The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis

On Strength, Cunning and Swiftness

The general theory of organic evolution has been around since at least the time of the ancient Greeks (see Zirkle 1941)   .

Interestingly, the Greek scholar Empedocles c. 490 – c. 430 BC saw the difference between domestic and naturally selected animals in the wild, and the notion of survival of the fittest in the struggle for survival in nature, but appears not to have realized that the vulnerable qualities of the domesticated animals were due to artificial selection. He wrote:

'Firstly, the fierce brood of lions, that savage tribe, has been protected by courage, the wolf by cunning, by swiftness the stag. But the intelligent dog, so light of sleep and so true of heart, beasts of burden of all kinds, woolly sheep also, and horned herds of oxen, all these are entrusted to men's protection, Memius. For they have eagerly fled from the wild beasts, they have sought peace and the generous provision gained by no labour of theirs, which we give them as reward of their usefulness. But those to which nature gives no such qualities, so that they could neither live by themselves at their own will, nor give us some usefulness, for which we might suffer to feed them under our protection and be safe, these certainly lay by their own fateful chains, until nature brought that race to destruction.'

Patrick Matthew (1831) appears to have been familiar with this passage - or perhaps some later work influenced by it - because he wrote about the natural process of selection on pages 364-365 using very similar examples of fierce strength, cunning and swiftness being present in naturally selected species:

'This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles.'

NOTE: Alfred Wallace (1855) replicated this idea, and examples for it, in his Sarawak paper, which was published in a journal edited by Selby - who it is newly known (Sutton 2104) - read and cited Matthew's 1831 book years earlier.

The Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences was originated by Patrick Matthew in 1831 as an explanatory device for the theory of macro evolution by natural selection.

In absence of disconfirming data for the currently available evidence that Patrick Matthew (1831) originated (was first to write and have published) the 'Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences', when he included it in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, I propose that Matthew (1831) was not only first to originate and have published the full hypothesis of natural selection    , but that he did also originate this powerfully explanatory Analogy.

An analogy is something that is done as an explanatory device to make something complex easier to understand by comparing one thing with another. All analogies are fallacies because the two things being compared are not at all the same thing. What is important is how the person using the analogy in question allows the recipient of it to see how one thing relates to the other and why. An analogy is deployed, therefore, in order to understand the complexity of the original issue being explained. In short, I use common dictionary definitions: “An analogy is a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation.”

An analogy between things can be used to show how they are different or the same. That said, it must be noted however, that biologists are unique when it comes to how they use analogies. In biology, an analogy is only ever used to show how things are similar or the same. We might call it the "the biologists analogy" as opposed to the wider 'these things are similar or different' analogies that other disciplines understand.Therefore, to date at least, when biologists have written of Darwin's analogy between natural and artificial selection they are only ever referring to an argumentative analogy that Darwin deployed in the Origin of Species (1859) to show, argumentatively, how natural and artificial selection have certain similarities.

As we shall see in this blog post, Darwin also used an analogy of difference between natural and artificial selection that we might call the "Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy" He used in in an unpublished essay in 1844 and again in the Origin of Species (1859). In absence of dis-confirming evidence Matthew (1831) was the first to use the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy and Darwin (1859) the first to use the "Artificial Selection is similar to Natural Selection" argumentative analogy. I am grateful to my associate Dr Mike Weale for debating this issue with me at length on the Patrick Matthew Project until April 14 2015 (here)..   when we agreed on the fact there are in fact these two distinct artificial selection, to explain natural selection, analogies.

Matthew compared natural selection with artificial selection in order to compare things that are different to explain that nature was selecting varieties by way of what he called “the natural process of selection”, which was, unlike artificial selection, operated as a blind and unthinking natural law (process) to select those varieties that were most circumstance suited to survive in the wild. Humans, on the other hand, selected varieties as a cognitive project deliberately for their own wants and needs only.

I am operating on the premise that readers know what natural selection means. If not, then a few clicks on Goggle will find you a good explanation (e.g. here   ). For a simple definition of artificial selection, the Encyclopedia Britannica gives us sound example:

'Artificial selection (or selective breeding ) differs from natural selection in that heritable variations in a species are manipulated by humans through controlled breeding . The breeder attempts to isolate and propagate those genotypes that are responsible for a plant or animal’s desired qualities in a suitable environment. These qualities are economically or aesthetically desirable to humans, rather than useful to the organism in its natural environment.'

I propose that Matthew originated an explanation that changed the world in his use of the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy, because - it is newly discovered (Sutton 2014)    - his 1831 book was read and cited pre-1858 by several naturalists who Darwin and Wallace admitted were their major influencers on the topic of varieties and species and organic evolution.

The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis”:

Patrick Matthew was first to originate and have published the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy as an explanation for natural selection.

What Matthew wrote was replicated by several naturalists who followed in his footsteps. Beginning with Matthew, the originator, it is useful to examine who wrote what on this precise analogy and when.

1. ‘Matthew (1831 pages. 307-308   )) wrote

‘The use of the infinite seedling varieties in the families of plants, even in those in a state of nature, differing in luxuriance of growth and local adaptation, seems to be to give one individual (the strongest best circumstance-suited) superiority over others of its kind around, that it may, by overtopping and smothering them, procure room for full extension, and thus affording, at the same time, a continual selection of the strongest, best circumstance suited for reproduction. Man’s interference, by preventing this natural process of selection among plants, independent of the wider range of circumstances to which he introduces them, has increased the difference in varieties, particularly in the more domesticated kinds; and even in man himself, the greater uniformity, and more general vigour among savage tribes, is referrible to nearly similar selecting law - the weaker individual sinking under the ill treatment of the stronger, or under the common hardship.'

Matthew (1831) pages.107-108

'... in timber trees the opposite course has been pursued. The large growing varieties being so long of coming to produce seed, that many plantations are cut down before they reach this maturity, the small growing and weakly varieties, known by early and extreme seeding, have been continually selected as reproductive stock, from the ease and conveniency with which their seed could be procured; and the husks of several kinds of these invariably kiln-dried, in order that the seeds might be the more easily extracted. May we, then, wonder that our plantations are occupied by a sickly short-lived puny race, incapable of supporting existence in situations where their own kind had formerly flourished—particularly evinced in the genus Pinus,more particularly in the species Scots Fir; so much inferior to those of Nature's own rearing, where only the stronger, more hardy, soil-suited varieties can struggle forward to maturity and reproduction?

We say that the rural economist should pay as much regard to the breed or particular variety of his forest trees, as he does to that of his live stock of horses, cows, and sheep. That nurserymen should attest the variety of their timber plants, sowing no seeds but those gathered from the largest, most healthy, and luxuriant growing trees..'

Matthew (1831) page 3:

There are several valuable varieties of apple trees of acute branch angle, which do not throw up the bark of the breeks; this either occasions the branches to split down when loaded with fruit, or if they escape this for a few years, the confined bark becomes putrid and produces canker which generally ruins the tree. We have remedied this by a little attention in assisting the rising of the bark with the knife. Nature must not be charged with the malformation of these varieties; at least had she formed them, as soon as she saw her error she would have blotted out her work.'

Matthew (1831) pages 261-263

' We ask if even the fact of these unnaturally tender varieties (obtained by long continued selection, probably assisted by culture, soil and climate, and which, without the cherishing of man, would soon disappear)..'

Matthew (1831) page 67:

'It is also found that the uniformity in each kind of wild growing plants called species may be broken down by art or culture and that when once a breach is made, there is almost no limit to disorder, the mele that ensues being nearly incapable of reduction.'

Matthew (1831) page 387: 'As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerable influence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probably occasioning the destruction of many species, and the production and continuation of a number of varieties or even species, which he found more suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of their condition—not having undergone selection by the law of nature, of which we have spoken cannot maintain their ground without his culture and protection.'

