Friday 29 December 2017

Immaculate deception

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Mike Sutton
Mike Sutton
Dr Mike Sutton is the author of 'Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret'.
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Immaculate Deception

May 23, 2015 1:39 am
Categories: CounterknowledgeDysology
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(c) Dr Mike Sutton - All Rights ReservedAttribution Non-commercial
Immaculate Conception by Gabe Woods Oil on Canvas 2015 (Painting AKA: "The Virgin Darwin)

This oil on canvas painting is by the Nottingham-based British portrait artist Gabriel Woods. Showing Darwin holding Patrick Matthew as his own child, it pays homage to religious pictures of the Virgin Mary and child.
This typically mesmerizing Woods portrait is a pictorial allegorical analogy painted to explain the silliness of the current 'majority view' blind belief in Darwin's and Wallace's claims to have each conceived the theory of natural selection independently of Patrick Matthew's (1831) prior published book, which expert Darwinists agree    contained the full theory 27 years before Darwin's and Wallace's papers were read before the Linnean Society in 1858.
"Immaculate Deception" is a painting after "The Holy Family" by Francesco Francia, 1510.
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Francesco Francia (1450-1517) - The Holy Family
In the words of the artist Gabriel Woods (May 2015) as his explanation for his portrait "Immaculate Deception":
"The picture represents Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who both claimed they each independently discovered the theory of natural selection with no prior knowledge of Patrick Matthew's earlier work. Patrick Matthew is represented in the allegorical painting as the infant "
The picture was commissioned, in light of new data (Sutton 2014) that proves naturalists well known the Darwin and Wallace read and then cited Matthew's book before going on to play roles at the very epicenter of influence on the pre-1858 work of Darwin and Wallace on natural selection. The Blessed Virgin St Mary's conception of Jesus of Nazareth, is a miracle because she became pregnant with the child of "God" whilst surrounded by men who were fertile to some unknown degree. The analogy is perfect because so too were Darwin and Wallace surrounded by men whose brains were fertile - to some unknown degree - with Matthew's unique ideas. Therefore, in the final analysis, if Darwin and Wallace did not conceive Matthew's unique discovery, name for it, examples of it in nature, and his artificial versus natural slection analogy of differences to explain it, by some kind of 'knowledge contamination,' then they must surely have each been mysteriously endowed with a miraculous and divine cognitive contraceptive device. See more of Wood's work on the Matthew Art and Gabriel Woods page on PatrickMathew.com   
Seriously, I don't think belief in miracles has any rational place in helping us to tell the veracious history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection.
The probability that Darwin and Wallace lied when they each claimed to have independently discovered natural selection seems more likely than not. The New Data and a wealth of further evidence about their lies and deceit suggests Darwin and Wallace committed the world's greatest science fraud by deliberately plagiarizing Matthew's book.

Background to Gabriel Wood's painting "Their Immaculate Conception"

Contrary to the Patrick Matthew Supermyth started by Darwin in 1860 in his own defense, other naturalists in fact did read Matthew's (1831) prior published theory of natural selection.
At least 25 people cited the book before 1858 and seven of those were naturalists.
The Newly Discovered 'Citing Seven', in date order of their citing of Matthew's book, are:
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Patrick Matthew: The biological father of the theory of natural selection
  1. John Loudon (1832)   ,
  2. Robert Chambers (1832),
  3. Edmund Murphy (1834),
  4. Cuthbert Johnson (1842),
  5. Prideaux John Selby (1842),
  6. John Norton (1851)
  7. William Jameson (1853).
Three of these seven naturalists - Loudon, Selby and Chambers - played key roles at the epicenter of influence on both Darwin's and Wallace's pre-1858 work on the theory of natural selection.
Loudon - an associate of Darwin's friends William and Joseph Hooker - edited two of Edward Blyth's (1835, 1836) hugely influential papers on species. Blyth was Darwin's most useful and prolific informant.
Selby edited Wallace's (1855) famous Sarawak paper on natural selection.
Chambers (1844) wrote the best selling Vestiges of Creation - the book that most influenced Wallace, greatly influenced Darwin, and "put evolution in the air" in the first half of the 19th century.
Barring the occurrence of a dual supernatural miracle of immaculate conception by divine cognitive contraception, some kind of 'knowledge contamination' appears more likely than not.
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Nullius in Verba
Read Nullius in Verba    to get the full details of exactly who did read Matthew's book before Darwin and Wallace replicated the great ideas in it and claimed them as their own.
Find out how the New Data was discovered.
Learn about the controversial yet amazing F2b2 hypothesis.

Further Background to the Story

Chronology of publication-events in discreet detail of Darwin's creation of the Patrick Matthew Supermyth that no naturalists read Matthew's prior publication of the full hypothesis of natural selection before 1860

John Loudon's (1832) book review of Patrick Matthew's (1831) Naval Timber and Arboriculture: with critical notes on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting .

Loudon’s full book review of the NTA should be read very carefully, so that we might be better informed in weighing plausible speculations about what the Hookers knew, and what they might, possibly and probably, have discussed with Darwin about the book. From that cause herein follows the entire review (Loudon, 1832 p. 702-703):
Matthew Patrick: On Naval Timber and Arboriculture; with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. 8vo, 400 pages. London, 1831. 12s
‘In our Number for February, 1831 (Vol. VII. P. 78.), we have given the title of this work, with a promise of a farther notice. This is, however, now so retrospective a business, that we shall perform it as briefly as possible. The author introductorily maintains that the best interests of Britain consist in the extension of her dominion on the ocean; and that, as a means to this end, naval architecture is a subject of primary importance; and, by consequence, the culture and production of naval timber is also very important. He explains, by description and by figures, the forms and qualities of the planks and timbers most in request in the construction of ships; and then describes those means of cultivating trees, which he considers most effectively conducive to the production of these required planks and timbers.
The British forest trees suited for naval purposes,” enumerated by the author, are, oak, Spanish chestnut, beech, Scotch elm, English elm, red-wood willow (Salix fragilis), redwood pine, and white larch. On each of these he presents a series of remarks regarding the relative merits of their timber; and even notices, under each, the varieties of each, and the relative merits of these varieties. Indeed our author insists particularly on the necessity of paying the greatest attention to the selection, both for planting and for ultimate appropriation, of particular varieties, he contending that vegetable bodies are so susceptible of the influence of circumstances, as soil, climate, treatment of the seed, culture of the seedling, &c &c ., as to be modified and modifiable into very numerous varieties, and that it is an essential object to select the variety most adapted to the circumstances of the plot of ground to be planted. This may be very true; but it is also true that extreme will be the difficulty of diffusing, among those most engaged in the operative processes of forestry, sensitive attention to these points.
“Miscellaneous Matter connected with Naval Timber.”
Under this head the author has remarks on nurseries, planting, pruning timber, and the relations of our marine.
The last chapter is a political one; and, indeed, throughout the book proofs abound that our author is not one of those who devote themselves to a subject without caring for its ultimate issues and relations; consequently his habit of mind propels him to those political considerations which the subject “our marine” naturally induces benefiting man universally is the spirit of the author's political faith.
Two hundred and twenty-two pages are occupied by “Notices of authors relative to timber,” in which strictures are presented on the following works: Monteath's Forester's Guide; Nicol's Planter's Calendar; Billington On Planting; Forsyth On Fruit and Forest Trees; Mr Withers's writings; Steuart's Planter's Guide; Sir Walter Scott's critique, and Cruickshank's Practical Planter. The author's opinions on the opinions and practices of these writers must avail the patient investigator of arboriculture, and those who delight in the comparison of divers and diverse opinions. This part of the book is one which has been, or will be, read with considerable interest by the authors of the above works and their partisans. An appendix of 29 pages concludes the book, and receives some parenthetical evolutions of certain extraneous points which the author struck upon in prosecuting the thesis of his book. This may be truly termed in a double sense, an extraordinary part of the book. One of the subjects discussed in this appendix is the puzzling one, of the origin of species and varieties; and if the author has hereon originated no original views (and of this we are far from certain), he has certainly exhibited his own in an original manner. His whole book is written in a vigorous, cheerful, pleasing tone; and although his combinations of ideas are sometimes startlingly odd, and his expression of them neither simple nor lucid, for want of practice in writing, he has produced a book which we should be sorry should be absent from our library. We had thought of presenting an abstract of the author's prescriptions for pruning trees intended for the production of plank; but on second thought we shall omit them, and refer the reader for them to the book of the author himself.’

