Smoking Gun Evidence: What is it Exactly? Proposing the Concept of "Gunsmoke Evidence"

The term "smoking gun" is generally held to mean an item of of incontrovertible incriminating evidence. My 19th edition of Brewer's Phrase and Fable (2012. p.1253) explains:
 'The phrase acquired a particularly apt association with the widely diverging views, before, during and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 about whether Saddam Hussain still possessed WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Their discovery would have been hailed by the finders as a smoking gun.'    

At the time of writing, Wikipedia is once again wrong in its etymology, this time to claim that the term 'smoking gun' derives from an 1893 Sherlock Holmes story. 

Anyway, better than mere 'smoking gun' incriminating evidence of Wikipedia's mistake exists, because  it is 100 per cent proven to have been used in published print at least as early as 1878 (Appleton's Journal. p. 17):

'Two men approached, the younger with a smoking gun:

"So it's you, is it?" said she as he came up.
"It is I" said he with a smile.
"Well I think you've got very little to do to go round shootin' fleckers. This one in particular. I was just gettin'  used to him."

On Smoking Gun Evidence in the story of who really did read Patrick Matthew's prior published origination of the hypothesis of natural selection.

Darwin and Wallace (1858) and Darwin (1859) replicated Matthew's origination of macroevolution of natural selection. They failed to cite Matthew, and they claimed to have arrived at Matthew's prior-published bombshell concept independently of Matthew. Darwin and Wallace excused themselves for doing so by claiming (as a proven lie in Darwin's case) that Matthew's ideas were unread by any naturalist  / anyone at all before 1860. In reality, as opposed to the credulous zombie-hoard mynah birding of Darwin's lies (e.g. de Beer 1962, Mayr, 1982), by Darwin's followers and promoters, the Darwinists, Darwin's and Wallace's friends, associates, correspondents and facilitators and their influencers influencers, the naturalists Loudon, Chambers, Selby and Jameson all read and cited Matthew's book pre 1858 (see Sutton 2014).

So what constitutes 'smoking-gun' evidence in this case?  I would propose that there are three areas where the usefulness of the phrase needs to be examined.

1.  Smoking gun evidence that Darwin or Wallace read the original ideas in Matthew's (1831)book themselves or in some other way copied from it.
2. Smoking gun evidence that, as opposed to the 'no naturalists read it' premise, that other naturalists did read Matthew's orignal ideas pre-1858.
3. Smoking gun evidence that Darwin lied in 1860, and in 1861 (and in every edition of the 'Origin of Species' thereafter) when he claimed that no naturalist / no one at all read Matthew's orignal ideas before 1858. 

Smoking gun evidence

The 'New Data' discovered in 2014 and first published in Nullius in Verba provides better than mere smoking gun evidence for 2 and 3 above. We know other naturalists did read Matthew's orignal ideas pre-1858, because they cited his 1831 book before that date and mentioned those original ideas. The 100 per cent proof of the matter exists in the print record of the 19th century published literature.  And Darwin's lies are proven because before he wrote them Matthew informed him in print in the Gardener's Chronicle (1860), very clearly and forcefully, that at least two naturalists did read his ideas and that his book was banned by the public library of Perth in Scotland (see Sutton 2015 and also Sutton 2016). But, with regard to point 1, above, we have not discovered a letter to or from Darwin or Wallace, or a notebook or diary entry, anywhere, that indicates Darwin or Wallace read or were told about Matthew's (1831) book before they replicated so much of Matthew's orignal work. But the fact that much of Darwin's and Wallace's and the notebooks and correspondence of other 19th century naturalists is lost or destroyed means that absence of evidence in this regard cannot rationally be considered as evidence of absence it ever happened.

However, what we do have with regard to point 1 is solid proof that some form of pre-1858 Matthewian knowledge contamination of the minds of Wallace and Darwin could have happened via Loudon, Selby, Chambers, Jameson and others newly discovered to have read and cited Matthew's (1831) book pre-1858.

And we know that knowledge contamination can take place in at least three main ways (see Sutton 2016):

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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.