Matthew (1831) Here Matthew refers to crab apple trees – which are likely the closest to the original, and most hardy of the apple species. He crosses his unique heretical discovery of natural selection with is unique use of the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy with his seditious Chartist libertarian social reform politics to propose a bio-social explanation for why it is bad for human stock (as a national or regional variety) and bad for human society if there is not free crossing in complex human society as there is in societies which may be closer to 'nature'. He writes on page 366:

‘It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.’

Matthew (1831) Pages 381 - 382. It is here that Matthew, heretically, hands "God" his redundancy notice. To do so, he uses the analogy in question to demonstrate (provide what he believes is evidential "proof") that living matter has the plastic (malleable) quality necessary to create new species by way of their diverging from ancestral varieties with which they would thereafter be incapable of breeding :

' 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 to heighten the probability of the latter theory.'

Mudie (1832)    Page 368:

‘If we are to observe nature, therefore, we must go to the wilds, because, in all cultivated productions, there are secondary characters produced by the artificial treatment, and we have no means of observing a distinction between these, and those which the same individual would have displayed, had it been left to a completely natural state. The longer that the race has been under the domestication and culture, the changes are of course the greater. So much is that the case that in very many both of the plants and animals that have been in a state of domestication since the earliest times of which we have any record, we know nothing with certainty about the parent races in their wild state. As to the species, or if you will the genus we can be certain. The domestic horse has not been cultivated out of an animal with cloven hoofs and horns; and the domestic sheep has never been bred out of any of the ox tribe. So also wheat and barley have not been cultivated out of any species of pulse, neither have Windsor beans at any time been grasses. But within some such limits as these our certain information lies; and for aught we know the parent race may, in its wild state, be before our eyes every day and yet we may not have the means of knowing that it is so. The breeding artificially has been going on for at least three thousand years…’

Mudie (1832)    Page 369-370

‘But there is another difficulty. When great changes are made on the surface of a country, as when forests are changed into open land, and marshes into corn fields, or any other change that is considerable, the changes of the climate must correspond; and as the wild productions are very much affected by that, they must also undergo changes; and these changes may in time amount to the entire extinction of some of the old tribes, both of plants and of animals, the modification of others to the full extent that the hereditary specific characters admit, and the introduction of not varieties only but of species altogether new.

That not only may but must have been the case. The productions of soils and climates are as varied as these are; and when a change takes place in either of these, if the living productions cannot alter their habits so as to accommodate themselves to the change there is no alternative, but they must perish.’

Mudie (1832)    seemed to be recommending that humans engage in trying to approximate a kind of natural process of selection (370-371):

“Cultivation itself will deteriorate, and in time destroy races, if the same race and the same mode of culture be pursued amid general change. Our own times are times of very rapid change, and, upon the whole, of improvement; we dare not, without the certainty of their falling off, continue the same stock and the same seed corn, season after season, and age after age, as was done by our forefathers. The general change of the country, must have change and not mere succession, in that which we cultivate; and thus we must cross the breeds of our animals, and remove the seeds and plants of our vegetables from district to district. There is something of the same kind in human beings..”

3. Lyell (1832, p, 56)   , Matthew's Forfarshire neighbor and Darwin's great friend and geological mentor, wrote:

'…we have no data as yet to warrant the conclusion that a single permanent hybrid race has ever been formed even in gardens by the intermarriage of two allied species brought from distant habitations. Until some fact of this kind is fairly established, and a new species capable of perpetuating itself in a state of perfect independence of man, can be pointed out, we think it reasonable to call in question entirely this hypothetical source of new species. That varieties do sometimes spring up from cross breeds, in a natural way, can hardly be doubted, but they probably die out even more rapidly than races propagated by grafts or layers.'

3. Low (1844)    wrote:

‘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.’

4. Darwin (1844 – unpublished essay)    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…’

5. Wallace (1858 Ternate paper)    wrote

‘…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.’

6. Darwin (1859, p.7 (opening words) and then pp. 83-84)    wrote:

"When we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature.”

"Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and the being is placed under well-suited conditions of life. Man keeps the natives of many climates in the same country; he seldom exercises each selected character in some peculiar and fitting manner; he feeds a long and a short beaked pigeon on the same food; he does not exercise a long-backed or long-legged quadruped in any peculiar manner; he exposes sheep with long and short wool to the same climate. He does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He does not rigidly destroy all inferior animals, but protects during each varying season, as far as lies in his power, all his productions. He often begins his selection by some half-monstrous form; or at least by some modification prominent enough to catch his eye, or to be plainly useful to him. Under nature, the slightest difference of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so be preserved. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?'

7. Darwin 1868 wrote    (misspelling Matthew's name) : "Our common forest trees are very variable, as may be seen in every extensive nursery-ground; but as they are not valued as fruit trees, and as they seed late in life, no selection has been applied to them; consequently, as Mr Patrick Matthew remarks, they have not yielded different races…" The historian and anthropologist Loren Eiseley saw Darwin's use of this analogy in his private 1844 essay as too great a double coincidence (see Sutton 2014    for a deeper discussion) that Darwin could replicate both Matthew's unique hypothesis and his unique analogy to explain it, using trees, which were both the central topic of Matthew's book and his example in his original analogy.

The Man's Interference Analogy:

What did Matthew, Wallace and Darwin understand about artificial selection versus natural selection that makes the Artificial selection versus Natural Selection Analogy the perfect device to explain the natural process of selection?

An analogy is used as an explanatory device – a model.

An analogy is about what is analogous to what and why. In that way it must be kept simple. Simplicity is the most important criteria of a useful analogy – why else use one?

The next most important criteria of a good analogy is how close it is to reality (in my opinion). This is why the artificial selection analogy is so powerful, so useful.

Artificial selection is not natural selection, and so it is – like all analogies – a fallacy. But “selection” is the analogy. And it is close to reality as an analogy, because humans breed what they want into varieties they desire. Nature has no such cognitive purpose – selection in nature is born of random types being the most circumstance suited to survive and so they are better able to pass on their characteristics. But the outcome of this random generated process of natural selection leads to the most circumstance suited (in the wild) varieties – and, eventually, new species.

An analogy explains how two things are similar. What is similar in the case in point is “selection”. Selection is the only analogy. Selection is what is similar. Artificial selection by humans versus natural selection by nature. That is the analogy.Darwin, Wallace and Matthew all used it, and so did Low and Mudie.

Starting with the originator, Matthew, he Wallace and Darwin all understood that (1) a combination of artificial selection plus a necessary relaxation of natural selection leads, under human culture, to more varieties any one point in time kept within human culture. And (2) Natural selection often leads to fewer varieties at any one point in time in the wild, but those varieties can survive better under wild conditions than domesticated varieties – which most usually cannot. (3) Because in nature varieties come slowly to the fore that are more suited to survival in the wild than varieties selected relatively rapidly by human breeding programs, the analogy allows us to see that the process of natural selection is different to selection by humans. The natural process of selection is an unconscious and lengthy process leading to survival of the most circumstance suited. Humans are consciously selecting what suites immediate human needs and desires - even if that means those varieties need a greater deal of protection under human culture.

Test the hypothesis

Remember it is the 'Man's interference' explanatory analogy that we are looking for, not the full explanation of natural selection (although if you find that pre-1831 you will have stuck historical gold). Therefore, to dis-confirm the hypothesis we need to find evidence in the literature of others - pre-Matthew (1831) - realizing as a minimum that: (a) varieties consciously bred under human culture are less robust in the wild than naturally occurring wild varieties, because (b) in the wild, natural varieties must be most circumstance suited to wild conditions in order to survive and multiply. With that explanation in mind the essential hypothesis in question can be stated thus: (a) nature 'selects' varieties that are more suited to survival in the wild and that (b) distinct varieties bred by humans to suit human needs and desires are most usually less suited to the wild than natural wild species.