Matthew's letter to the Gardener's Chronicle, claiming full priority for his discovery of natural selection.

Published April 7th 1860
   
NATURE'S LAW OF SELECTION.
TRUSTING to your desire that every man should have his own, I hope you will give place to the following communication.
In your Number of March 3d I observe a long quotation from the Times, stating that Mr. Darwin "professes to have discovered the existence and modus operandi of the natural law of selection," that is, "the power in nature which takes the place of man and performs a selection, sua sponte," in organic life. This discovery recently published as "the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection" by Mr. Darwin turns out to be what I published very fully and brought to apply practically to forestry in my work "Naval Timber and Arboriculture," published as far back as January 1, 1831, by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, and Longman & Co., London, and reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity in the "Metropolitan Magazine," the "Quarterly Review," the "Gardeners' Magazine," by Loudon, who spoke of it as the book, and repeatedly in the "United Service Magazine" for 1831, &c. The following is an extract from this volume, which clearly proves a prior claim. The same volume contains the first proposal of the steam ram (also claimed since by several others, English, French, and Americans,) and a navy of steam gun-boats as requisite in future maritime war, and which, like the organic selection law, are only as yet making way: —
"There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition that its kind, or that organised matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers, to their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles. As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing—either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence."
"Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience, from the adopted dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along been floundering between species and variety, which certainly under culture soften into each other. A particular conformity, each after its own kind, when in a state of nature, termed species, no doubt exists to a considerable degree. This conformity has existed during the last 40 centuries. 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 on 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 organised matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior. The derangements and changes in organised 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."
"When we view the immense calcareous and bituminous formations, principally from the waters and atmosphere, and consider the oxidations and depositions which have taken place, either gradually, or during some of the great convulsions, it appears at least probable, that the liquid elements containing life have varied considerably at different times in composition and weight; that our atmosphere has contained a much greater proportion of carbonic acid or oxygen; and our waters aided by excess of carbonic acid, and greater heat resulting from greater density of atmosphere, have contained a greater quantity of lime and other mineral solutions. Is the inference then unphilosophic, that living things which are proved to have a circumstance-suiting power—a very slight change of circumstance by culture inducing a corresponding change of character—may have gradually accommodated themselves to the variations of the elements containing them, and, without new creation, have presented the diverging changeable phenomena of past and present organised existence?"
"The destructive liquid currents, before which the hardest mountains have been swept and comminuted into gravel, sand, and mud, which intervened between and divided these epochs, probably extending over the whole surface of the globe, and destroying nearly all living things, must have reduced existence so much, that an unoccupied field would be formed for new diverging ramifications of life, which, from the connected sexual system of vegetables, and the natural instincts of animals to herd and combine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups, these remnants, in the course of time, moulding and accommodating their being anew to the change of circumstances, and to every possible means of subsistence, and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to have followed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation was completed, affording fossil deposit of regular specific character."
"There are only two probable ways of change—the above, and the still wider deviation from present occurrence—of indestructible or molecular life (which seems to resolve itself into powers of attraction and repulsion under mathematical figure and regulation, bearing a slight systematic similitude to the great aggregations of matter), gradually uniting and developing itself into new circumstance-suited living aggregates, without the presence of any mould or germ of former aggregates, but this scarcely differs from new creation, only it forms a portion of a continued scheme or system."
"In endeavouring to trace, in the former way, the principle of these changes of fashion which have taken place in the domiciles of life, the following questions occur:—Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing intermediate species? Are they the diverging ramifications of the living principle under modification of circumstance? Or have they resulted from the combined agency of both? Is there only one living principle? Does organised existence, and perhaps all material existence, consist of one Proteus principle of life capable of gradual circumstance-suited modifications and aggregations, without bound under the solvent or motion-giving principle, heat or light? There is more beauty and unity of design in this continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of nature which are manifest to us, than in total destruction and new creation. It is improbable that much of this diversification is owing to commixture of species nearly allied, all change by this appears very limited, and confined within the bounds of what is called species; the progeny of the same parents, under great difference of circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction."
"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life, may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of Nature, who, as before stated, has, in all the varieties of her offspring, a prolific power much beyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill up the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they have superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other kind; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prematurely destroyed. This principle is in constant action, it regulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts; those individuals of each species, whose colour and covering are best suited to concealment or protection from enemies, or defence from vicissitude and inclemencies of climate, whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support; whose capacities and instincts can best regulate the physical energies to self-advantage according to circumstances—in such immense waste of primary and youthful life, those only come forward to maturity from the strict ordeal by which Nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfection and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction."
"From the unremitting operation of this law acting in concert with the tendency which the progeny have to take the more particular qualities of the parents, together with the connected sexual system in vegetables, and instinctive limitation to its own kind in animals, a considerable uniformity of figure, colour, and character, is induced, constituting species; the breed gradually acquiring the very best possible adaptation of these to its condition which it is susceptible of, and when alteration of circumstance occurs, thus changing in character to suit these as far as its nature is susceptible of change."
"This circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety), does not preclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have over the configuration of the body. To examine into the disposition to sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external circumstance, and how far on the will, irritability, and muscular exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links of the particular chain of life, variety being often merely types of approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be embraced by our experiments."
"This continuation of family type, not broken by casual particular aberration, is mental as well as corporeal, and is exemplified in many of the dispositions or instincts of particular races of men. These innate or continuous ideas or habits seem proportionally greater in the insect tribes, those especially of shorter revolution; and forming an abiding memory, may resolve much of the enigma of instinct, and the foreknowledge which these tribes have of what is necessary to completing their round of life, reducing this to knowledge, or impressions and habits, acquired by a long experience. This greater continuity of existence, or rather continuity of perceptions and impressions, in insects, is highly probable; it is even difficult in some to ascertain the particular stops when each individuality commences, under the different phases of egg, larva, pupa, or if much consciousness of individuality exists. The continuation of reproduction for several generations by the females alone in some of these tribes, tends to the probability of the greater continuity of existence, and the subdivisions of life by cuttings (even in animal life) at any rate must stagger the advocate of individuality."
"Among the millions of specific varieties of living things which occupy the humid portion of the surface of our planet, as far back as can be traced, there does not appear, with the exception of man, to have been any particular engrossing race, but a pretty fair balance of powers of occupancy—or rather, most wonderful variation of circumstance parallel to the nature of every species, as if circumstance and species had grown up together. There are indeed several races which have threatened ascendancy in some particular regions, but it is man alone from whom any general imminent danger to the existence of his brethren is to be dreaded."
"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 its culture and protection."
"It is, however, only in the present age that man has begun to reap the fruits of his tedious education, and has proven how much 'knowledge is power.' He has now acquired a dominion over the material world, and a consequent power of increase, so as to render it probable that the whole surface of the earth may soon be overrun by this engrossing anomaly, to the annihilation of every wonderful and beautiful variety of animated existence, which does not administer to his wants principally as laboratories of preparation to befit cruder elemental matter for assimiliation by his organs."
"Much of the luxuriance and size of timber depending upon the particular variety of the species, upon the treatment of the seed before sowing, and upon the treatment of the young plant, and as this fundamental subject is neither much attended to nor generally understood, we shall take it up ab initio."
"The consequences are now being developed of our deplorable ignorance of, or inattention to, one of the most evident traits of natural history, that vegetables as well as animals are generally liable to an almost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil, nourishment, and new commixture of already formed varieties. In those with which man is most intimate, and where his agency in throwing them from their natural locality and dispositions has brought out this power of diversification in stronger shades, it has been forced upon his notice, as in man himself, in the dog, horse, cow, sheep, poultry—in the Apple, Pear, Plum, Gooseberry, Potato, Pea, which sport in infinite varieties, differing considerably in size, colour, taste, firmness of texture, period of growth, almost in every recognisable quality. In all these kinds man is influential in preventing deterioration, by careful selection of the largest or most valuable as breeders; but 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, abstaining from the seed of the prematurely productive, and also from that of the very aged and over-mature; as they, from animal analogy, may be expected to give an infirm progeny, subject to premature decay."— See "Naval Timber and Arboriculture," pages 364 and 365, 381 to 388; also 106 to 108. Patrick Matthew, Gourdee Hill, Errol N.B., March 7.

