Patrick Matthew is generally acknowledged as the originator of the
theory of natural selection. He published his discovery of ‘the
natural process of selection’ in a book entitled ‘On Naval and Timber
and Arboriculture’ in 1831, which is 27 years before Charles Darwin’s
and Alfred Wallace’s papers were read before the Linnean Society in
1858.
The current consensus is that Darwin and Wallace each discovered
natural selection independently of Matthew and independently of one
another. Moreover, Darwin is hailed as the immortal great thinker on the
subject of evolution, because he alone is recognised as first to take
his own discovery of the theory of natural selection forward, with many
confirmatory evidences, convincing others of its veracity and
importance.
In this talk, Mike Sutton will challenge this view with new evidence
that proves that, pre-1858, Matthew’s book was read by at least seven
naturalists. Three of the seven were at the epicentre of influence on
Darwin’s and Wallace’s researches and two of those three were personal
associates and correspondents of Darwin and Wallace. He will show that
Matthew, not Darwin, should be celebrated as solver of the problem of
species.
Dr Michael "Mike" Sutton is Reader in Criminology at Nottingham
Trent University (UK), where he teaches Hi Tech Crime and also Crime
Reduction and Community Safety. Before that he worked for 14 years as a
senior researcher in the Policing and reducing Crime Unit in the Home
Office in London. Mike is the originator of the Market Reduction
Approach (MRA) to theft and co-founder and Chief Editor of the open
access Internet Journal of Criminology. He is a winner of the British
Journal of Criminology Prize for virtual ethnographic research into a
pan-European hacking group.
Doors 10.30, £5 in advance, £2 concs./Free to Ethical Society members
Tea & Coffee will be available. Book your tickets through the London Ethical Society: Here