Here on Best Thinking.com and also on The Patrick Matthew Project,    I invite others to test this hypothesis with regard to the published literature record. I call it: “The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis”. If anyone can dis-confirm it. I will warmly embrace their endeavors and their discovery of new data. Moreover, I will thank them for taking our knowledge forward with regard to coming closer to a purer form of the truth in the story of the discovery of natural selection.

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Nullius in Verba

Who were Robert Mudie and David Low?

Readers with some knowledge of the history of the discovery of natural selection will have heard of Patrick Matthew, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, but perhaps not of Mudie and Low. So who were they? You can find out in my earlier blog post on the F2B2 Hypothesis.

The full story of the history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection has changed, because new data has been discovered that completely disproves prior Darwinist knowledge beliefs in Darwin's immaculate conception of a prior published theory. Read Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret    to discover the implications of the New Data.

Bombshell heresy crossed with seditious bio-social politics

What Matthew did that was most revolutionary, and against the codes of the 19th gentlemen of science, was to take his unique discovery of the process of natural selection and his apparent origination of the artificial versus natural selection analogy and apply both to human society to advocate Chartism, wider social reform and inter-class breeding. He proposed that the nobility would do best to breed with those less protected from the harsh realities of nature by the class system. We can see his seditious blending of his heretical work on natural selection with his seditious politics in the following quotation from Matthew (1831 - Note B of his Appendix) he refers to crab apple trees - the original, and most hardy of the apple species:

'It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.'

My nook Nullius contains considerable evidence that Liar Charles Lyell, who lived just 19 miles as the crow flies from Matthew's home in Forfarshire, read Laird Matthew's 1831 book following its scandalous hammering - and accusations of plagiarism - in the Edinburgh Literary Journal in 1831 (see Sutton 2014   ).

A blog post presentation of the etymological links between Matthew's book and the works of Lyell's associates and friends can be found here.

Conclusions

Jim Dempster (Dempster, W. J (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.) wrote a whole chapter (pp. 80-97) on the use of "selection" by 19th century animal breeders and what Matthew, Darwin and others wrote on the subject at page 85:

'Patrick Matthew after 20 years experience as a fruit breeder wrote out 'natural process of selection' in his Naval Timber 'without an effort of concentrated thought'. As a professional breeder the term 'selection' would be part of his everyday existence. It would appear, however, this was the first time the term had been formally committed to print in a philosophical sense.To the hybridist Matthew the analogy between artificial and natural selection was a fact too obvious to merit further debate on the basis of hypothesis.'

That is true, but we have seen, by collecting all that Matthew wrote on the analogy,that he fully understood its significance in explaining the outcomes of both artificial and natural selection.

Dempster (1886 p. 88):

'For someone with a philosophic turn of mind the analogy between artificial selection for domestic purposes and what obtained in nature was exact.'

Here, when Dempster uses the term analogy he is not referring to a the specific definition of analogy as a comparison of similarities. Instead, he is using the wider Oxford English Dictionary definition of: 'A comparison made between one thing and another for the purpose of explanation or clarification.' In other words, it is enough that a comparison of some kind is made in order to explain what the things compared are and why they are either the same or - as in the analogy in question - different.

It is important to stress that the analogy in question - to be an analogy - makes a comparison of the differences between artificial selection (breeding by humans) with natural selection (the natural process of most circumstance suited selection in the wild). Many authors before Matthew noted that humans bred more and different varieties than occurred in nature, and to suit themselves, but it is very important to stress that that observation alone is not the analogy. Many, such as Blaine (1824), who, for example, in his work on dogs, came very close indeed- see his footnotes on pages 97 to 98    in describing how greyhounds and pointers were not best suited to hunting under certain conditions in the wild. But, as did Matthew's predecessors, he failed to point out the natural selection implications that there are - when we compare artificially selected domesticated with wild species - fewer varieties in the wild, or else specifically stating that they could not survive in competition with wild varieties in any natural conditions.

Once we go further than Eiseley, Dempster or any others have apparently seen, by focusing focus upon the general analogy to explain natural slection by way of stating the difference between artificial and natural selection, rather than the same analogy identified only by way of the very precise subject of plants or trees in nurseries versus the wild, we find that Darwin not only replicated Matthew's precise 'plants' analogy without citation in his private essay of 1844, but also the general analogy on pp 79-80 in the Origin of Species in 1859!    That is highly significant, in my opinion.

The analogy originated by Matthew (1831) explains: (a) why artificial selection is different to natural selection in a way that can explain the 'natural process of selection' by comparing (b) what the two do that is (c) different, thereby resulting in (d) what the effects are. Namely, that in such cases where certain species are bred by humans under culture that there are (e) fewer varieties in nature than under human culture, because humans protect the varieties they breed from the harshness and competition that occurs in nature, whereas wild nature selects by way of the 'natural process of selection' only those that can survive in the wild. This means (f) that many varieties bred by artificial selection, under culture, cannot survive in the wild.

What has been crucially explained in this blog post is that Matthew was not only first to write the full hypothesis of natural selection, he was also the first to use an analogy specifically to explain selection in nature by way of the differences in the way nature selects varieties of plants and animals to the way humans selects varieties of plants and animals. I have called this the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy. This analogy was replicated by Mudie, Low, Darwin and Wallace. That Darwin and Wallace could each independently replicate both Matthew's hypothesis of natural selection and his unique explanatory analogy simply beggars rational belief - in my considered and evidence led opinion.

Of great importance to the ongoing project to reach a purer form of the truth in the story of the history of the discovery of natural selection, is the fact that it has been herein established that Matthew did (in absence of disconfirming evidence) not only originate the theory of natural selection but also the first analogy of the dissimilarities between artificial and natural selection to explain it.

I cannot help wondering whether the fact Darwin not only replicated Matthew's analogy in 1844, but also in the Origin of Species, has been missed until now because of the peculiarities of the discipline of biology, which insists that an analogy is only a comparison between things that are similar in order to point out their similarities. The problem is, as I have said in my book Nullius in Verba, that biologists have the virtual monopoly of telling the story of the discovery of natural selection in books and scholarly journals. Moreover, those writing in this field invariably self-identify as Darwinists, with all the bias that goes with writing about the unique greatness of their namesake whilst ignoring, playing down or lashing out at those who see a 'blemish in the darling' (e.g Bowler 2013).   

Darwin's more complex analogy of the similarities between artificial and natural selection has been explained rather simply, though arguably not quite precisely, by John Pollack in his book on the power of analogies    Pollock (2014: 'Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas') refers to what I have coined: "Darwin's 'Artificial and Natural Selection Analogy of Similarities   " as his "third analogy." The complexity of Darwin's use of several different analogies between artificial and natural selection has been ably discussed by Susan Sterrett in 20012 (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Volume 33, Issue 1, March 2002, Pages 151–168).

At a more basic level, if we focus upon the powerfully simple analogy that was used to explain a complex process, we now know that Matthew's original 1831 analogy of thedifferences between artificial and natural selection was not only replicated by Darwin in his unpublished essay of (1844), as Eiseley (1979)    discovered, and Dempster (1996) emphasised   , but also by others with proven pre -1858 links to Matthew's book and Charles Darwin - namely Low and Muddie. Moreover, we now newly know that Wallace also replicated the same explanatory analogy and that Darwin (1859) did so also on pages 83-84 of the Origin of Species. This is not a discovery to be taken lightly because it proves that Darwin and Wallace not only supposedly "immaculately conceived" and then miraculously replicated Matthew's 1831 prior published discovery of natural selection, whilst surround by acknowledged influencers who read it pre-1858, they also replicated his key analogical explanatory device for it!

