledge contamination – however the knowledge contamination probably happened – from Matthew to Wallace is plainly in evidence in the few examples below that are sampled also from Nullius:

The following primary exercise is a simple comparative textual analysis that focuses on Wallace’s (1855) famous Sarawak paper only.

Wallace (1855): wrote

‘Most or perhaps all the variations from the typical form of a species must have some definite effect, however slight, on the habits or capacities of the individuals. Even a change of colour might, by rendering them more or less distinguishable, affect their safety; a greater or less development of hair might modify their habits. More important changes, such as an increase in the power or dimensions of the limbs...’

Going back twenty four years earlier to Matthew, we can see exactly where Wallace got his ideas. Matthew (1831) wrote:

‘This principle is in constant action, it regulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts; those individuals of each species, whose colour and covering are best suited to concealment or protection from enemies, or defence from vicissitude and inclemencies of climate, whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support…’

And there are many more audacious replications to be seen before we are done with Wallace. In the following presentation of them, I believe no further commentary is required. Wallace’s plagiarism unfolds clearly once followed by Matthew’s original text.

Wallace (1855):

‘We are also made aware of the difficulty of arriving at a true classification, even in a small and perfect group;- in the actual state of nature it is almost impossible, the species being so numerous and the modifications of form and structure so varied.’ [And] ‘Many more of these modifications should we behold, and more complete series of them, had we a view of all the forms which have ceased to live. The great gaps that exist between fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals would then, no doubt, be softened down by intermediate groups…’

‘It has now been shown, though most briefly and imperfectly, how the law that "Every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with a pre-existing closely allied species," connects together and renders intelligible a vast number of independent and hitherto unexplained facts. The natural system of arrangement of organic beings, their geographical distribution, their geological sequence, the phenomena of representative and substituted groups in all their modification.’

Matthew (1831):

‘… we have felt considerable inconvenience from the adopted dogmatical classification of plants and have all along been floundering between species and variety which certainly under culture soften into each other’.

‘In endeavouring to trace in the former way, the principle of these changes of fashion which have taken place in the domiciles of life, the following questions occur: Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing intermediate species? Are they the diverging ramifications of the living principle under modification of circumstance.’

Wallace (1855):

‘…being so numerous and the modifications of form and structure so varied, arising probably from the immense number of species which have served as antitypes for the existing species, and thus produced a complicated branching of the lines of affinity, as intricate as the twigs of a gnarled oak or the vascular system of the human body.’

Matthew (1831);

‘…one of the most evident traits of natural history, that vegetables as well as animals are generally liable to an almost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil, nourishment, and new commixture of already formed varieties..’ ‘…for new diverging ramifications of life…’

From this simple preliminary comparison of extracts from the Sarawak paper with NTA, it is patently obvious that, three years before he sent his Ternate paper to Darwin, Wallace had plagiarized Matthew’s hypotheses in his 1855 Sarawak paper. The similarities in wording, concepts and ideas are too great and to numerous for Wallace to have possibly come up with them independently the Originator. Most crucially, Wallace’s Sarawak articulation includes many of Matthew’s key natural selection concepts:

(a) Variety in species being restricted by necessary adaptations to conditions, (b) the importance of adaptation for survival (c) the extinction of others through competitive struggle (d) only the best circumstance suited most successfully reproducing (e), and the process of unlimited organic change through modification over almost unimaginable periods of time to originate new species. Wallace, like Darwin, took not only Matthew’s discovery and his invented hypothesis, he stole also his unique synthesis of ideas, phrases and examples. For example, in his Ternate Paper Wallace replicated Matthew’s unique use of artificial selection as a heuristic device to explain natural selection. It is blatantly obvious, by this replication of so many of Matthew’s original ideas, that Wallace relied heavily upon Matthew’s 1831 book to structure his thoughts on natural selection and then to explain them.