Darwin's letter to his friend and botanical mentor and co-"conspirator" in the Linnean Debacle of 1858 - Wiliam Hooker 13th April 1860   

Questions of priority so often lead to odious quarrels, that I shd. esteem it a great favour if you would read enclosed. If you think it proper that I shd. send it (& of this there can hardly be question) & if you think it full & ample enough, please alter date to day on which you post it & let that be soon.— The case in G. Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthews book, for the passages are therein scattered in 3 places. But it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that.— If you object to my letter please return it; but I do not expect that you will, but I thought that you would not object to run your eye over it.— My dear Hooker it is a great thing for me to have so good, true, & old a friend as you. I owe much to science for my friends.

Darwin's letter to his friend and geological mentor and co-"conspirator" in the Linnean Debacle of 1858 - Charles Lyell 10th April 1860   

Now for a curious thing about my Book, & then I have done. In last Saturday Gardeners' Chronicle, a Mr Patrick Matthews publishes long extract from his work on ``Naval Timber & Arboriculture'' published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Nat. Selection.— I have ordered the Book, as some few passages are rather obscure but it, is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation! Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case someday. Anyhow one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on ``Naval Timber''.
Questions of priority so often lead to odious quarrels, that I shd. esteem it a great favour if you would read enclosed. If you think it proper that I shd. send it (& of this there can hardly be question) & if you think it full & ample enough, please alter date to day on which you post it & let that be soon.— The case in G. Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthews book, for the passages are therein scattered in 3 places. But it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that.— If you object to my letter please return it; but I do not expect that you will, but I thought that you would not object to run your eye over it.— My dear Hooker it is a great thing for me to have so good, true, & old a friend as you. I owe much to science for my friends.

Darwin's letter of reply to Matthew's letter of claim in the Gardener's Chronicle - Dated by Joseph Hooker and approved by Hooker.

Published April 21st 1860
   
Note: Hooker approved this letter, which was Darwin's defense reply to Matthew's letter informing Darwin that the botanist John Loudon (a renowned naturalist and member of the Linnean Soaciey and the Royal Society    of Arts had actually published a positive review of his book and the unique ideas in it.
The great scandal in the history of science here is that Hooker and his father (William Hooker) - both botanists and both great friends of Darwin - knew and had corresponded with Loudon. By this time, however, Loudon had been dead 16 years. In effect then, Hooker approved Darwin's lie in this letter that apparently no naturalist had read Matthew's book! Even though years earlier Hooker had written that Loudon was better than any naturalist in Europe for his talent and accuracy in writing about plants   , Hooker also used Loudon's design for the Derby Arboretum as the model for Kew. Moreover the names Hooker and Loudon were regularly cited together    as internationally famous and influential botanists. Yet for 155 years we have all swallowed Darwin's lie, that Hooker approved, that apparently no naturalist had read Matthew's book before Darwin in 1860:
I have been much interested by Mr Patrick Matthew's communication in the number of your paper April 17th. I fully acknowledge that he has anticipated by many years the explanation that I have offered for the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I nor apparently any other naturalist had heard of Mr Matthews’ views, considering how briefly they are given and they appear in an appendix to a work on naval timber and arboriculture. I could do more than offer my sincere apologies to Mr Matthews for my entire ignorance of his publication. If another edition of my work is called for I will insert a notice to the foregoing effect. Charles Darwin, Down. Bromley, Kent.

Matthew's second letter is his reply to Darwin's defence in the Gardener's Chronicle.12th May 1860

The Origin of Species.—I notice in your Number of April 21 Mr. Darwin’s letter honourably acknowledging my prior claim relative to the origin of species. I have not the least doubt that, in publishing his late work, he believed he was the first discoverer of this law of Nature. He is however wrong in thinking that no naturalist was aware of the previous discovery.
I had occasion some 15 years ago to be conversing with a naturalist, a professor of a celebrated university, and he told me he had been reading my work “Naval Timber,” but that he could not bring such views before his class or uphold them publicly from fear of the cutty-stool, a sort of pillory punishment, not in the market-place and not devised for this offence, but generally practised a little more than half a century ago. It was at least in part this spirit of resistance to scientific doctrine that caused my work to be voted unfit for the public library of the fair city itself. The age was not ripe for such ideas, nor do I believe is the present one, though Mr. Darwin’s formidable work is making way.
As for the attempts made by many periodicals to throw doubt upon Nature’s law of selection having originated species, I consider their unbelief incurable and leave them to it. Belief here requires a certain grasp of mind. No direct proof of phenomena embracing so long a period of time is within the compass of short- lived man. To attempt to satisfy a school of ultra sceptics, who have a wonderfully limited power of perception of means to ends, of connecting the phenomena of Nature, or who perhaps have not the power of comprehending the subject, would be labour in vain. Were the exact sciences brought out as new discoveries they would deny the axioms upon which the exact sciences are based. They could not be brought to conceive the purpose of a handsaw though they saw its action, if the whole individual building it assisted to construct were not presented complete before their eyes, and even then they would deny that the senses could be trusted. Like the child looking upon the motion of a wheel in an engine they would only perceive and admire, and have their eyes dazzled and fascinated with the rapid and circular motion of the wheel, without noticing its agency in connection with and modifying the moving power towards affecting the purposed end. Out of this class there could arise no Cuvier, able from a small fragmentary bone to determine the character and position in Nature of the extinct animal. To observers of Nature aware of the extent of the modifying power of man over organic life, and its variations in anterior time, not fettered by early prejudices, not biassed by college-taught or closet-bred ideas, but with judgment free to act upon a comprehensive survey of Nature past and present, and a grasp of mind able to digest and generalise,
I think that few will not see intuitively, unless they wish not to see, all that has been brought forward in regard to the origin of species. To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr. Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had—to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; While with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact—an axiom, requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp. Patrick Matthew, Gourdie-Hill, Errol, May 2.

What might we rationally conclude from these letters in light of the New Data that 100 per cent disproves the 155 year old Darwinist Supermyth (The Patrick Matthew Supermyth) that no naturalist read Matthew's (1831) ideas before 1860?

We now know, following my unique research, that at least seven naturalists did read it. Those naturalists actually cited Matthew's book before 1860, and three of them - Loudon, Selby and Chambers - played major roles at the very epicenter of influence of the pre-1858 work by Darwin and Wallace on natural selection.
I made an error in my book “Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret   ”. It’s one to be corrected in the second edition.
When I wrote Nullius in 2014, I thought – for some reason – that Matthew told Darwin about the naturalist John Loudon’s review of “On Naval Timber” in his letter of reply to Darwin’s “apparently no naturalist read” your ideas defense.
In fact, as I have demonstrated above, Matthew (1860) told Darwin about Loudon in his very first letter to The Gardener’s Chronicle published on April 7th 1860. And that is a most important fact that has slipped under everyone's radar until I wrote these words on May 22 2015.