Gunsmoke evidence

From the solid evidence from the correspondence and publication record of the 19th century (see Sutton 2104 for the fully cited proof of the following facts) we know that academics talk and share sources and ideas. We know that editors insist on changes and insertions to text and we know that Loudon edited two of Blyth's influential articles - which influenced Darwin and Wallace. We know that Loudon was a friend of Lindley (William Hooker's best friend, who was the father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker) and a correspondent of William Hooker. And we know that William Hooker was Wallace's mentor and correspondent from as early as 1848 and that they met before Hooker wrote a letter of introduction for Wallace in 1848 so that he could set off specimen collecting for cash - some of which came his way from Hooker. We know that Selby edited Wallace's Sarawak paper,  was a friend of Darwin's father and Darwin's good friend and most frequent correspondent Jenyns. We know that Selby was a close associate of William Hooker's circle and we know that Chambers met and corresponded with Darwin pre-1858. Moreover, we know that Jameson was a regular correspondent of William Hooker pre-1858. All this, if not "smoking gun" evidence, is certainly evidence of multiple whiffs of gunsmoke; a type of evidence classed as "circumstantial evidence". In the story of Darwin, Matthew and Wallace there is an awful lot if it - and much more than is covered in this blog post (see Sutton 2014) This circumstantial evidence, combined with more than smoking-gun proof of Darwin's lies, and proof that the original ideas in Matthew's (1831) book were cited by Darwin's and Wallace's influencers and their influencer's influencers pre-1858, completely punctures the 'no naturalists read Matthew's orignal ideas pre-1858' and the 'honest Darwin' myth' - upon which is founded the old paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's supposed dual independent conceptions of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis.

Conclusion

We do have two important items of better than smoking gun evidence of Matthew's pre-1858 influence on Darwin's and Wallace's work on natural selection. These are points 1 and 2 below. And we do have smoking gun evidence, as well as lots of gun smoke evidence in point 3 below:

1. We 100 per cent know that the orignal ideas in Matthew's (1831) book were read by Darwin's and Wallace's influencers and their influencer's influencers before Darwin and Wallace replicated them. This is better than 'smoking gun' evidence, because it absolutely disproves the 'no naturalist read Matthew pre-1859' premise that underpins the old Darwinite paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's dual independent conceptions of Matthew's prr-published hypothesis.
2. We 100 per cent know Darwin lied when he claimed no naturalist /no one at all read Matthew's prior-published ideas before he replicated them. This is also better than 'smoking gun' evidence, because it completely disproves the honest Darwin premise that also underpins the Darwinite paradigm of Darwin's independent conception of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis.
3. Due to our rational understanding of the concept and typologies of  of 'knowledge contamination' we have a lot of smoking gun, evidence that those who read Matthew's (1831) orignal ideas had many opportunities to influence Darwin and Wallace and influence their influencers with Matthew's original ideas  many years before 1858. This represents "gun smoke evidence" that such knowledge contamination took place.
4. We have no smoking gun evidence that Darwin and Wallace did copy Matthew's orignal ideas or were knowledge contaminated by them pre-1858.

From this four-point analysis, it can be argued that insistence upon smoking-gun evidence to substantiate claims of Darwin's and Wallace's probable Matthewian 'knowledge contamination' is based upon a misunderstanding of the better than mere smoking gun paradigm busting facts of the New Data in this story and of the gun-smoke significance of the multiple examples of newly discovered clear routes for Matthewian knowledge contamination of the pre-1858 minds of Darwin and Wallace.

Please note: Wikipedia's corrupt editors are not averse to altering its story-lines by plagiarising my orignal discoveries and passing them off as their own (as they did with my unique discovery of the origination of the term 'moral panic') - so their fallacious account of the origin of the term "smoking gun" will undoubtedly change at some point, but without citation to this blog post. 

I Gave The @royalsociety & Scientific Establishment a "Fact-Wedgie". See what happened next: https://t.co/i3rmOJPwzB pic.twitter.com/b9G0Sho0jN

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) August 22, 2016

19th Century Bombshell for Biology: Darwin and Wallace Now Proven to have been Influenced by Patrick Matthew

This blog post was first published on Best Thinking on 23rd March 2014

Following one of the Most Important Discoveries of the 21st Century, Scotland has a new Science Hero and England has the World's Two Greatest Science Fraudsters.