Without Matthew, the descriptive prose that changed the way we understand the world would have been completely different. Without Matthew, the discovery of the natural law of organic evolution would, most likely, have been penned not in the 19th century, but much later in the 20th century. Almost certainly, it would not have been called natural selection. Perhaps it might have been called The Development Theory.

How do we decide which story is true? Were the Replicators, Darwin and Wallace, Schnooks or Crooks?

As far as I can tell, the only way is to weigh all the relevant data we have (not just cherry pick out the odd bit that suits us) in light of what we know about the way the world operates. In other words, without a confession or a smoking gun, all we have is multiple whiffs of cordite. In the light of where that gun-smoke lingers, we act as jury members and weigh all the hard and independently verifiable evidence - subjectively. We do, however have better than smoking gun evidence that - as opposed to the old paradigm of "no natuaralist read it so Darwin and Wallace independently conceived it"  Matthew's original ideas in fact - we now newly knw - were read by other naturalists. Indeed by naturalists at the epicentre of influence of Darwin and Wallace and their influencer's influencers (see Sutton 2016 for the 100 per cent independently verifiable facts) .  And that represents smoking gun evidence for the existence of the rational likelihood of  some form of Matthewian knowledge contamination of the pre-1858 minds of Darwin and Wallace through one of the newly discovered routes for it to have happened via one of the three subtypes of knowledge contamination outlined in Sutton 2016.

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Nullius in Verba

Some Darwinists, one or two of whom I have named and shamed for their unethical or desperately pseudo-scholarly behavior, and others here have sought to deny the importance of the New Data. From that cause, to seek to put a stop to such wormy efforts in original and new fact-burial, I have released here, into the public domain, a small part of my original research findings from my new book "Nullius".

I ask Darwinists to please avoid the temptation to engage in cherry-picking from the New Data only what suits them. To do so would be to seek to misrepresent the significance of my findings, rather than weighing the whole, as they know they should.

Many more important new findings are in my book Nullius. They are too numerous to be covered in full here, and I hope you will forgive my lack of altruism in not giving way all of my unique work for free. Both my publisher, their employees and I need to eat and we all have others for whom it is our duty to provide.

I hope that providing this information will serve as a freely available reference point for others to see some of what has actually been newly discovered, so that they might weigh its importance. I expect they will in some way weigh it as a jury member would. The idea is that people can now judge for themselves what the New Data means for the veracious history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection.

I would like to make here one essential argument that is independent of my on research. It is that Patrick Matthew, by virtue of the Arago Effect, as enshrined in the principles of priority for scientific discovery (Merton 1957   ) has always had full priority over Darwin and Wallace, because the accepted rule is that being first is everything. With regard to this fact I have a peer reviewed paper    another here (Sutton 2016) on the topic. 

The New Data, however, takes us even further to debunk the unjust, uniquely "made for Mathew", priority denial rationalization fallacies, created by Darwinists to effectively deny Matthew his rightful priority. The story of how these 'special privileges' for Darwin and Wallace and 'special prejudices' against Matthew have been effectively used by Darwinists occupying key positions in the British Association for Advancement of Science and in the Royal Society of London is told in Nullius.

Did Alfred Russel Wallace wear a tinfoil hat? Did Darwin have a miraculous cognitive condom?

The Botanist Robert Hogg: On his currently known associations with Matthew and Darwin

The Famous Botanist Robert Hogg

 I discovered some interesting new information about the botanist Robert Hog   g and his associations with Matthew's orchards, Matthew's son Robert and later (post-1859) with Charles Darwin.

Hogg was a leading expert on apples and apple trees. Click here    to see a sample of his important publications.

I have as yet found no evidence to suggest that Darwin met or corresponded with Robert Hogg before Darwin had published his Origin of Species (the book that replicated Matthew's prior-published hypothesis - but never cited Matthew). However, information provided by Hogg is most important for purposes of verifying other examples of botanical and agricultural importance of particular trees in Matthew's orchards in the 19th century.