Here is why this fact is so important:

Darwin had his friend Joseph Hooker look over his “no naturalist read it” defense. He insisted Hooker approve his defense or else send it back to Darwin. He effectively insisted that Hooker re- date the letter to the Editor of the Gardener’s Chronicle and forward it on his behalf.
Darwin, it is well known, kept copies of all the correspondence he sent. So Darwin had a copy of the letter he sent to Hooker. By re-dating "Darwin's Defense Letter" to the Chronicle, Hooker left a paper trail that Darwin could use to claim in any future defense that what he had written by way of reply to Matthew was checked for truthfulness and its content was approved by the great and highly respected naturalist Joseph Hooker.
We should not be surprised to find Loudon giving a truthful account of what was in Matthew's book, despite its contents being heretical, because the man appeared to have an almost pathological addiction to truth and seemed unafraid of speaking out when he wanted to (see 'John Claudius Loudon and the Early Nineteenth Century in Great Britain   )' It is most interesting that Loudon had been dead 16 years by then. And it is far more interesting that Joseph Hooker, and his father William, knew Loudon, because Loudon, known then, far and wide, as "The Father of the English Garden" was a botanist! They were botanists. Loudon was a great friend of the botanist John Lindley – who was William Hookers best friend. Loudon produced the Magazine of natural history, was the author of the prestigious Arboretum Britannicum, He had even secretly co-authored a book with Lindley. He regularly wrote to William Hooker. Loudon designed the Arboretum at Derby, which served as a model for the Royal Botanical Garden's at Kew.
What was Loudon – an accredited and famous horticultural botanist – scientific journal editor (and polymath), Member of the Horticultural Society, Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Arts – if not a naturalist? Darwin knew Loudon was a naturalist, because hisprivate notebook of books read    showed he read great many of Loudon's books and copies of his Magazine of Natural History (which Darwin heavily annotated). It was Loudon who, in 1816, invented the famous sash bar that made the curved design of the glass houses at Kew Gardens, which the Hooker's ran, possible. Loudon’s 1832 review of Matthew’s book was directly adjacent to a review of Lindley’s book. And that was in the same edition that reviewed William Hooker’s book of that year. And Loudon owned and edited the journal that contained those reviews.
And yet , despite Matthew writing that Loudon had reviewed his book, Joseph hooker approved Darwin’s defense reply that apparently no naturalist had read that book before 1860! The shame of it!
Matthew’s (1860) second letter to the Gardener’s Chronicle was a reply to Darwin’s “apparently no naturalist read it” defence. Perhaps this second letter reveals that Matthew felt out of his depth arguing the toss with the great Charles Darwin about whether or not Loudon was a naturalist. Perhaps Victorian rules of gentlemanly propriety forbade him from contradicting in public what Darwin had written what he fallaciously claimed, despite Matthew's prior evidence to the contrary. Perhaps Matthew just played his hand badly, expecting Darwin to promote him honestly and with integrity as the Originator with the full and rightful priority he asked for in his first letter to the Chronicle?
Whatever the case, Matthew moved on from the Loudon evidence and simply told Darwin of another (anonymous) naturalist who taught at a university who had read his book but was afraid of teaching its heresy for fear of being pilloried on the cutty stool ( a from of being shamed in church in Scotland at the time).
Darwin ignored all of Matthew’s evidence that naturalists had read – indeed cited – his book.
From the third edition of The Origin of Species onward, Darwin wrote that Matthew’s ideas had gone unnoticed until Matthew personally brought them to Darwin’s attention in the Gardener’s Chronicle in 1860.
Darwin’s lies, and Hooker's knowing approval of them in this case, have remained undetected for these past 155 years. And it is this failure to spot them that has led so many "experts" to merely parrot and reprint Darwin's lies about Matthew's book having gone unread by any naturalists as the gospel truth. In sum, the fact that Loudon was a naturalist has passed undetected by Darwinists, who have been repeatedly taking the bait and swallowing the great lie Hooker, line and sinker!
The highly respected Darwin was a liar. His eminent and most respected friend Joseph Hooker was equally dishonestly uninterested in the truth. As if Darwin's lie in his second letter to the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860 - in the teeth of the evidence provided by Matthew that the naturalist Loudon had reviewed Matthew's book - was not enough, the following year Darwin wrote even more brazenly in a private letter, of most shameless Matthew denial propaganda, which he sent to the naturalist Quatrefages de Bréau (April 25, 1861    ):
"I have lately read M. Naudin's paper; but it does not seem to me to anticipate me, as he does not shew how Selection could be applied under nature; but an obscure writer on Forest Trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly & clearly anticipated my views—though he put the case so briefly, that no single person ever noticed the scattered passages in his book."
Once we understand that Darwin was - far from being an original thinker, and far from being an honest paragon of science, -a cunning liar why should we not suspect he deliberately plagiarized the prior-published work he replicated? Is it not our scholarly duty to look further?
Loudon was a naturalist, we should look at what he did as one. And what do we find when we do that? Well I was first to find that he edited Edward Blyth’s (1855; 1856) two papers on species and organic evolution that so greatly influenced Darwin. And Darwin, from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward, admitted that Blyth was his most helpful and prolific informant.
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(c) Darwin and WallaceAttribution
Miracle Double Immaculate Conceptions of the Blessed Virgins Darwin and Wallace of Matthew's prior published hypothesis of natural selection

Darwin's and Wallace's Miraculous Dual Immaculate Conceptions

Perhaps Patrick Matthew did not in way influence Charles Darwin’s so-called “independent” discovery of Matthew's prior published discovery of natural selection that Darwin's friends and influencers read before 1858? Perhaps no knowledge contamination took place at all. Instead, rather than rationally weighing the New Data, as I do in my book 'Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret,   " perhaps we should simply believe the improbable over what seems more likely than not? Perhaps we should have faith that a supernatural miracle of divine cognitive contraception was gifted to Darwin? And the same gifted to Wallace? A double miracle of immaculate conception of a prior published theory then.
 

The Patrick Matthew Supermyth


Mike Sutton
Mike Sutton
Dr Mike Sutton is the author of 'Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret'.

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Posted in Science / Biology & Nature / Biology

The Patrick Matthew Supermyth

May 12, 2015 1:31 pm
Categories: CounterknowledgeDysology
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Dysology.com and PatrickMatthew.comAttribution
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Many writing on the history of the discovery of natural selection and Patrick Matthew, including Charles Darwin (1860)[1]   , (1861)[2]   Alfred Russel Wallace (1879)[3]   , Donald Forsdyke (2008)[4]   , Milton Wainwright (2008)[5]   , Christopher Hallpike (2008)[6]   , Richard Dawkins (2010)[7]    William James Dempster (1983)[8]    and Mike Sutton (2014)[9]   , discuss and conclude that Matthew (1831) - in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture[10]    - published the full theory of natural selection many years before Darwin and Wallace put pen to private notepaper on the topic and 27 years before Darwin and Wallace (1858) had their papers read before the Linnean Society.
Yet, in 1859 Charles Darwin published 'The Origin of Species'. In that book he referred to 'natural selection' as “my theory”.
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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
Unsurprisingly, therefore In 1860, orchard owner Patrick Matthew laid claim in the press to having originated the same theory 28 years earlier in his 1831 book 'On Navel Timber and Arboriculture'.
Darwin apologized, acknowledging that Matthew had published the entire concept. Alfred Wallace, another who at the same time claimed to have independently discovered natural selection, agreed. However, Darwin and Wallace claimed no prior knowledge of Matthew’s ideas, excusing themselves by further claiming that no one had read them. Ignoring the principle of nullius in verba, scientists have always taken Darwin at his word alone that neither he nor any naturalist known to him had read Matthew's prior published theory.
Contrary to the myth debunked by Dempster (1996) that Matthew's ideas were merely briefly stated in the appendix to his book and busting the supermyth that Matthew's 1831 book, revealing and detailing his unique and full discovery of natural selection , went unread by any naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace, it was cited in the literature before 1858 by three naturalists (Loudon. Selby and Chambers), who each played key pre-1858 roles in facilitating and influencing Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on natural selection.

What is a Supermyth?