Evolutionary biologists generally agree that the Scottish laird, farmer and orchardist, Patrick Matthew (1831) was the first discoverer of natural selection. He published his discovery with major London and Edinburgh publishers 27 years before Darwin and Wallace replicated it (see Dawkins 2010). However, the rules (Merton 1957, Stevens 2003) and the protocols of scientific priority are that a discoverer of unique knowledge must fulfill two conditions to awarded absolute scientific priority for their breakthrough. What we might term Condition I is that they must be the first to publish their breakthrough. And Condition II is that their publication must influence the work of at least one major scholar in the field.

Last week I sent a paper to a scientific journal. That paper reveals just some of the many new discoveries contained in my forthcoming book (Sutton 2014). Namely, that Patrick Matthew (1831) influenced what Darwin and Wallace wrote on natural selection in the years before their papers (Darwin and Wallace 1858) were read before the Linnean Society, and before the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ (Darwin 1859).

Hi-Tech research methods allowed me to search the 30 million documents in Google’s Library Project to find hidden publications that led to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest discoveries of the 21 century. Because the 19th century publications that I discovered prove – contrary to current Darwinian knowledge beliefs that nobody read it – that Matthew’s published (Matthew 1831) prior discovery of the ‘natural process of selection’ was in fact read by seven naturalists pre-1848. And we know they read it because they actually cited it in the literature. The Citing Seven are: Robert Chambers (1832), John Loudon (1832), Edmund Murphy (1834), Cuthbert Johnson (1842), Prideaux John Selby (1842), John Norton (1851) (see Stephens and Norton), and William Jameson (1853).

BOMBSHELL DISCOVERY!

The absolute bombshell for biology and the history of science is that three of these seven played central roles in influencing and facilitating Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on natural selection.

Proof Positive of Highly Likely Matthewian Knowledge Contamination, by Three Naturalists, who either facilitated, as both Editors and Publishers (Loudon and Selby), or else Influenced with their own writing (Chambers,) Darwin's and Wallace's Writing on Organic Evolution Years Before Publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'

• Robert Chambers (1845) published the best selling Vestiges of Creation, a book covering the topic of organic evolution that both Darwin and Wallace admitted was a major influence upon their thinking, that of other naturalists and the wider public.
• Loudon both edited and published Blyth’s (1835, 1836) influential articles on variation within species. Darwin (1861) admitted that Blyth was one of his most important influences and a most valuable informant on the subject of evolution and variety in species.
• Selby edited and published Wallace’s (1855) Sarawak paper, which set down his natural selection marker in the field of organic evolution.

The fact that three out of the total of seven naturalists newly discovered to have read Matthew's 1831 book pre-Origin were right at the centre of influence and facilitation of Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on organic evolution completely destroys the current knowledge-belief (e.g. Judd 1909; Dawkins 2010), in the field of evolutionary biology, that Darwin and Wallace discovered natural selection independently of Matthew's breakthrough.

Darwin and Wallace went to their graves claiming that pre-1860 neither they nor anyone else in the field was aware of Matthew’s published ideas. Darwin (1861) wrote:

‘In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal,' and as that enlarged on in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' on April 7th, 1860.’

And Contrary to Stott’s (2012) outrageous falsehood about Matthew happily handing over the mantle for the discovery of natural selection to Darwin, Matthew, by then bankrupt and impoverished, went to an unmarked grave, somewhere in Errol churchyard in Scotland, having fought all his life, without success, for the recognition he deserved for discovering natural selection many years before Darwin and Wallace. For example, at the 1867 British Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Dundee, Scotland, which was attended by Darwin’s friends Charles Lyell, Robert Chambers and Alfred Wallace – Matthew (1867), then aged 77 years, was platform blocked! He complained in the press that he was strategically prevented from speaking about his discovery. No one listened then, because Darwin and his adoring Darwinists had so cleverly, yet fallaciously, portrayed Matthew as a deluded crank.

146 years later, the whole world will listen now that we have 100 per cent proof of the fact that Matthew is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the naturalist who discovered natural selection, influenced other naturalists with his published ideas, who then influenced and facilitated the work of Darwin and Wallace in the same field of discovery.