Dempster (1996, p.83) writes about how Lawrence had in 1819 published his heretical lectures on breeding improved stock of humans using artificial selection techniques known to animal breeders. On the grounds of its heresy, according to Dempster, Lawrence's book was refused copyright by the Lord Chancellor, but underground copies existed. Dempster tells us that Darlington in his 1859 book' Darwin's place in history'    claims that Matthew probably read and was converted by Lawrence's heresy. Dempster (p. 84) notes the problem is that Matthew. like Darwin. was not good at citing his influencers- and he never cited Lawrence. Lawrence's papers, first published in 1819 can be found online in a volume published in 1822 (here   ). It is now my intention to run the ID method based upon the premise of the "First o be be Second F2B2 Hypothesis" to see whether there is evidence to support Darlington's belief that Matthew read and was influenced Lawrence pre 1831. This is the first time I have used the ID method in the F2B2 way since writing my book. But I always knew the right opportunity to test it again would come up. That is why in 2014 I wrote:   

The failure of Matthew to cite his influences is deeply frustrating. However, it is an area that future work can shed considerably more light upon, now that we can use ID to detect the less obvious etymological and philosophical origins of NTA [Naval Timber and Arboriculture by Matthew 1831]. Whatever the case of his influences, if it exists, I have totally failed, despite my very best efforts, to find anything remotely resembling a hypothesis of natural selection preceding NTA.

What I found in investigating the links between Lawrence and Matthew is that Lawerence's work contains nothing of the theory of natural selection at all. However, Matthew was quite likely influenced by it to replicate Lawrence's use of shepherds and crab apple trees as an example to reveal simply the varying inferiority of varieties bred by humans and upper-class human varieties selected by both the desires and the limitations imposed by complex societies See the results in my later blog post.

The Support and Suppression of Lawrence

According to Dempster (p.82) Edward Blyth supported Lawrence's work - which although withdrawn in 1820 was recommended to his readers by Blyth in 1835.

Dempster tells us that Lawrence warned Huxley not to become engaged in work on the natural history of man. That warning was given for good reason.

Blyth was never recognised in his lifetime for his work. Darwin used him endlessly. Despite that reliance he once mocked him in a letter to his great friend and geological mentor Lyell    as "Poor Blyth of Calcutta" - an epithet Darwin later used to mock Matthew in anotherletter to his best friend and botanical mentor Hooker    - describing him as "poor old Patrick Matthew". Were those neglected naturalists mocked as "poor" essentially because they failed to see what Darwin and his closest friends knew about how to play the game to ones best advantage in life?

The story of Lawrence sheds much light on the prejudice of society (led in Britain by the naturalist parsons of Oxford and Cambridge) towards any published work on ideas about artificial selection and the 'breeding of humans' - something, as we have seen above, which Matthew wrote about and then carried forward in his book Emigration Fields (1839) where he advocated that Europeans should cross with the Maori people of New Zealand. So much for the self-serving Darwinist myth that Matthew did nothing to take his ideas forward after 1831!

A summary of the importance of the new understanding that Matthew originated and prior published the Artifical versus Natural Selection Analogy in 1831 - years before Darwin and Wallace replicated both his bombshell hypothesis of natural selection and that powerful analogy - can be found on my website PatrickMatthew.com   

Worldwide copyright laws applyUsed only with express written permission

Patrick Matthew: Solver of the problem of emergence of new and extinction of species, God-slaying biological father of the theory of natural selection

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Did Alfred Russel Wallace Wear a Tin-Foil Hat?

Professional Responses to the Discovery that Matthew did Influence Darwin and Wallace 

In the UK, some weeks after the Scottish Daily Mail reported on the presentation of my Bombshell News of Darwin's and Wallace's great science fraud at the Edinburgh Skeptics in the Pub event on the Fringe of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, The Daily Telegraph exposed the 2014 discovery of Darwin’s and Wallace’s great science fraud in greater detail (The Daily Telegraph, 2014, May 28th, p.12) :

Public Domain

Article on Sutton's discovery. The Daily Telegraph, page 12. May 28th 2014

“Darwin ‘stole’ theory of natural selection”

Charles Darwin lifted his theory of natural selection from a book by a Scottish fruit farmer, a researcher has claimed.

Decades before ‘On the Origin of Species’ appeared in 1859, Patrick Matthew wrote of “the natural process of selection”, explaining how “a law universal in nature” ensured the survival of the fittest.

Darwin, although accepting that Matthew “anticipated” the theory, always denied plagiarism, maintaining that he arrived at the theory independently.

But Dr Mike Sutton, a criminology expert at Nottingham Trent University, believes that Darwin must not only have been aware of Matthew’s 1831 work, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, but borrowed from it heavily.

He has spent years cross-referencing passages in both books, checking citations and studying the figures and studying the figures who influenced both men [Note: that last bit is not actually accurate, because I fully completed the entire project and wrote it up as a draft book manuscript inside one year], and claims to have unearthed information which proves the naturalist lied.

“I have no doubt, based on the weight of new evidence, that Darwin read Matthew’s book and then went on to replicate his discovery and key themes.” Dr Sutton said: “Without Patrick Matthew, The Origin of Species would never have been written.”

The Daily Telegraph’s Science Correspondent, Saraha Knapton, who following a telephone conversation with me a few weeks ago, asked for and received the draft copy of my forthcoming book ‘Nullius in verba: Darwin’s greatest secret’ took the story forward on May 28th in her Daily Telegraph science blog.   

[Postscript - 6th August 2014 - Nullius is now published - here]

The Apocryphal Semelweis Reflex 

In Knapton's blog is to be found, in my opinion, the Semmelweis-Reflex response of Darwin “expert” Professor James Moore of the Open University. At least according to the information relayed in Telegraph blog, Moore, is apparently completely unaware of the wealth of science literature (e.g. Dawkins 2010) that fully accepts Matthew is the only author to have first fully discovered and fully articulated the theory of natural selection. In apparent absence of such knowledge, Moore, is quoted as saying that 'thousands of people were coming to the same understanding’. If The Daily Telegraph is quoting Moore accurately, then we really need to see Moore’s bibliography to prove it because that fantastical information is not yet in the public domain. Anyway, on the basis of his un-evidenced claim, Moore, apparently not having bothered with the scholarly chore of examining the detailed and fully referenced brand newly discovered evidence I have published in the public domain (Sutton 2014) , displays what might be the onset of an embarrassing Semmelwies Reflex. The Semelweis Reflex sufferer, allegedly, blurted “I would be extremely surprised if there was any new evidence had not been already seen and interpreted in the opposite way.’

I suspect Professor James Moore and other Darwinists would be extremely surprised if only they looked at the evidence. On which note, the response to the news in the comments to The Daily Telegraph science blog are most fascinating for anyone interested in studying cognitive dissonance and the apocryphal knee-jerk rejecting Semmelweis Reflex. On this blog you can even find a staunch anti-creationist computer scientist desperately resorting to Rupert Sheldrake's pseudo-scientific morphic resonance woo-woo to seek to explain away Darwin's and Wallace's obvious plagiarism.