Supermyths have very specific components (see Supermyths.com   ):

1. The creation of a fallacy, myth or error by an orthodox expert.
2. Being used by another expert who in turn promotes it as being ‘true, and whilst still thinking that it is true either promotes it as a good example of the need to be healthily skeptical of bad scholarship, or else:
3. compounds the myth by using it as a premise upon which to build one or more supporting myths.
Charles Darwin created the myth that Patrick Matthew's prior-publication of the full theory of natural selection had not been read by any naturalists before the publication of Darwin's (1859) Origin of Species. That myth was then turned into a supermyth as Darwin's Darwinists went on to create a myth about that myth by using what Darwin wrote as though it were some kind of unquestionable (mythical) 'gospel truth' just because Darwin had written it.
So much for Nullius in Verba, the ancient motto of the Royal Society that means we should not take anything as true simply on the word alone of anyone.

Amazingly, Darwin really did have the audacity to claim that Matthew's book on trees was literally unread by any naturalists before 1860.

Making excuses for not having read the one book in the world he most needed to read and cite because he replicated so much that had been published in it 27 years before he and Wallace replicated it, Darwin's letter of reply to Matthew's claim to priority was published in the Gardeners' Chronicle (1860). Penned on April 13, and forwarded to the Chronicle by his best friend Joseph Hooker (published on April 21 1860), Darwin wrote:
"I have been much interested by Mr Patrick Matthew's communication in the Number of your Paper, dated April 7th. I freely acknowledge that Mr Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr Matthew's views, considering how briefly they are given, and they appeared in the Appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr Matthew for my entire ignorance of his publication.'
It is emphasised in my book (Sutton 2014) Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret    that Darwin's claim about Matthew's book was a fallacy, because other naturalists - indeed important naturalists known to both Darwin and Wallace - did read and then cite Matthew's book pre-1860. Matthew did tell Darwin about Loudon's 1832 review in 1860, but that information, that Loudon was a naturalist, seems to have passed under everyone's radar as being a lead worth following up.
Before my 'game changing' discovery of 2014, that a further six naturalists read Matthew's book, many Darwinists, credulously reprinted Darwin's fallacy that none read it as though it is, of itself, answer enough without further commentary on its likelihood of being true. And with no commentary on the fact that Matthew's published letter of reply proved it untrue. In other words, Darwinists used their namesake's excuse that no naturalists read Matthew's book as a perfectly reasonable reason for Darwin supposedly not reading Matthew's book. Darwinists simply reprinted Darwin's letter claiming that no naturalist had read Matthew's book. By so doing, their behaviour was akin to Christians reprinting what they call 'the Gospel truth" as though it should stand, unquestioned, on its own as the literal truth.
I pick on the following four Darwinists merely to serve as examples of this credulous attitude and Supermyth-spreading behavior:
  1. Stephen J Gould    (1987, p. 336, in 'The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History'.unquestionably reprints Darwin's letter as though it is unquestionably right.
  2. Michael Shermer (2002)    In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History also reprinted Darwin's explanation, without a word of doubt in the likelihood of its veracity, but claimed instead - incredibly - that it was good evidence that Darwin was hardly an ideological plagiarizer.
  3. Rebecca Stott (2012, p. 11)     Simply reprints Darwin's fallacy verbatim as though it were true, failing to question the likelihood that it might not be the literal truth.
  4. Andrew Norman (2013, p. 169) in Charles Darwin: Destroyer of Myths    admirably felt it necessary to investigate - and so affirm - Matthew's claim that his book received prominent reviews, but less admirably, Norman also unquestionably reprinted Darwin's letter as though Darwin's word alone that no naturalist had read Matthew's book was the unquestionable "gospel truth". In other words, Norman thought it necessary to investigate Matthew's claim that his book had been read and reviewed, but not to undertake a BigData facilitated review of the literature, as I did in 2014, to investigate the extent of the fallacy of Darwin's claim that no naturalists had read it. Moreover, Norman knew about the naturalist Loudon's review of Matthew's book but he failed to mention therefore that Darwin had written a fallacy by claiming no naturalist read Matthew's book. Moreover, Norman failed to follow up by failing to look at the intellectual links between Loudon and Darwin. Had Norman done so he would have found that after reading Matthew's book that Loudon edited two of Blyth's influential papers - that both greatly influenced Darwin - and he would have found that Loudon was well known to Darwin's friends William and Joseph Hooker and to their closest associates.

Picking up on Darwin's cue of 1860, some writers were not quite so audacious as to reprint without question Darwin's claim that literally no naturalists read Matthew's book pre-1860, Nevertheless, they greatly implied it had gone unread by naturalists.

Loren Eiseley (1957) in Darwin's Century (p. 127) writes: "Matthew's system perished, ...because it had been published obscurely by an obscure man..."
Bowler (2013) in Darwin Deleted    (p. 58) implies Matthew was unread: "Having a basic idea, even publishing it, has no effect if the publication is obscure..."
Millhauser (1959) in Just before Darwin   (p. 72) implies the same by dismissing it as some kind of working man's manual: "And there is that remarkable fellow Patrick Matthew, whose Naval Timber and Arboriculture (of all the practical books in the world)...."
Dawkins (2010) In Bill Bryson's edited collection   : 'Seeing Further   (p, 209) does the same as Millhauser did before him: "...wouldn't he have published it in a more prominent place than the appendix to a manual on silviculture?"

155 years of Darwinist Fallacy Belief Following their Namesake's Published Lies

Before the publication in 2014 of my book Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret    , Darwinists have been misleading the public and other scholars into believing that Patrick Matthew's (1831) full prior published hypothesis of natural selection    was unread by anyone in the field who mattered before Matthew brought his book to Darwin's attention by way of the first of two letters he had published in 1860 in the Gardener's Chronicle.

Even my personal Darwinist hero, Jim Dempster, the man Richard Dawkins (2010 in Bryson Ed    .) calls Patrick Matthew's champion, was misled by the Darwinist literature, and a failure to discover the truth, into believing (Dempster 1983 'Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection' p. 21):
'Matthew's book and its Appendix went unread except by a few reviewers who praised it.'
In 1983, what Dempster wrote was an easily discovererable fallacy, because it runs counter to what Matthew (1862) wrote to Darwin in his second letter to to the Gardener's Chronicle about an unnamed naturalist who had read his original ideas on natural selection but feared to teach them for fear of pillory punishment. Moreover, Dempster's claim was also even more erroneous, but only so in light of the fact that it is newly discovered (Sutton 2014    ) that, outside and beyond book reviews, quite a few others did, in fact, read Matthew's book, cite it, and mention the original, yet heretical, ideas in it. Among that number we can count Loudon who, after his 1832 review of Matthew's 1831 book, cited the same book many more times in books on trees and gardening and botany. Before my research everyone appears to have failed to realize that Loudon was a naturalist. Furthermore, I uniquely discovered that, including him, seven naturalists read and cited Matthew's 1831 book before 1858. They are: Loudon, Chambers, Murphy, Johnson, Selby, Norton and Jameson.
The year before Dempster's classic book on Matthew, another top Darwinist - widely proclaimed to be on of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists, Ernst Mayr published a more specific fallacy abut Matthew's book and the unique ideas in it going unread by those who mattered.(Mayr 1982 The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance p.499)    :
'The person who has the soundest claim for priority in establishing a theory or evolution by natural selection is Patrick Matthew (1790-1874). He was a wealthy landowner in Scotland, very well read and well traveled (Wells 1974). His views on evolution and natural selection were published in a number of notes in an appendix to his work On Naval Timber and Arboriculture (1831). These notes have virtually no relation to the subject matter of the book, and it is therefore not surprising that neither Darwin nor any other biologist had ever encountered them until Matthew bought forward his claims in an article in 1860 in the Gardener's Chronicle.''
Biologists include zoologists, botanists, ornithologists, malacologists, naturalists and other specialties - and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) dictionary definition of what constitutes a biologist has it that a biologist is an expert, specialist or student in biology, and the OED also has it that biology is: 'The branch of science that deals with living organisms as objects of study, apart from any utilitarian value they may have, and now comprising more specialized disciplines such as zoology, botany, and bacteriology.' Therefore, Loudon (1832), Chambers (1832), Murphy (1834), Johnson (1842), Selby (1842), Norton (1851) and Jameson (1853) were most certainly all biologists. Indeed (for what it is worth) Loudon and Selby are listed as such in the Wikipedia page    of famous biologists.
The most highly esteemed Darwinist Ernst Mayr     is today also proven to have been 100% wrong about the readership of Matthew's book. He is proven wrong by the newly discovered facts fist published in Nullius,     because Mathew's 1831 work in fact was read by other biologists. And Loudon (a biologist) - who everyone - including Mayr - seems to have failed to realize was a naturalist (and therefore, being one who studied and wrote about the evolution of animals and plants, as well as geology, that makes him a biologist) until the publication of Nullius     in 2014, we can be sure definitely read Matthew's appendix, because Loudon commented upon the original ideas in it by noting that it appeared to have something original to say on what he referred to as 'the origin of species' no less!
Furthermore, it is important to note that Mayr - like so many Darwinists - misleads his readers by failing to mention that Matthew's (1831) original ideas on natural selection were not merely contained in the notorious appendix. As the excerpts included in Matthew's first 1860 letter to Darwin in the Garderner's Chronicle prove - his original ideas on natural selection were also in the main body of his book. And ideas from these were mentioned - albeit briefly - by Selby (1842) and Jameson (1853) - both can most certainly be deemed to be naturalists and biologists.
We should not forget that these fallacies about Matthew's prior published discovery of natural selection being unread were started by Darwin as deliberate lies in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860 and from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward.
For more original and newly discovered concrete facts that bust Darwinist claptrap, and in so doing drag the vexatious anomaly of Darwin's and Wallace's self-serving claims to have discovered natural selection independently of Matthew's (1831) prior published hypotheses, and independently of those naturalists they knew who actually cited it before they replicated it, under the spotlight of veracity as a ludicrously biased Darwin worshiping belief in a completely unique and paradoxical dual miracle of immaculate conception of a prior published hypothesis - you could do worse than read Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret.    
For instance, you might alternatively - if you don't care for hard and independently verifiable facts - read anything at all written on the topic by a top Darwinist!