Darwinians, who weirdly believe that their own failure to seek and find data is proof such data does not exist, will now have to embrace the newly discovered facts and dump their lazy rhetoric. There are many of them who have written on the Matthew problem, and they are fairly well typified by Bowler in their lack of curiosity and fallacious certainty (1983 p.158):

‘One writer has even gone so far as to hail Matthew as the originator of the modern evolution theory (Dempster 1996). Such efforts to denigrate Darwin misunderstand the whole point of the history of science: Matthew did suggest a basic idea of selection, but he did nothing to develop it; and he published it in an appendix to a book on the raising of trees for ship building. No one took him seriously, and he played no role in the emergence of Darwinism. Simple priority is not enough to earn a thinker a place in the history of science: one has to develop the idea and convince others of its value to make a real contribution. Darwin’s notebooks confirm that he drew no inspiration from Matthew or any of the other alleged precursors.’

We now know Bowler is completely wrong, because we now have absolute solid proof that Matthew did directly influence Loudon, Chambers and Selby - who at turns influenced, edited and facilitated the work of Blyth Darwin and Wallace while in possession of Matthew's ideas and his great discovery. Moreover, surely it is Bowler who misunderstands that the whole point of the history of science is to question, to investigate, to unearth facts and to use new discoveries and related facts in order to understand the past - accurately. Good scholars never stop looking! And as a result of such curiosity driven research - of the kind that Darwinists such as Bowler surely deem heretical - we now know more about the influnce of Matthew during the smoggy 28 year span between his published breakthrough and Darwin's (1859) replication of it in theOrigin of Species.

Contrary to the handy Darwinian Appendix Myth, Matthew (1831) most certainly did not bury his discovery in an appendix; he mentions it throughout the book. Matthew even names it the ‘natural process of selection’ in the main body of his book. Incidentally, Matthew's unique term for his unique discovery was, in turn, uniquely four-word shuffled into 'process of natural selection' nine times by Darwin in the first edition of the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859). Ideas from the main body of Matthew's book, not its appendix, were cited by Selby (1842) and Jameson (1853) to explain Matthew's discovery of the complex relationship between an organism being 'most circumstance suited' and competing with others having a 'greater power of occupancy'. Such attempts as Bowler's, and those Darwinist's who cite his criticism of Dempster in a positive light, to selectively stifle critical scholarship by deployment of self-serving fallacies, myths and hero-worship of higher orthodox authority denigrates the scientific process that has taken us forward since the great enlightenment (see: Deutsch 2010). Furthermore, the dangers of such bias clouding reason are revealed in Bowler's desperate deployment of jumbled logic, because absence of any reference to Matthew in Darwin's notebooks proves nothing. Not only are many pages torn out from those notebooks, just as so many of his letters are missing, but Darwin started the notebooks that have survivedafter Matthew published his 1831 book.

Patrick Matthew is the greatest deductive thinker the world has ever known.

You can read the full story, of how I detected Darwin’s and Wallace’s great science fraud in my forthcoming book, which is packed with further new evidence of Darwin’s lies, Wallace’s extortion of Darwin and his friends, and details of who else Darwin knew who read Matthew’s book pre-Origin.

Nullius in Verba: The Hi-Tech Detection of Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s Great Science Fraud. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Books. By Mike Sutton [in Press – Spring 2014].

If you would like to know more, I have written an article on this topic, which I hope proves useful:

• Internet Dating with Darwin

Related blog posts

• On Darwin’s and Wallace’s great science fraud ,
• The Finch Myth .
• On Darwin and Dawkins and Plodding Selfish Replicators

Follow me on Twitter for further details of my forthcoming book on The World's Greatest Science Fraud.

References

Blyth, E. 1835. An attempt to classify the “varieties” of animals. The Magazine of Natural History. (8) (1), Parts 1-2.

Blyth, E. 1836. Observations on the various seasonal and other external Changes which regularly take place in Birds more particularly in those which occur in Britain; with Remarks on their great Importance in indicating the true Affinities of Species; and upon the Natural System of Arrangement. The Magazine of Natural History: Volume 9. p. 393 – 409.

Bowler, P. (1983) Evolution: the history of an idea. Berkeley. The University of California Press. p.158.

Chambers, W. and Chambers, R (1832). Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. William Orr. Saturday March 24th . p. 63.

Chambers, R. (anonymous) (1845) Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. New York. Wiley and Putnum.

Darwin, C. R. and Wallace, A. R. (1858) On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.

Darwin, C. R. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (First Edition) London. John Murray.

Darwin, C. R. (1861) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (Third Edition) London. John Murray.

Dawkins, R. (2010). Darwin’s Five Bridges: The Way to Natural Selection In Bryson, B (ed.) Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society. London Harper Collins.