A Classic Case of Cultural Cognitive Dissonance 

Among all those comments on the Daily Telegraph's official science blog, if you care to look, you will find that I asked a leading Alfred Wallace expert at the British Museum of Natural History, Dr George Beccaloni,    why he does not accept my proposition that Wallace cannot now be said to have independently discovered natural selection after it is newly discovered that Wallace’s Sarawak paper editor and publisher (Selby) had earlier read and cited Matthew’s book many times, and that Wallace’s greatest published influencer, Robert Chambers, had also cited Matthew’s book before going on to pen the influential Vestiges of Creation. Remembering folks – that’s two out of only seven naturalists who are currently known to have cited Matthew’s book – who clearly influenced and facilitated Wallace’s pre-1858 work on organic evolution and natural selection. In response to that question, Beccaloni writes his considered reply, given for the historical record:

‘I think your book is likely to 'score an own goal', by showing that 7 naturalists read Matthew's book yet failed to grasp his idea of 'natural selection'. Yes, I do think that Matthew probably DID propose the idea of natural selection as a mechanism of evolutionary change, the problem is that he did not explain it at all clearly or present it as being a new theory - which is indeed probably why those 7 naturalists (and others) missed it. Darwin and Wallace deserve the credit for explaining it sufficiently well to convince others of its importance. Note that Darwin, unlike Wallace, also accepted Lamarckism - something that always bothered Wallace who vigorously rejected Lamarckism in his 1858 paper and in his subsequent writings. It would make a very interesting study to examine the two men's attitudes to Lamarckism...’

Now that’s what I call an interesting response. For a start my goal (aim) is simply to set the record straight with my unique and veracious discovery that Matthew's book was cited by naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace. My conclusion is that they committed science fraud - but my conclusion is not my goal. Moving past Beccaloni's weirdly hostile assumptions, if he is right that my conclusions should be in the opposite direction – and of that I am far from sure – I wonder how in the world such an amazing-duel-coincidental-immaculate-conception could have occurred in the midst of such potential knowledge contamination from those who read Matthew's unique discovery of what he called 'the natural process of selection'? Did both Wallace and his influencers/facilitators wear tin-foil hats to stop Matthew's unique ideas and examples on organic evolution from spreading one to the other? How incredible it would be, would it not, if - tin foil hats aside - the unique ideas in Matthew’s book did not pass to Wallace’s work through his editor and through his greatest influencer? Particularity in light of the fact Wallace also uniquely replicated so many of Matthew's unique ideas, terms, phrases and explanatory examples.

My big data analysis of the literature shows that if Matthew's work did not influence Darwin and Wallace then it would have to be nothing more than a trifling tri-coincidence, amazing beyond rational belief, that three out of only seven naturalists proven to have read Matthew's book played pivotal roles at the very epicentre of influencing and facilitating both Darwin's and Wallace's later publications on the exact same same unique discovery, using word-shuffled Matthewian terminology and replicating Matthew's highly idiosyncratic collection of explanatory examples. 

Beccaloni's mind-switch from the official Darwinst knowledge-belief that no one read Matthew's ideas is perhaps a result of cognitive dissonance. Once faced by the newly discovered reality that naturalists known to Wallace and Darwin had read Matthew's book (Sutton 2014) Beccaloni possibly feels compelled now to 'reason' that my newly discovered seven - and he now reasons apparently innumerable unknown "others" - had read Matthew's book, which means now what Beccaloni reasons must have happened in his newly imagined reality, speculatively switched-about, is that it must be the case now that it is now Matthew's fault that others never understood his unique discovery because for some unspecific reason Matthew is believed now to have failed to make his ideas clear. Clearly, to write such a desperate creation, Beccaloni surely can't have actually or properly read Matthew's (1831) Naval Timber and Arboriculture, which expresses his original ideas far more clearly than Darwin ever did. But as in all cases of unfortunate cognitive dissonance, Beccaloni's brain, it appears, had to make up this newly adapted explanation in order to cope with the bombshell evidence that his science-guru-heros are otherwise plagiarists and science fraudsters. In short, Beccaloni has invented a brand new un-evidenced and implausible Darwinist 'knowledge-belief' in order to cope with harsh reality and of dis-confirming facts for the newly debunked 'knowledge-belief' that no naturalist read Matthew's book. Beccaloni is not to be mocked for his unfortunate bias. We should not expect anyone who has been unfortunately labelled and accepted the name of 'Darwinist' to be capable of objectively weighting the possibility that their namesake is their namesake because someone not named Darwin should be their namesake. I suppose its a bit like asking a Christian to accept new knowledge that some other prophet, incidentally not called Jesus of Nazareth (Brian perhaps?) got there and wrote some influential scrolls first.

The British Museum of Natural History has much to lose, financially and facially, in light of the newly discovered fact that Wallace's carefully spun "independent discovery" story is unravelled by facts. Cognitive imbalance caused by the stake an employee and their institution has in a busted 'knowledge belief ' was seen before when the science con-man Charles Dawson duped the Museum's Arthur Smith Woodward with his own (in hindsight) ludicrously implausible tale of how he discovered Piltdown Man 1 and Piltdown Man 2. Of course both were fakes (see Walsh 1997 for a superb, and the best, account).

Once again, then, it seems to be Pilting Down in Britain. Because yet again the British Museum of Natural History credulously makes a bit of an exhibition of itself.

One solution to this unfortunate new international embarrassment would be for the British Museum of Natural History to put the plagiariser Darwin's overbearing statue in the basement. Better still, they should hang a sign around its neck bearing the words "counterfeit originator" and feature it in an exhibition on science fraud. They could do worse than to put Wallace's brand new portrait in that same exhibition and then later stick it in a box in the attic along with all their other mistakes. Then the UK should celebrate the only independent discoverer of natural selection by establishing the Matthew Collection along with commissioning a statue and portrait of Patrick Matthew - who is the greatest deductive thinker the World has ever known. Somehow I doubt that will happen until after the World has had a good old laugh at our expense. Mind you, they can't be too hard on us because Darwin and Wallace suckered the rest of the World too. At least the myth was busted by an English person - yours truly. 

In sum, content for 154 years with the myth created by Darwin's and Wallace's story-telling that no naturalist known to them had read Matthew's book before 1859, Darwinists appear now to have a mutant argument that goes in the opposite direction in order to keep worshipping Darwin and Wallace. The mutant variety relies upon a new necessity for many, many, more naturalists than I have uniquely discovered to have read Matthew's book in order to make a new argument that Matthew's ideas were read but incomprehensible to all of the "new-unknown others" who read them, including the now known-citers (Loudon, Selby and Chambers) who influenced Darwin and Wallace on the exact same specific topic.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for his own future legacy, Beccaloni's desperate mutant variant argument is one that is unlikely to prove fit to survive outside the nurturing of his own biased-brain as curator of the Wallace Collection at the British Museum of Natural History. One reason Beccaloni's speculation will possibly not turn meme being because Matthew's ideas were very clearly stated - as the reviews of his book reveal. Indeed, some reviewers were up-in-arms over his heresy and wrote against it (Sutton 2014b - forthcoming). Matthew, himself told Darwin something about this in his 1860 reply to Darwin's letter to the Gardener's Chronicle (see Sutton 2014). Moreover, if so many more naturalists had read Matthew's book then it seems hard to imagine how Darwin and Wallace could have got away with plagiarising it, because they could not have got away with telling a lie that no naturalists had read it. But let's be balanced and consider Beccaloni's argument more closely. We can't know, but perhaps he is right that many, perhaps thousands - including many naturalists - did read Matthew's book in the 1830's and were either dead or else effectively retired by the time Darwin and Wallace published their "no naturalist read it" stories after 1859. It is not impossible that thousands of naturalists might have read and failed to understand Matthew's hypothesis (see Sutton 2014b for a discussion of this based on further newly discovered facts not yet in the public domain). Darwin provides some evidence to support such a possibility. In his letters to Wallace, following Wallace's complaint that none had shown any interest in his Sarawak paper, Darwin explained that most naturalists - himself, Lyell and Wallace aside, were obsessed merely with capturing, cataloguing and classifying specimens. This might indeed explain why many naturalists would have failed to attach any importance to what Matthew had to say on the problem of species. But we know for a fact that Wallace, Darwin,Selby, Loudon, Chambers and Blyth were all fascinated with the topic. They would have, as the new evidence linking them directly to Matthew's book suggests, see what Matthew had discovered. 