In 1859    Hogg wrote about Matthew's son Robert providing him with valuable advice on apple trees. Then in 1884 Hogg wrote    about an earlier visit to Matthew's orchard in 1846 and that he was shown an important fruit producing shoot one of the rare trees within it.

Google library projectAttribution

Robert Hogg - botanist - at Matthew's orchard in 1846.

The Golden Pippin Mere-Coincidence?

Is it a mere coincidence that Dariwin's notebook of books to read had in it a reference to the journal that contained a lengthy correspondence by Matthew (1829) on the subject of Matthew's apple hybridization expertise, in which Matthew wrote of his own famously unique scarlet golden pippin apple tree - most importantly grown from a pip and not a mutant fruiting branch graft onto old crab-apple tree stock - as is the usual necessity to maintain any new hybridized or 'ramifying' variety of apple fruit?

Is it then also mere-coincidence that Darwin's Zoonomia notebook - dated by Darwin 1837-38 - began on the very subject of fruit trees and had in it the famous phrase that Darwin's son, Francis, saw as the first clue that Darwin had begun then to first understand the role of mutation by natural selection in the generation of new varieties and species of all organic life?

Darwin wrote 'They die; without they change; like Golden Pippens. It is a generation of species. Like generation of individuals.'

(c) Darwin Correspondence ProjectAttribution

From Darwin's Zoonomia notebook of 1837-1838

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Nullius in Verba

Matthew was an expert on apple trees - he owned one of the best orchards in Scotland and had a published and cited international reputation as a hybridization expert and agriculturalist. He was even listed by Loudon as a botanist. Darwin was no expert on the topic of trees. Darwin even misspelled Pippins as "Pippens" and later made a simple mistake regarding what species of crab apple tree he owned. This topic - and the role of crab-apple trees- in helping Mathew and then Darwin understand the natural process of selection is discussed in-depth in my book:Nullius in Verba: Darwin''s Greatest Secret.

As said, it is not known whether Darwin associated with Hogg before Darwin published the Origin of Species (I have found nothing to suggest they met or corresponded before 1859) ,  And post-Origin Darwin published article   s in Hogg's journal 'The Cottage Gardener' (later re-named The Journal of Horticulture). And Hogg was mentioned to Darwin in later correspondence: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-6721.xml

Like Darwin (FLS), Hogg (FLS) - a Scot - studied medicine at Edinburgh. Like Darwin, he was also a member of the Linnean Society (Hogg from at least 185   3). Darwin's best friend and collaborator in the 1858 Linnean debacle - where Wallace's and Darwin's papers were read together without Wallace's consent, Joseph Hooker (FLS), was elected in 1854   . Darwin was elected to the Council of the Linnean society in 1858.    Darwin's other great friend and geological mentor Lyell (FLS) - another Scot - was elected to the Linnean society in 1819   .

Hogg was also an early Secretary    of the Royal Horticultural Society.

According to a local historic society   , Hogg had a background that reveals to us his interests were not dissimilar to Matthew's involvement with forestry, and also their respective wider family connections with nursery work:

Robert Hogg (1818 - 1897), Farmer, Fireburnmill Farm, Coldstream, was the son of Robert Hogg of the firm of Hogg & Wood of Coldstream, suppliers of forest trees and agricultural seeds. Hogg was educated at a private school in Duns and Edinburgh University. In 1836 he worked in the nursery of John Ronalds, London, and after traviling and studying in Europe he bought Brompton Nursery ( on the site of the Victoria and Albert Museum), renaming it Gray, Adams and Hogg. Hogg was the General Secretary for the International Horticultural Congress, 1866 and represented the Royal Horticultural Society at the International Exhibition, St Petersburg. He was Secretary to the RHS 1875 - 1884. He had many publications on Horticulture and Fruit.

Further research into Hogg's role in the story of Matthew, Wallace and Darwin is on-going.