Deutsch, D. (2011) The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World. London. Allen Lane: Penguin Books.

Dempster, W. J (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.

Jameson, W. (1853)Contributions to a History of the Relation between Climate and Vegetation in various parts of the Globe. On the Physical Aspect of the Punjab its Agriculture and Botany. By Dr. Jameson Superintendent of the Botanic Garden Saharunpore. In The Journal of the Horticultural Society of London. Volume 8. p. 273- 314

Johnson, C. W. (1842) Plantation. The Farmer’s Magazine January to June. Vol. 5 pp. 364-368.

Judd, J. W. (1910) The Coming of Evolution: The Story of the Great Revolution in Science. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Loudon, J.C. (1832). Matthew Patrick On Naval Timber and Arboriculture with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. Gardener’s Magazine. Vol. VIII. p.703.

Matthew, P (1831) On Naval Timber and Arboriculture; With a critical note on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Edinburgh. Adam Black.

Matthew, P. (1867) Letter in the Dundee Advertiser. In Dempster, W. J. (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.

Merton, R. K. (1957) Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science. American Sociological Review. Volume 22. No.6. December. pp. 635-659.

Murphy, E. (1834) Irish Farmer's and Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural Affairs Volume 1.

Selby, P. J. (1842) A history of British forest-trees: indigenous and introduced. London. Van Voorst.

Stevens, M. (2003) The Role of the Priority Rule in Science. Journal of Philosophy. 100. 2. pp. 55-79.

Stephens, H. (1853) With assistance from Norton, J. P. The Farmer’s Guide to Scientific and Practical Agriculture. Volume 2. New York. Leonard Scott.

Stott, R. (2012) Darwin’s Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists London. Bloomsbury.

Sutton, M. (2014) [In press – Spring 2014] Nullius in Verba: The Hi-Tech Detection of Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s Great Science Fraud. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Books.

On the Problem of Multiple Coincidences: A new Sherlock Holmes mystery

"No sh..... Sherlock".
On the Problem of Multiple Coincidences: Is this a genuinely historic new #SherlockHolmes mystery? https://t.co/uDN127cwTc pic.twitter.com/weoR3efOUK

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) November 11, 2017

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.

In the same century but years before Conan Doyle's Naval Treaty was published Patrick Matthew, poignantly wrote to Charles Darwin on how he also believed flowers were evidence of the existence of the design of the so-called  "Creator". He did so in 1862 and again in 1871:

Matthew to Darwin letter (1862):

‘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.’

Matthew to Darwin letter (Matthew 1871):

‘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.’

In 1831 (page 265) Matthew, who we know believed in a "Creator" in later life (see here) used the capitalised word Providence:

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:

 'I pray that it be so, for few men have lived for whom I have greater respect; wise and brave, and mellow and good. His biography was a favourite book of mine long before I understood the full significance of Spiritualism, which was to him an evolution of the spirit on parallel lines to that evolution of the body which he did so much to establish.'

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

Matthew, P. (1862) Letter: Matthew, Patrick to Darwin,C. R. December 3rd. Darwin Correspondence Database. http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-3843   accessed on Sat Aug 3 2013.

Matthew, P.(1871) Letter: Matthew,Patrick to Darwin, C. R. 12 Mar.Darwin Correspondence Database, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-7576    accessed on Sat Aug 3 2013.

Doyle, A. C. (1894). The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. London, England: George Newnes.

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".

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Why do some plants have beautiful flowers? 

Sabbagh (2001 p. 19) explains:

‘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? 

The reason why plants, such as the class known as grasses, to which all cereals belong, have insignificant and unremarkable flowers is because they rely on the wind for pollination. The wind is blind, absent nose or brain, which means you can't seduce it with beauty, perfume or any other wiles. Whilst winds can be vortexed by geological and man-made features, and influenced in other ways by plant life - that's an altogether different and far more complicated story. 

Take a few moments to contemplate the sinisterly seductive nature of beautiful flowers.

Beautiful flowers appeal across the species barrier to pollinating insects such as bees, butterflies and beetles. Anecdotaly, my dog used to spend time sniffing blooms when, seemingly, no one was watching. I've seen cats and foxes do the same - sniffing one individual bloom, and then another, presumably, therefore, not the musk or urine spray of a potential mate or rival. This is not so weird as it sounds when we realise that by so doing the mammal might take part in the process of pollination as pay back for getting a nice nectar-sweet scent to sniff. 