All Darwinist defenses against the paradigm changing New Data can be rebutted: Here    


Conclusion and reflections on the science-cult that worships Darwin
The Patrick Matthew Supermyth was born out of the egregious failure of Darwinists to abide by the motto of the Royal Society "Nullius in Verba". Instead, they literally believed without question what Darwin claimed in his defense for replicating Matthew's prior published theory, Namely, they believed - and so thought not to question - Darwin's audacious defense that literally "neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr Matthew's views."
Had they not credulously treated Darwin's claim as the literal "gospel truth" then Darwinist scholars would have, as necessarily skeptically open minded scientists, surely have done as I did in 2014. Namely, they would have investigated it. Had they investigated it, then they, before I, would have found that seven naturalists cited Matthew pre- 1858, and that four were known to Darwin and that three played major roles at the epicenter of influence of his pre-1858 work on natural selection.
The fact that I, a social scientist, proved Darwin's claim to be not only fallacious but highly suspect in light of which naturalists did in fact read Matthew's book pre-1858 is confirmatory evidence that Darwinists totally believed their namesake's claim that literally no naturalists had read Matthew's ideas before Matthew drew their attention to his book in 1860.
Before my research, it does not appear that any other scholar has pointed out that John Loudon, who reviewed Matthew's book, was a naturalist.
Matthew, in his first letter to the Gardeners Chronicle in 1860, told Darwin that Loudon had reviewed his book. Darwin's reply to that letter in the Chronicle was that apparently no naturalist had read it. Yet Darwin and his friend Hooker - who, Darwin asked to approve the content of that letter of reply, both knew Loudon's many published botanical works well (Hooker cited and wrote about Loudon's botanical work many times, mentions him in glowing terms in his correspondence, and Darwin's notebooks and personal library show he read many of Loudon's books and heavily annotated them). Nevertheless, Hooker approved Darwin's lie in the letter of reply and then send it on to the editor of the Chronicle.
Seemingly, Matthew was too great a gentleman to correct Darwin's obvious self-serving "error" in print, instead he replied, in his second letter to the Chronicle, that Dariwin was wrong to claim no naturalist had read his ideas. Matthew told him of another naturalist (unnamed) who was afraid to teach Matthew's ideas on evolution for fear of a pillory punishment for teaching heresy on the origin of species.
However, it would be 154 years before further evidence was found that other naturalists, besides Loudon, had read Matthew's book. And then it was I who uniquely discovered the other 6 naturalists who cited it years before 1858.
Amazingly, no one other than I appears to have picked up on the importance of Matthew's evidence that Loudon was, in fact, a naturalist who had read his book pre-1858. Had any before me done so, they would surely have looked at what Loudon did as a naturalist. And then they, not I, would have first discovered that Loudon, after reading and reviewing Matthew's book, was the editor of the journal that published Blyth's two influential papers on evolution and varieties - the two papers that so influenced Darwin pre-1858.
When we are aware that new data overturns prior knowledge beliefs, it is our duty to inform the world, so that in our culture veracious knowledge replaces fallacies and old myths.
Following my discovery that a total of seven naturalists did read it - and that three of those seven were at the very epicenter of influence on Darwin and Wallace - we should not now expect a single Darwinist to ever again deploy Darwin's words to convey their simple unquestioned belief that literally no naturalist read Matthew's book. Darwin's previous 'gospel truth' has been debunked as very untrue.
Perhaps now Darwinists will, with palpable cognitive dissonance, suddenly vary their position in light of the New Data and seek to argue next, for the first time ever, that they now think Darwin never intended that his particular statement that apparently no naturalists read Matthew's book was supposed to be taken literally. And on what premise might they base such a claim?
Well, according to one of several of my Darwinist correspondents, all of whom hold senior academic positions at prestigious universities, his personal position is now to be that Darwin did not mean it literally when he wrote that apparently no naturalist had read Matthew's book. This senior academic - who is a biologist and who has published on the question of Matthew's priority - has formed that opinion on the basis that he thinks Darwin would never have intended that his own ludicrous claim in his own defense against Matthew's serious claim to priority was ever meant by Darwin to be taken seriously as the literal truth by Mathew or anyone else.
Perhaps this kindly candid Darwinist correspondent and some of hs fellow Darwinists will now seek, ever so conveniently, to wriggle to another new position to argue, also for the first time ever, that those among their number who unquestionably reprinted Darwin's words in the past did not mean that they literally believed them to be true either? My Darwinist correspondent tells me know that this is also his own current belief.
I asked this honest Darwinist as nicely as I am able: Will you next be claiming also - to be even handed with your cognitive dissonance - that Darwin also did not mean it literally when he wrote that he had not read Matthew's prior-published views before Matthew brought them to his attention in 1860? According to my correspondent, he won't be doing that because he does not believe, personally, that the New Evidence comes close to establishing that Darwin probably read Matthew's book before 1860. But hold on a minute! What kind of wormy reasoning is that then? Surely, it is the kind that means that if ever more evidence turns up to 100 per cent prove that Darwin did read Matthew's book pre-1858 then this Darwinist will shamelessly wriggle-claim next that his namesake, in fact, did not mean it literally after all when he wrote he had not read it.
I think that any Darwinists, such as my one particularly honest correspondent, claiming in light of the New Data that proves Darwin was wrong, that Darwin did not, therefore, mean it literally when he wrote in his own defense that no naturalists had read Matthew's book will be judged by respectable scholars to represent painful confirmatory evidence for theHonest but Frozen Donkey Hypothesis .
I think the silly wriggling of this one particular Darwinist correspondent in question probably indicates that he loves Darwin far more than he cares for hard evidence, objectivity, new discovery, reason, rationality, justice, and truth. And that it suggests he is prepared to sacrifice his own reason to try to salvage the reputation of the object of his professional deification.
Let's face the painful facts. Darwin was a liar. Plain and simple. In my book I reveal the six easily provable lies that he told in order to achieve primacy for Matthew's prior discovery.
Here is just one of them. Darwin lied in 1861, because after Matthew informed him otherwise in 1860, he literally claimed that Matthew's 1831 book had "remained unnoticed" until after Matthew alerted Darwin to it in 1860. In fact, as we know, Matthew (1860) had earlier informed Darwin, by way of his first published letter to Darwin in the Gardener's Chronicle, that John Loudon, the botanical expert and editor, had actually reviewed his book and had a lot of good things to say about it. Matthew also informed Darwin in his letter of reply to Darwin's capitulation letter, that contrary to Darwin's fallacious claim that no naturalist had read Matthew's book, that an academic naturalist at a renowned university was aware of Matthew's ideas, but had informed Matthew he dared not teach them for fear of a pillory punishment! As if Darwin's lie in his second letter to the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860 - in the teeth of the evidence provided by Matthew that the naturalist Loudon had reviewed Matthew's book - was not enough, the following year Darwin wrote even more brazenly in a private letter, of most shameless Matthew denial propaganda, which he sent to the naturalist Quatrefages de Bréau (April 25, 1861   ):
"I have lately read M. Naudin's paper; but it does not seem to me to anticipate me, as he does not shew how Selection could be applied under nature; but an obscure writer on Forest Trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly & clearly anticipated my views—though he put the case so briefly, that no single person ever noticed the scattered passages in his book."
It seems like Darwin was lying desperately in order to put others off the scent of the truth. Perhaps because, most notably, Matthew told Darwin in that published letter of 1860, in the Gardener's Chronicle, about that review of his book in 1832 by the naturalist John Loudon. That fact is important, because Loudon was, incidentally, an associate of Darwin's friends William and Joseph Hooker of Kew and a close friend of the botanist John Lindley, who in turn was a close friend of William Hooker. What Matthew was perhaps too polite to point out in a published letter to Darwin, however, was that in that book review Loudon had written that Matthew's book appeared to have something original to say on "the origin of species" no less!
Yes, it's not a misprint dear reader THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES! That very famous phrase and book title is in the fossil record of Loudon's prominently published words about Matthew's book - about Matthew the proven originator of the theory of natural selection - back in 1832, 27 years before Darwin adopted it in the book that replicated Matthew's ideas by what Darwinists insist was a non-miraculous immaculate conception!.
Perhaps Loudon did not literally mean that Matthew had something original to say on that topic. What do you think dear reader? Where will this speculation about hard facts in the published literature all end? Should we be allowed to get away with interpreting the literal truth of what was literally written any way we wish and at any time we choose simply in order to write anything we wish to write so long as it serves our own ends in the history of science?
We might rationally conclude, however, by writing about the hard facts that: no wonder Darwin (1861) never mentioned that review by Loudon when he literally wrote from the third edition of his book by that very name "The Origin of Species" that Matthew's book - containing the same theory that Darwin replicated in The origin of Species had gone unnoticed. From 1861 onward every edition thereafter of Darwin's' Origin of Species' carried the following excuse:
"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."
Obviously, since he had been informed by Matthew a year earlier in the pages of the 1860 Gardener's Chronicle, Darwin clearly did not "literally" believe in 1861, when he penned his excuses in the Origin of Species, that Matthew's book had gone unnoticed, but he nevertheless literally, and so self-servingly, set about giving that firm impression to the world by lying without qualification and not giving so much as hint that he did not mean that this serious defense of his precious reputation as an honest and serious gentleman of science was not meant to be taken literally.
The telling question here is: Why did Darwin not tell the world in 1861 that Loudon had used a remark 28 years earlier about Matthew's prior publication of the full theory of natural selection that was to become the title "Origin of Species" - the title of the very book that replicated the original bombshell ideas in Matthew's prior-published book?
What kind or story might we spin for ourselves and our readership to fill in what we don't 100 per cent know? Perhaps we could write that Darwin never bothered to look up the famous John Loudon's review of the book that contained the full prior-published discovery of natural selection after he was told about it? Perhaps Darwin had no prior knowledge of it because perhaps he had not cared to carefully read Matthew's reply? Perhaps Darwin thought Matthew did not literally mean that Loudon had reviewed his book in 1832? Perhaps Darwin literally forgot about it? Hey, we could all be really, really, silly in order to rescue Darwin's reputation from the facts of what was written by suggesting now that perhaps he never even read Matthew's published letter of reply!
We can perhaps, literally, make up anything we want in order to fill in the knowledge gaps and create new myths to suit the literary tale we want to tell. But one thing is for sure. And that is that there do exist cold hard and independently verifiable facts to contend with. We can find those independently verifiable facts in the published fossil record of 'the vestiges of narration". And it is worth noting that no amount of Darwin worshiping post-hoc wriggling over to brand new defensive positions, by his now desperate Darwinists, can transmute that which was literally written by Darwin in a serious literary defense of his reputation.
Rationally, it is silly to argue all of a sudden in 2015 that what Darwin wrote in his defense 155 years ago was not meant to be taken literally back then simply because last year (2014) new facts were discovered that prove 100 per cent just how seriously, extensively and incriminatinglly wrong Darwin was in his own self-penned defense.
Mind you, fear of being plain silly and hypocritical does not seem to have deterred either Darwin or his adoring Darwinists from behaving and being so.