To conclude, it is important to stick with the facts and not to get sidetracked with fascinating un-evidenced speculation, which merely leads us up the primrose path to more storytelling and consequent entrenchment of new 'knowledge -beliefs'.

I’m sure we are learning much here that is of great value about how members of the scientific community initially respond to career devastating bombshell discoveries with initial knee-jerk uninformed rejection followed by more carefully constructed newly created cognitive dissonance fuelled explanations. Moreover, I suspect that many historians of science, psychologists and sociologists will be interested in this most valuable new data. Criminologists, and historians of science, might be interested in the fact that the technology of 'big data' and associated technology, such as Google's Library Project and its facilitating Chrome search engine, has effectively handed redundancy papers to frauds of the type so easily conducted by Darwin and Wallace in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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References

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.

Sutton, M. (2014) Internet Dating with Darwin. Best Thinking.

Sutton, M. (2014b) Nullius in verba. Darwin's greatest secret. ThinkerBooks.

Walsh, J. E. (1997) Unravelling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and its Solution. New York. Random House. 

VISIT PatrickMatthew.com for more information.

The wise man mocks the mocker. The mocker mocks the man.

From the third edition of the Origin of Species onward Charles Darwin (1861) admitted that Patrick Matthew (1831) had published the full hypothesis of natural selection 27 years before he and Wallace (Darwin and Wallace 1858. Darwin 1859) replicated Matthew's original discovery (without citing Matthew).

Darwin wrote in his the historical sketch in the Origin (Darwin 1861):

" The differences of Mr. Matthew's view from mine are not of much importance: he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successive periods, and then re-stocked; and he gives, as an alternative, that new forms may be generated "without the presence of any mould or germ of former aggregates."

Here Darwin does two things. Both show us his enormously sly and mockingly disingenuous dishonest character, which he deployed to hoodwink his credulous deifying "Darwinist" groupies for 155 years. Firstly, knowing full well that he was promoting, at Matthew's expense, the then fashionable (but since thoroughly debunked - see Rampino) Uniformitarian principles promoted by his mentor Charles Lyel, that geological and meteorological catastrophic events never occurred, Darwin was slyly mocking Matthew by implying he was an ignorant and out of touch biblical (e.g. Noah's  flood) catastrophist. And secondly, Darwin implies that Matthew was muddled because he seemed to believe equally in both the process of natural selection leading to the origin of new species and the alternative possibility that a God did it all.

Here is what Matthew (1831, page 384) actually wrote:

Moreover, elsewhere in his 1831 book (In Note F of the Appendix) , Matthew makes it profoundly clear that he has just handed "God" his redundancy papers as an interfering creator of new and extinguisher of old species: '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. ' Darwin's deliberate and self-serving dishonest portrayal of Matthew as someone less scientific than himself is highlighted by how his own words are more supplicating to the notion of a miraculous "God" existing and first creating species than the man whose prior-published ideas he replicated and claimed as his own Darwin, p.525 The Origin of Species: 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.' Actually reading what Matthew wrote, as opposed to what Darwin mockingly implied, reveals the dishonest depths to which the great replicating, and hypocritical, wriggler burrowed in order to portray the true Originator, Matthew, as an unscientific crank, so that he, Darwin, could achieve priority over the true originator of the full hypothesis of natural selection.

Veracious historical analysis reveals, therefore, that an old saying has evolved into a new species. Namely: The wise man mocks the mocker. The mocker mocks the man.

On: The wisdom of mockery

The wise man mocks the mocker,
The mocker mocks the man,
The mocked man mocks the mocker,

Visit the Patrick Matthew website: PatrickMatthew.com for more information about the true biological father of the complete hypothesis of natural selection

The Royal Society: An Institution that Celebrates its Great Science Fraudsters with Pride

The respective English and Welsh theft by Fellow of the Royal Society, Charles Darwin (FRS), and Alfred Wallace of the discovery of the theory of natural selection from the Scottish botanist and farmer Patrick Matthew (see Sutton 2014) is not the first time that a Royal Society member from south of the border managed to steal the great discoveries of one their northern neighbours. Darwin and Wallace got away with it for 154 years. However, an earlier science swindler, Sir Charles Wheatstone, was less successful at evading detection.

Trumpet from the rooftopsPublic Domain

Sir Charles Wheatstone (FRS) convicted science fraudster

In 1840 Sir Charles Wheatstone (FRS   ) dismissed the worth of the invention of the electric clock by the Scottish genius Alexander Bain with a wave of the back of his hand. Bain, who had little money to promote his invention had hoped for Wheatstone's support. Instead, Wheatstone capered off to "independently invent" an electric clock of his own. A few weeks later Wheatstone slyly demonstrated his new invention of the electric clock to the Royal Society, which he claimed to have invented all by himself. Next, Wheatstone followed-up that conscienceless rip-off by trying to have Bain’s patent expunged.

Trumpet from the rooftopsAttribution

Alexander Bain Scottish Inventor Victimised by Sir Charles Wheatstone (FRS) convicted Science Fraudster

Though born a humble crofters son   , Bain litigated and Wheatstone lost and was ordered to make restitution to Bain   .

Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia, at the time of writing (26 May 2014), typically has the facts of this matter nicely Victorian-smog-mixed with another issue and so has conveniently obfuscated the court's finding of guilt very neatly in favour of Sir Charles Wheatstone (FRS   ) Wikipedia page on Wheatstone May 26 2014::   

‘On 26 November 1840, he exhibited his electro-magnetic clock in the library of the Royal Society, and propounded a plan for distributing the correct time from a standard clock to a number of local timepieces. The circuits of these were to be electrified by a key or contact-maker actuated by the arbour of the standard, and their hands corrected by electro-magnetism. The following January Alexander Bain    took out a patent for an electro-magnetic clock, and he subsequently charged Wheatstone with appropriating his ideas. It appears that Bain worked as a mechanist to Wheatstone from August to December, 1840, and he asserted that he had communicated the idea of an electric clock to Wheatstone during that period;but Wheatstone maintained that he had experimented in that direction during May. Bain further accused Wheatstone of stealing his idea of the electro-magnetic printing telegraph; but Wheatstone showed that the instrument was only a modification of his own electro-magnetic telegraph.’

Warning: don’t trust Wikipedia!

As we can see in the above example - some Wikipedians are as biased as Darwinists when it comes to failing to equally weigh and honestly present any evidence against their Royal Society idols. Moreover, in my personal experience, some Wikipedia senior editors are as morally bankrupt as Wheatstone when it comes to stealing the discoveries of others and effectively passing them off as their own - see Sutton 2013 for details.

So what happened to Bain in the end? John Lienhard writes   : 

‘Bain died poor at 67, in a home for the terminally ill. And we're left asking why things work this way. In fact, our sense of justice recoils. Yet creating ideas and making money are two separate human enterprises. Bain managed only the idea part. Yet history might be more just than it first seems. For when we trace the story of these devices, we find Bain wearing the crown for having changed his world after all. And that's really no small reward.’ 

Interestingly, the science swindler Wheatstone can be seen in this picture sitting    close to another famous Royal Society science crook - Charles Darwin (FRS).

Public Domain

Royal Society Fellows and Fellow Science Swindlers

For more details on this and further examples of great science frauds you could do worse than read Grant, J. ( 2007) Corrupted Science: Fraud, ideology and politics in science. Wisley. Artists and Photographers Press Ltd.   