But animal anecdotes aside, the main aim of this blog is to begin to explore why it is that flowers are associated with human romance, friendship, courtship, weddings, funerals and other ceremonious occasions? More precisely, I want to explore the following question: Why on Earth do we, who are not insects for whom flowers were selected by nature, like them so much?

Is something going on between us and flowers? 

According to most Darwinists, our perception of the beauty of flowers is a thing of chance, a random happenstance of how natural selection created them over many millions of years to entice insects to pollinate their owners, combined with our own attraction to symmetry. And if our love of flowers is naught but a cultural artifact and consequence of our attraction to symmetry in our own mating choices then that simple explanation of why flowers so appeal to us would be enough. But let us step outside the random-mutant-successful-selection box for a moment. I’m not questioning natural selection here. Rather, I wish to contemplate the possibility that nature’s selection of flowers might have resulted in a genuine objective beauty that should demand our consideration beyond the premise that it is a mere cultural –subjective-eye-of beholder assessment. Let me be clear that there is no need to reject the theory of natural selection by contemplating this seemingly implausible possibility that flowers might just be objectively beautiful as an explanation for why both humans and insects find them so attractive.

Humans have been deeply interested in beauty of flowers for a long time. As Karl Sabbagh (2001, pp. 16-17)) informs us in his excellent book on a Victorian botanical fraud, the great naturalist Charles Ray wrote in 1660 of the beauty of flowers.Sabbagh quotes the Latin translation from Raven (1942) that is as true of people today as it was over 300 years ago:

‘…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.’

There is no need to get off the Internet to enjoy flowers, you can have a look at a vast array online – flower-porn if you will (click to check it ou   t).

Beautiful are they not? Still, most of us prefer the real thing, naturally.

Lucky man that I consider myself, besides my beautiful wife there is a bowl of real tulips before me as I write these words. And I’m currently getting writing space by distracting my five year old daughter with the task of pretending she is a bee – taking the yellow pollen from one flower to the next. She’s still working on the problem of why she thinks they are as beautiful as butterflies, but is repulsed by some of the beetles that pollinate them. I might have to explain the "birds and the bees" to her soon, because she just asked how the plants make seeds.

Anyway, back to natural selection and the question of objective beauty 

The newly proven true and only independent discoverer of natural selection (see Sutton 2014), Patrick Matthew, poignantly wrote to the great science fraudster and plagiarist Charles Darwin on flowers in 1862 and again in 1871:

Matthew (1862):

‘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.’

Matthew to Darwin: (Matthew 1871):

‘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.’

Rightly keen to demolish the myth of supernatural design by a bearded being in the sky, Richard Dawkins (1996, p.256) does not consider the possibility of objective beauty:

‘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.’

Dawkins then goes on to write that his daughter’s response was little different from that which had been given since the middle ages –that man has dominion over nature, which is there for his delight.

Quantum physicist David Deutsch (2011) has something deeper than Dawkins to say on flowers and beauty.

Deutsch questions the possibility that we find flowers attractive because they share an objective beauty that was necessary in natural selection in order to cross the species barrier with unquestionably clear signals between plants and insects. Do we find flowers beautiful for that reason? The question is certainly a science problem in need of a solution. If Deutsch is right it might explain why so many scientists have been led astray by the beauty of flowers to think that they simply must have been purposefully designed by an omnipotent bearded spirit in the sky.

Is there something more than simply our own attraction to symmetry in our perception of the beauty of flowers? Might it be that they are objectively beautiful as a result of what it takes to signal clearly across the species barrier? Could it be also due to the fact that we share DNA with plants and insects - all three species having evolved from a common ancestor? For example, humans - it is now well known - share 98 per cent of the same genes with chimpanzees, but did you know we share 25 per cent of the same gene types as banana plants, 18 per cent with certain weeds and 44 per cent with fruit flies.    

I only wish Patrick Matthew could have known what we know today. How delighted I think that immortal great rational thinker in science would be to have evidence-led knowledge-gap-filling answers that are better explanations than a superstitious belief in divine Creators..