The Science Cult of Darwinism

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Immaculate Deception - Oil on Canvas by Gabriel Woods (2015)
Given that Darwinists believe in Darwin's immaculate conception of Patrick Matthew's prior published hypothesis, his name for it, his examples to confirm it and his unique and powerful artificial versus natural selection analogy to explain it, whilst surrounded and influenced by those who read it, we should not be at all surprised if they move on to behave like committed doomsday cults do the day after the non-event of their predicted day for the end of their world.
In sum, in disappointed light of the dis-confirming hard evidence for their prior mere 'knowledge beliefs', we should now expect that some Darwinists will simply vary their prior position in order to desperately confirm their extraordinary Darwin worship beliefs.
If that does not happen, then we should be grateful that the history of science does not get dragged further along the gutter of Darwinist bias. And we can only hope that none will years from now replicate my unique discovery that bust the Patrick Matthew Supermyth and then write that they did so independently of my work because apparently no naturalist read my prior-published bombshell discovery in the history of science. And we can only hope that if such an immaculate conception miracle occurs that someone like myself will be skeptical enough to think and act on the motto: Nullius in Verba and go check the data for themselves, and be brave, honest and tenacious enough to set the bent record straight.
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Nullius in Verba
The failure of Darwin's Darwinists to investigate their namesake's claims that no naturalist read Matthew's prior published theory suggests that anyone calling themselves a Darwinist is at an obvious subconscious, and perhaps conscious, disadvantage when it comes to objectively and rigorously researching the audacious claims of independent discovery made by the man who replicated so much of Patrick Matthew's book, whilst surrounded and influenced by those who read that book years before he replicated its great discovery, the four words Matthew used to name it and the unique natural versus artificial selection analogy Matthew created to explain it!
Matthew uniquely named his bombshell discovery the 'natural process of selection' 28 years before Darwin uniquely four-word shuffled the exact same four words into their only possible grammatically correct equivalent scientific term: 'the process of natural selection'.