References for Hogg

Hogg, R. (1859) The apple and its varieties being a history and description of the varieties of apples cultivated in the gardens and orchards of Great Britain. London. Groombridge and sons.

Hogg, R, (1884) The fruit manual : a guide to the fruits and fruit trees of Great Britain.London : Journal of Horticulture Office,

Darwin, the Hookers, Patrick Matthew and the Crab Apple Tree Connection

In 1844 Darwin and his wife Emma met William and Joseph Hooker (who were very well known to John Loudon, John Lindley, Jameson and Wallace) for an evening at Kew. Their transcribed correspondence  (see also ar Darwin Online) reveals that they discussed crab apples. Darwin would later hide behind Emma in his correspondence to Matthew. And Hooker and Darwin agreed that only naturalists with specific collecting and species classification experience such as they, excluding others such as Matthew, should be allowed to write on the subject of transmutation of species,

In Nullius (Sutton 2014) I explain the importance of crab apple trees as an explanatory analogy of differences for the difference between natural and artificially selected varities of  plants and animals and how those long selected by nature are far better able to survive in the wild than those selected by human breeding (artificial slection) interference. Being an internationally famous apple grower and breeder in the 19th century, Matthew mentions crab apple trees in this regard quite a lot in his (1831) book - On Naval Timber - which is the the first publication of the full hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection.

Matthew (1831) was the first to write the artificial v natural selection explanatory of differences. It is so important that Wallace used it in his (1858) Ternate Paper and Darwin used it to open the very first chapter of the Origin of Species.

In Nullius, I also discuss how fruit trees were the very first thing that Darwin wrote about organic evolution in his 1837-38 private Zoonomia notebook, and how his notebook of books read reveals that pre-1858 held in his hands five publications - including one all about apples written by Matthew - citing Matthew's work on fruit breeding and trees. Darwin (1837-1838)  being no expert could not even consistently spell pippin correctly.The plodding replicator wrote:

‘Never They die, without they change; like Golden Pippens it is a generation of species like generation of individuals.’

Darwin spelled pippin correctly elsewhere in his Zoonomia notebook. Searching on the term within his notebook reveals just how important the example of elected apples was in influencing his thinking

On page 72 he wrote: 

'If species generate other species, their race is not utterly cut off; — like golden pippen, if produced by seed go on. — otherwise all die. — The fossil horse generated in S. Africa Zebra — & continued. — perished in America'

On page 220 Darwin (1837-38) writes about crab apples:

'Important. For instance take Valvata & Conus (??) which now run together; were not both genera formerly abundant.

Seed of Ribston Pippin tree go producing crab is the offspring of a male & female animal of one variety going back ? Whether this going back may not be owing to cross from other trees????'

On page 230:

'Do the seeds of Ribston Pippin & Golden Pippin &c produce real crabs, & in each case similar or mere mongrels?

It really would be worth trying to isolate some plants under glass bells & see what offspring would come from them. Ask Henslow for some plants whose seeds go back again, not a monstrous plant, but any marked variety. — Strawberry produced by seeds?? '

Matthew was world famous for owning a Golden Pippin apple tree grown from seed and Darwin (pre 1858) owned a copy of the publication containing Matthew's article on it. The famous botanist Hogg wrote about it (here).

William Lawrence hinted at organic evolution, mentioning crab apples. Therefore, it is quite possible his work would have influenced Matthew - Here.  In the same blog post, I include a reference to Erasmus Darwin (Darwin's grandfather's) interest in crab apples and Golden Pippins. This work may have influenced both Charles Darwin and Patrick Matthew, but neither cited it. I conclude my blog post on the topic that it seems - on the available evidence - that Matthew was influenced by Erasmus Darwin's observations on crab apples and grafting. 

In Nullius I reveal that there was a copy of Matthew's (1831) book in the library at Kew, but that a librarian there, searching for it at my request, informed me this valuable book was "missing" and so had been, apparently, stolen. Hence, we may never know whether it was one of the books William Hooker donated to the library pre-1858.