Writing in the freedom-space provided by the 18th century enlightenment, Matthew (1831) saw, erroneously as it turned out, no need to employ arguments regarding whatever belief he may, or may not, have had that the Christian, or any other, "God" might have had a hand in it as a political get-out-clause when he shared his unique discovery of natural selection (Matthew 1831, p.381):

‘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?

Darwin typically plodded behind in the footsteps of others. In that sense he was just like Robert Chambers (1844), who had years earlier read and cited Matthew's (1831) book before writing the Vestiges of Creation (see Sutton 2014 for a fact-based discussion), which contained very similar ideas about evolution. Darwin (1859), like Chambers, also deliberately allowed a role for "God" in his book. Incidentally, Chambers's (1844) book - in all its many editions - is widely acknowledged to have hugely influenced the work of both Darwin and Wallace.

In his first and other editions of the Origin of Species, Darwin (1859) wrote as though there is a supernatural “Creator” who designed natural selection as a law of nature to make and break species (Darwin 1859 p.489)

‘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.’

As we can see, Darwin, contrary to so much Darwinist mythmongering, kept his "God" in the Origin of Species. Nonetheless, outside the politics of appeasing the Church and all its believers, I suspect he was as stumped as Matthew by the strange appeal of flowers:

From the Spectator Archive on “The Idle Rich: http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/29th-october-1910/18/the-idle-rich   

“,,, 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."

Besides pollinating those flowers by sticking his nose inside one and then another, was Darwin, at turns, contemplating his so-called "Creator"? Perhaps he was pondering Matthew's great discovery and the beauty of his own great science fraud?

We can understand his behaviour, and discover more about what he did, but can't even attempt to know the mind of Darwin, because about what he secretly thought we can but wonder.

On more solid ground, science, not speculation, can help us solve the riddle of why so many rational thinkers have been led-astray by notions of beauty being a signal sent purposively to humans by a divine "Creator", rather than consequently to us after jumping the barrier between different species. Who knows what pay-off's such knowledge might have? Is David Deutsch (2011) onto something big? Perhaps the UN should sanction the placing of flowers in gun barrels in conflict zones? Might there be a ultimate flower, just waiting to be bred by artificial selection for communicating Peace and Love? If flowers signal to us because we share some 25 per cent of the DNA of plants, and even more of the DNA of insects, might the right variety of flower have certain crime reduction capacities? Would anyone be so bold as to explore such a seemingly ludicrous proposition, when so many modern humans are, as has always been the case, more concerned with ball games, money making, gambling, and popularity hunting?

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.

Postscript 25th February 2015

On 21 Feb 2015 I directed Professor David Deutsch - via Twitter - to this blog post and asked his opinion of my insect and plant DNA explanation for the seemingly universal beauty of flowers. He very kindly used Twitter to reply.

The screenshot of Prof. Deutsch's reply is below. He wrote:

'Implausible, I think, because one side only has genes for creating the patterns and the other only for recognising them.'

Public Domain

David Deutsch thinks it unlikely our shared plant and insect DNA is responsible for why we are so attracted to flowers

.

At this point, as a social scientist, I must admit I'm now out of my depth as well as league. I must defer to Prof. Deutsch's superior knowledge in this area. However, I would like to invite confirmatory or dis-confirmatory opinions for Matthew's, Dawkins's and my own ideas on the fascinating question of the beauty of flowers.

References

Chambers, R. 1844. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. New York. Wiley and Putnum. (published anonymously).

Dawkins, R. (2006) Climbing Mount Improbable. New York.Norton.

Deutsch, D.(2011) The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World. Allen Lane – The Penguin Group.

Matthew, P. (1831). On Naval Timber and Arboriculture: With a critical note on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Edinburgh. Adam Black. London. Longman and Co.

Matthew, P. (1862) Letter: Matthew, Patrick to Darwin,C. R. December 3rd. Darwin Correspondence Database. http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-3843   accessed on Sat Aug 3 2013.

Matthew, P.(1871) Letter: Matthew,Patrick to Darwin, C. R. 12 Mar.Darwin Correspondence Database, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-7576    accessed on Sat Aug 3 2013.

Raven, C.E. (1942) John Ray, Naturalist. Cambridge.Cambridge University Press.

Sabbagh, K.(2001) A Rum Affair: A true story of botanical fraud. Da Capo Press.