Click here to read the book that dropped the bombshell on the history of science. Big data analysis proves Darwin and Wallace stole the theory of natural selection from Patrick Matthew:

Thinker Media IncUsed only with express written permission

Nullius in Verba

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On Why Darwinists are Extremists

Darwin: The Microscopist Who Didn't Discover Evolution.  By Brian J. Ford. The Microscope. 59:3, 2011. pp 129-137. Click to read

Darwin neither discovered evolution as a general concept, nor did he discover evolution by natural selection. Others, whose work he knew, got there long before him.

p.129:

"But why is he [Darwin] universally promoted as one of the world's greatest iconoclasts? Evolution was not his idea, yet 'Darwinian evolution' is a buzzword. Indeed the question, 'Are you, or are you not, a Darwinist?' seems to mark out the real biologists from those beyond the pale."

"If you don't espouse Darwinism, then the biological establishment won't want you."

p. 136:

"Darwin is set on a pedestal as though he were Einstein or Copernicus, and anyone doubting adherence to this conventional view risks ostracism. In science, as much as in religion, we can find extreme views that fly in the face of realities."

The Royal Society is Nought but a Darwin and Wallace Glee Club!

Sir Gavin de Beer (FRS) wrote in the Wilkins Lecture for the Royal Society (de Beer 1962 on page 333):

"...William Charles Wells and Patrick Matthew were predecessors who had actually published the principle of natural selection in obscure places where their works remained completely unnoticed until Darwin and Wallace reawakened interest in the subject.'

What the expert Royal Society member Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer, British evolutionary embryologist, Director of the British Museum (Natural History), President of the Linnean Society,

Available at Amazon

and receiver of the Royal Society's Darwin Medal for his studies on evolution never knew - that I have uniquely discovered (see Nullius in Verba) - is that  at least 25 people actually cited Matthew's (1831) book before Darwin's and Wallace's papers - which replicated (without citing) Matthew's original ideas and explanatory examples - were read before the Linnean Society in 1858, seven of them were naturalists, four known to Darwin and two to Wallace.

So where's my Darwin Medal for being proven a better scholar than de Beer on his own subject?

Royal Society Darwin Medal

Perhaps the Royal Society needs to improve the quality of its membership and medal winners? Linnean society too. The pseudo-scholarly Darwin glee-club shame of it! 

Visit PatrickMatthew.com to learn the truth about the discovery of natural selection.

Patrick Matthew . Com

The website PatrickMatthew.com was established in 2104 following the unique Big Data discovery, revealed in Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret, that influential naturalists, known to both Charles Darwin and  Alfred Wallace, had read and then cited the 1831 book containing Patrick Matthew's full hypothesis of natural selection before Darwin and Wallace each replicated it along with many of Matthew's unique explanatory examples.

This paradigm changing new discovery in the history of science busts the 155 year old myth, started by Darwin in 1860, that Darwin and Wallace each discovered the theory of natural selection independently of Matthew. Moreover, Darwin's fallacious claim, that before 1860 no naturalist had read Matthew's ideas, is newly 100 per cent proven to have been just one of six deliberate self-serving lies he told to achieve priority over Matthew.

Technological progress in internet search engine technology facilitated original Big Data research in Google's Library Project of over 30 million searchable books and other publications. This research led to game-changing discoveries, which have transformed the unique anomaly of Darwin's and Wallace's claimed dual independent discoveries of Matthew's prior-published original ideas. That old anomaly was changed by the New Data in 2014 from a vexation into a crisis of credulous deifying Darwinist belief in a double occurrence of paradoxical immaculate conceptions by Darwin and Wallace, miraculously occurring as each logically must, whilst they were surrounded by naturalists they knew, who influenced them, and whose minds were fertile with Matthew's original work, having read and then cited his 1831 book decades before Wallace (1855), Darwin and Wallace (1858) and Darwin (1842, 1844 and 1859) replicated the original work within it, and decades before Darwin fallaciously claimed no naturalist had read it before 1860.

http://patrickmatthew.com/

Loren Eiseley on Patrick Matthew, Chambers and Darwin

My original discovery that Robert Chambers, a great influence on Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace, read Patrick Matthew's prior-published hypothesis of natural selection (because he cited it in 1832) represents just one of many bombshell's in the history of biology that explode prior Darwinist myths. All the new bombshells are inside my book Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret.

The influential importance of the wealthy publisher and geologist naturalist Robert Chambers was explained by the  famous anthropologist  and science historian Loren Eiseley in 1959 in his book Darwin's Century. Had Eiseley known then what we know today - that Chambers read Matthew's book containing the full hypothesis of natural selection - as did Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper editor Prideaux Selby - I am sure he would have explained that exactly why the old myth that Darwin and Wallace independently discovered Natural Selection is analogous to the Christian miracle belief in the Blessed Virgin's immaculate conception of the baby Jesus. The big data discovery that naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace, who influenced their work on natural selection, had long before read and cited Matthew's book containing the full thing, drags the anomaly of Darwin's and Wallace's claimed dual independent discoveries of a prior published theory, whilst influenced by those who had read it, before they subsequently fallaciously claimed that no naturalist had read it, into the spotlight as the greatest anomalous paradox in the history of scientific discovery.

The New Facts revealed in Nullius, and reason, plus logic and reason, demand a paradigm shift from the old and credulous faith-based  'majority view' of Darwin's and Wallace's immaculate conceptions of a prior published, advertised, reviewed and cited theory, to the fact-led knowledge of more likely than not Matthewian knowledge contamination.

Eiseley (Darwin's Century) on Chambers' anonymously authored Vestiges of Creation.

 p. 132:

'The hour came in 1844 with the publication of The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.'

p. 133:

'Condemned by critics as immoral and godless, it promptly took the public by storm. Four editions appeared in seven months and by 1860 some 24,000 copies had been sold. Two hundred copies of the first edition were distributed to prominent scientists in the attempt  to arouse interest. The result of this effort to bring attention to the subject is of extreme interest to the scientific historian.'

'Robert Chambers, the anonymous author, had hoped for a scientific hearing but was promptly shouted down. Thomas Huxley, who was later to become Darwin's chief defender, attacked the book with utmost savagery. Phrases such as "foolish fancies," "Charlatanerie," "pretentious nonsense," "work of fiction," "mean view of Nature" rolled from his pen.'

pp. 133-132

'Thus, as Draper commented many years ago, "happily the whole subject was brought into such prominence that it could be withdrawn into obscurity no more.'

p. 134

'Years later Francis Darwin was to write, "My father's copy [of the Vestiges] gives signs of having been carefully read, a long list of marked passages being pinned in at the end." Francis Darwin points out that Charles, seeing the difficulties Chambers got into with certain attempts to explain phylogenetic lines, wrote, "I will not specify any genealogies-much too little known at present."

p.135

'Through it all, it must be borne in mind that Chambers, as part owner of a successful publishing house, had to remain anonymous in order to protect the business interest of himself and his brother William. This is a measure of the damage which threatened a man who transgressed established views in the first half of the century.'

NOTE: This last point is most important, because  Richard Dawkins (2010) with typical biased pseudoscholarly self-protectionism, as a Darwinst named for the great replicator of Matthew's original ideas, castigates Mathew for not trumpeting his discoveries from the rooftops in effort to deny Mathew full priority for his own prior-published discovery.  Dawkins appears not to have read Matthew's (1860) letter in the Gardener's Chronicle - where he told Darwin of a naturalist (unnamed of course - for good reason) who had read Matthew's book but feared to teach its bombshell ideas because he would have received pillory punishment!  Darwinists, such as Dawkins, are self-proven by their bias to be unfit to write as 'experts' on the veracious history of the discovery of natural selection.

Eiseley (1959) thought also that another reason for the overshadowing of Matthew's original discovery is probably because his 1831 version contained the now considered correct influence of catastrophic geological and meteorological extinction events.  Only the year before, Darwin's friend and geological mentor Charles Lyell (1830) brought out the first volume of his influential Principles of Geography, which promoted the Uniformitarian principle that such extinction events never happened. Lyell did not believe transmutation of species occurred until many years later - when Darwin was close to publishing the Origin of Species. Darwin retained his mentor's uniformitarian ideas and mocked Matthew, from the third edition of the origin onward as a scientifically unfashionable catastrophist.

Eiseley later came to realise that Darwin must have plagiarized Matthew's 1831 book

Loren Eiseley (1979) was convinced that Darwin's (1844 - private essay) replication of Matthew's artificial selection analogous explanatory example of the inferiority of trees selected in nurseries, compared to those selected naturally in nature, was taken from Matthew's unique arboricultural expert and unique use of that example to explain natural selection in his book of 1831. See Eiseley (1981, pp.72-73) Darwin and the Mysterious Mr X

However, what Eiseley never discovered - is that David Low , Matthew's Perth Academy schoolmate, read Matthew's book because he took so much unique content from it, including unique Matthewian terms, and was first to replicate (without citation) Matthew's unique prior-published, artificial selection, nursery grown trees analogue, in his own book of 1844. Darwin's notebooks show he read Low's work. Darwin even recommended Low to the Royal Society for his work on the similarities between artificial and natural selection. Darwin's notebooks show he read Low's work extensively. See Nullius for all the details.

Once again all this information proves it far more likely than not that knowledge contamination occurred and that Darwin was influenced by Matthew's prior published hypothesis

Patrick Matthew's Politics

Matthew was a libertarian royalist Chartist, and was in 1839 a Scottish representative of that pre-socialist libertarian political reform movement. He resigned his position because he disagreed with

talk of violent revolution.

Matthew's 1831 book, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, wove his unique discovery of natural

Patrick Matthew

selection in with his political ideals to explain that society was acting like artificial selection in selecting poor human stock to succeed in society at the expense of better human specimens more fitted to prestigious positions. In this sense, he effectively saw that the artificial system of society was not allowing the fittest to prevail. His book warned of the consequences and was not only heretical, in that it trespassed on the domain of natural theology in terms of the origin of species, it was seditious to boot!  Both of these highly controversial traits were criticized in reviews of his book, such as the one in The United Services Journal and Naval and Military Magazine 1831 p. 457):

 "In thus testifying our hearty approbation of the author, it is strictly in his capacity of a forest ranger, where he is original bold, and evidently experienced in all the arcana of the parentage, birth and education of trees. But we disclaim participation in his ruminations on the law of Nature, or on the outrages committed upon reason and justice by our burthens of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments."

The hostile anonymous reviewer of the Edinburgh Literary Journal (1831, p, 2) had this to say:

'The entire tract resembles a new quack medicine, full of high stimulants, ignorantly and not safely combined, and which, till known and analyzed, might prove dangerous as well as attractive to young patients (ie young planters and country gentlemen)...'

Moreover, under the laws passed by Pitt in the 18th century following fear of violent revolution, this meant that scientific societies were forbidden to discuss ideas of the kind Matthew shared. See, for example, Uglow's (2002: p. 464)    explanation of what very clearly happened in the year 1794:

''Pitt passed his notorious Two Acts against 'Seditious Meetings' and 'Treasonable Practices': the former hit particularly at the institutional societies, requiring them to be licensed and proscribing discussion of religion or politics'.

These laws were enshrined by the conventions and rules of  all British scientific associations, such as the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, so that discussions could not be held on the topics of politics, religion or news. Matthew's book was about all three and so he certainly did himself no favours if he wished for his ideas to be discussed by the 19th century gentlemen of science.

The naturalist, John Loudon who reviewed Matthew's book in 1831 mentioned its originality on "the origin of species" no less and was possibly alluding to its heresy and sedition when he wrote:

  '...for want of practice in writing, he has produced a book which we should be sorry should be absent from our library.'

 Matthew's second book 'Emigration Fields' , published in 1839, took his 'survival of the most circumstance suited' natural selection ideas forward for the British to emigrate to countries such as New Zealand in order to find new ecological and create new social niches where they could subdue, intermix with and dominate the indigenous population.

Charles Darwin

And so we can see that Matthew fully understood the political implications of his discovery of the 'natural process of selection' when he first originated it in print in 1831. Forty eight years later, in 1879, Darwin wrote to the German, Dr Scherzer:

'What a foolish idea seems to prevail in Germany on the connection between Socialism and Evolution through Natural Selection.'

At the time of writing this letter is not yet available on the Darwin correspondence project. Darwin's biography, edited by his son Francis, misspells Scherzer as Cherzer.

Sir Gavin de Beer (1962) p.330 writes in regard to this letter:

'Darwin, to the end of his days, never understood the political overtones which, whether he liked it or not, were attached to his work.'

Where the truth lies, when we are dealing with a man such as Darwin - a proven self-serving serial liar, is another matter altogether. For one thing, we know for a fact, from what he wrote, that Darwin had read the whole of Matthew's book after Matthew had claimed priority for his discovery in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860. How could Darwin have missed the political implications so often clearly stated? For example:

Matthew (1831, p. 365): "The law of entail, necessary to hereditary nobility, is an outrage on this law of nature which she will no pass unavenged—a law which has the most debasing influence upon the energies of a people, and will sooner or later lead to general subversion…" 

And (Matthew 1831, p. 390): "…the great mass of the present population requiring no guidance from a particular class of feudal lords, will not continue to tolerate any hereditary claims of authority of one portion of the population over their fellow-men; nor any laws to keep up rank and wealth corresponding to this exclusive power. It would be wisdom in the noblesse of Europe to abolish every claim or law which serves to point them out a separate class, and, as quickly as possible, to merge themselves into the mass of the It is a law manifest in nature, that when the use of any thing is past, its use is no longer kept up."

And we know for a fact that in 1862 Darwin read Matthew's letter in which Matthew spelled out his political approach to the study of natural selection:

'My line lies more in the political & social, Your's in tracing out the admirably balanced scheme of Nature all linked together in dependent connection—the vital endowed with a variation-power in accommodation to material change.'

Robert Chambers, a staunch anti-Chartism, educational liberal, who was notoriously fearful of the consequences of political emancipation of the working classes was one of seven naturalists newly discovered (Sutton 2014) to have cited Matthew's (1831) book pre 1858. He was a friend and correspondent of Darwin, and, like Lyell - Darwin's great mentor, a member of the Edinburgh Geological Society. Their private correspondence reveals that Both Darwin and Lyell knew that Chambers was the anonymous author of the heretical Vestiges of Creation - the book that notoriously 'put evolution in the air' in the mid 19th century and which was Wallace's greatest influence.

In 1848 Chambers stood for political election. He was supported in that campaign by none other than Adam Black - Patrick Matthew's publisher who substantially advertised Matthew's book and its subject matter on species.

The real history of the discovery of natural selection and the political suppression of Patrick Matthew's priority for his prior published hypothesis of natural selection is no conspiracy theory. Rather, it is simply, newly discovered, fact-based, history.

Moreover, the reality of the circles that Mathew and Darwin both moved in are far more complex and interrelated than the simple, made-up, childish 'just so' stories told by biased Darwinists (e.g. Dawkins in Bryson 2010) about Matthew being simply an obscure Scottish writer of a 'manual on silviculture'  in order to lazily fill their pseudoscholarly knowledge gaps in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace. By way of further example, Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker petitioned Matthew's publisher Adam Black in his failed attempt in 1845 to get the chair of Botany at Edinburgh university. Darwin was livid that Hooker was not appointed.