Sutton, M. (2014) Internet Dating with Darwin:New Discovery that Darwin and Wallace were Influenced by Matthew's Prior-Discovery. Best Thinking.March 26th,

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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

The Patrick Matthew Family Tree

                                                     

Alexander Duncan I

                                                                         to
   
                 Alexander Duncan  II                          George Duncan ( P.M.'s G.G.Grandfather)
                                        to                                                         to

      1st Viscount Admiral Adam Duncan          Francis Duncan ( P.M."s G. Grandfather)
                                                                                                    to
                                                                              Alexander Duncan  (P. M.'s Grandfather)    
                                                                                                    to
                                                                              Agnes Duncan  (Patrick Matthew's Mother)
                                                                                                    to
                                                                                   Patrick Matthew  
                                                                                                    to
           (P.M.'s 5th son) James Matthew   ***            Alexander Matthew  (P.M.'s 3rd Son)
                                        to                                                         to

                         Jones & Smith families                     The Minnick & Macy families
                                   in New Zealand                            in the United States
                                                                                                   &                                                          
                                                                                   The Gerdts family in Germany


This  family tree has been provided by the original research conducted by Major Howard Minnick US Army (retired) who is the third great grandson of Patrick Matthew. Please note: Dates are forthcoming.

   References:

• Alexander Hastie Millar. The Historical Castles and Mansions of Scotland: Perthshire and Forfarshire (here).
• W. Gerdts.: ‘Die Matthew Saga 1 (1790 – 1918) and Die Matthew Saga 2 (1918-2003). Self published history of the Matthew family.

Please note: This is the first definitive evidence that Patrick Matthew was related to the great British naval hero Admiral Duncan.

 The dual themes and title of Patrick Matthew's (1831) book 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' was most likely influenced by his bloodline to Admiral Duncan. As the opening words of his book indicate....

... the importance of understanding the principle of natural selection with regards to where and how to grow the best naval timber was fully and originally understood by Matthew (1831) and then some others after they read and cited his book. Those others - such as Jameson (1853) of the East India Company (a regular correspondent of William Hooker) - cited Matthew and wrote of his original ideas that timber could fare better in a non-native environment if native species were kept at bay by human interference with nature before Darwin and Wallace replicated Matthew's original discoveries and explanatory examples without citation to their source. Jameson understood it perfectly. Alternately, Selby (1842), the editor of Wallace's 1855 Sarawak paper, read it also, but he wrote that he did not understand it.

Appendix A of On Naval Timber and Arboriculture (Matthew 1831) 

Matthew's original ideas about the difference between trees grown in nurseries and those in the wild were replicated by both Darwin and Wallace. Darwin had the precise example in his private 1844 essay. Wallace replicated the same example in his Ternate paper of 1858 with Matthew's general original analogy of differences between natural and artificial selection. Darwin opened Chapter One of the Origin of Species with the exact same thing.

Once again the "real facts" are news to Darwin scholars, who have a 155 year long legacy of credulously maintaining Darwin's self-serving fallacy that Matthew's original ideas were unrelated to the title and related theme of his book. Of late, one of the worst propagators of this ludicrous myth is Richard Dawkins (2010) whose pseudo scholarly history, context and "real fact-free" biased Darwin worship proclamations include the following line about Matthew's On Naval Timber and Arboriculture - a book he surely can't have bothered himself to read before implying expertise on it:

Dawkins (2010. p.209):

‘Did he see the explanation for all of life, the destroyer of the argument for design? If he had, wouldn’t he have put it in a more prominent place than the appendix to a manual on silviculture?

In the real world of immortal great ideas, as opposed to Darwin Myth Land, where Dawkin's credulously resides, Matthew's ideas were not merely contained in his book's Appendix. Matthew's (1860) letter to Darwin explained as much, and Darwin's (1860) private letter to Joseph Hooker acknowledged the truth. But Darwin. like his acolytes after him, pretended otherwise to successfully punterize the rest of the world in order to rob Matthew of his right to be considered an immortal great thinker and influencer in science. Visit the Appendix Myth page of PatrickMatthew.com for the fact-based details, as opposed to the unevidenced Darwin Worship Industry rhetoric.

More on Richard Dawkins's history and context free pseudo-scholarship here.

A more detailed account of the new findings regarding Patrick Matthew's genealogical links to Admiral Duncan can be found on the Family Tree page of PatrickMatthew.com. Here