Injustice

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Charles Darwin: The World's Greatest Science Fraudster
A great injustice was done to Patrick Matthew in his lifetime. That injustice continues to this day as Darwin's Darwinists and the 'Darwin Industry' continues to profit at the expense of Matthew's reputation. Matthew's living descendants are aware of and feel this injustice. They have formed among themselves the Patrick Matthew Society. The internationally renowned surgeon and scientist W. J (Jim) Dempster was assisted by that society in financing the publication of his research and dissemination of his findings on exactly how full and complete was Matthew's prior publication of the the theory of natural selection - and how amazingly similar was Darwin's replication of it. My own book Nullius provides a detailed text comparison between the work of Matthew and that of both Darwin and Wallace, which leads me to conclude that both appear to have significantly plagiarised Matthew's book, not only his ideas but his prose and his unique explanatory examples.
One explanatory device, in particular, that Darwin and Wallace replicated is Matthew's unique artificial selection to explain natural selection 'analogy of differences' Matthew - the Originator - (1831) wrote:
'Man's interference, by preventing this natural process of selectionamong plants, independent of the wider range of circumstances to which he introduces them, has increased the differences in varieties particularly in the more domesticated kinds...'
Supposedly never having read it or heard of it, or having been influenced by it via third parties who had read Mathew's book, Darwin (1859. p. 7) - the Replicator - used the exact same highly important explanatory analogy to open the 'Origin of Species' when he 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.'
Read the full evidence-led story (1) Here (2) Here and (3) Here.
In his excellent and most informative scholarly work 'The Illustrious Hunter and the Darwins'Dempster (2005, p. 10) wrote:
'The suppression of the work of Patrick Matthew since 1831 raises doubts about the so-called intellectual integrity of many scientists.'
To their eternal shame and great intellectual discredit, leading Darwinists who read Dempster's work on Matthew and Darwin, and could not argue against the hard facts he presented in his unique synthesis of the literature, treated Dempster with the same lack of intellectual integrity.
Safe in their numbers, Darwinists cowardly subjected Dempster to their same cult-like wall of disdain that had earlier been deployed against Matthew. They all but totally ignored Dempster's work because he argued rationally with hard evidence against many of their beloved yet unevidenced mere beliefs in Darwin' originality and natural selection discovery priority.
History, will not, I think, serve Darwinists well for such shamefully deliberate pseudo-scholarly behavior. The work of those whose soft hooligan scholarship currently crows, cowers or snipes from among the safety in numbers of the massed ranks of Darwinists, who protect them from rigorous scrutiny by academics in other disciplines, will one-day stand-alone facing the hard facts on the reputation killing ground of massed academic and public scrutiny.
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Darwinist Hypocrisy
There is some emotion in what I have written in this blog post. I expect we may see some emotion in the further comments that follow it. I suspect that emotion has driven many Darwinists to forget their intellectual integrity. One thing is certain however, emotion can not contend with hard facts. And it is those hard facts - old and newly discovered.and yet to be revealed - with which we must contend if we wish to write a veracious account of the history of the discovery of natural selection.
Righting the great injustice perpetrated against the naturalist Patrick Matthew and his champion scientist Jim Dempster is an important task in the history of scientific discovery, because as Dr Martin Luther King wrote:
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Dr Martin Luther King
Read Nullius in Veraba: Darwin's greatest secret for the full details of this story.

Note:

I am very grateful to Dr Mike Weale   , of Kings College London, for entering honestly into skeptical and inquiring debate with me to discuss, often from an alternative viewpoint, some of the issues covered in this blog post.
I am also equally grateful to my colleague at Nottingham Trent university, Andy Sutton (not a relative of mine, although we have the same surname) for discussing with me the ideas in this blog post and others that I have published elsewhere on the topic of Matthew's priority over Darwin for his own full prior discovery and explanation of the theory of natural selection.
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Dr Mike Sutton - solver of the origin of the Origin of Species!
If you don't want to be intellectually mugged by frozen donkeys: Fight back with the new hard facts they hate. You could do worse than to help to support my veracious evidence-led mythbusting research in the international public interest.
Fed up with hearing and reading dis-confirmed beliefs being portrayed by pseudo-experts as veracious knowledge? My advice is that you don't waste your valuable time and energy berating such frozen donkeys. Instead: buy my book Nullius in Verba at the Thinker Books Store Today. In it you will find out how to uniquely discover your own brand new, hard, independently verifiable, facts. with my simple and freely available new Big Data research technique.
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Miracle Double Immaculate Conceptions of the Blessed Virgins Darwin and Wallace of Matthew's prior published hypothesis of natural selection
 
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Soula Dempster
May 13, 2015 at 4:07 pm
Documented, lest I forget:
I’d better set the record straight or my cousin, Gordon, will be claiming primacy of discovery of Mike and his by now becoming more famous by the minute book, Nullius in Verba. So, to quiet his ruffled feathers;
Gordon heard it first.
He picked up something about Patrick Matthew in a late night/early morning radio interview and told me of it.
I duly typed in ‘Patrick Matthew’ into the Google bar and skimming down the content page I came across one that just happened to catch my interested eye. It was Mike’s blog and it mentioned my dad. I just had to know more. So, I clicked on it and all was revealed under a headline that brought tears of joy to my eyes. I read through and found it interested me greatly and there was a link to several other pages but the one link that proved most worthwhile to me at the time was to the radio interview. I listened to the interview right at the numbers directed and grâce à la nouvelle architecture at the BBC I was able to listen not once, not twice, but three times to the content of that section to be able to repeat the hushed and hurried voices to uncover its meaning uttered oft through muffled tones.
Nullius in Verba, a well-known voice of a scratched record from the past, echoed in my ears. I had to know more.
Looking up on Amazon.co.uk (other websites are available), my usual first order of search for all things material and published, apart that is from Goal Zero (other activity and solar equipment sites are possible), I typed in the title, hit return and up came that famous face on a ten pound note. My dad had often queried the face upon the note, its reason for being there and its social acceptance. He had even tried to ask me what I thought, but no words had fallen from my lips on the subject that day. So there was a certain significance to the image which meant I had to look further. I took a look in the search inside and saw the content page and its 20 chapters and thought well, I must look into this!
So, as it had no reviews as yet, I took pity on the author and ordered it and by flight of eeeeeeeeebk it appeared upon the book list in my app on my android tablet (other tablets, far better known with standing and price attached are available). I feverishly swiped page after page until the very end and then I returned to the contents page to understand better the structure of the beast. I thought a few sub topics were needed but no matter. I thought I’d just check out the acknowledgement page to see who he had cited as his sources and given them proper contributor status in the whole thing. I started at the beginning and read right through till the end. The end paragraph just caused a welling up inside me and I will be forever grateful to Mike Sutton, who authored this heavy (in so many ways) tome, for his dedication to my dad, W J Dempster. I had not expected this.
I just had to take a photo on my new telephone, I believe they call it a mobile these days, and sent this straight through to one of my two brothers as justice had been finally served for our dad and his sojourn and wake for Patrick Matthew had been given life again.
I began a thorough read often retracing my steps and using the newly acquired knowledge of the existence of the search facility to read and re-read points of interest and locations of well-worn former topics. I began to appreciate more and more the easy style of writing of this book which I hoped would finally set the story straight and allow us, as a family, to bury the memory of Patrick Matthew with the honours that he deserved.
The identification of primacy in an argument is based on a discovery and then research into the discovery produces evidence to support the hypothesis or discovery, or so the learned Mike Sutton has taught me.
This Matthew versus Darwin thing has been in my family since the late 1970s and it has affected us as children, which we were still then and also my dear mother, Cherry. It is time that we lightened up somewhat and started to laugh at ourselves and enjoy the fact that our father was correct in his belief about the ‘ism’ issue and offended the ‘ists’ on the way by telling everyone and anyone, whether they would listen to him or not, about his discoveries concerning for one Darwin’s non inclusion of the many contributors to the THEORY that he wrote down in his book which passed by the publisher’s unusually non-critical eye on its way to be printed for the next 155 years. It is time to change and make amends to Patrick Matthew and his discovery that so changed the face of science for all time.
To avoid the continuation of the ‘ists’ ruling the day, and effect their immaculate changeover in mortal belief to the truth, one Patrick Matthew, I offer my continued support of you, Dr Mike Sutton.
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Mike Sutton
May 15, 2015 at 8:22 am
The story of great injustice suffered by Matthew, and those other few stubbornly brave and objective scholars who fought for his rightful primacy, ramified into a new species of argument after it was crossed in 2014 with the "New Data".
This new species, comprises an earlier unique Dempster-analysis variety with the unique literary DNA of the Originator's 1831 book, found in the code of Darwin's 1840's unpublished essays and the 1859 Origin of Species. That unique Dempster Varietywas then crossed with another new variety of scholarship. The new hard data, which comprises 100 % proof that Darwin's and Wallace's influencers did read the Originator's book before they replicated so much that was uniquely in it.
In sum, the truth ramified into a new species, defined as such because it is unable to breed with its common explanatory ancestor - Darwinism - defined by Darwin's and Wallace's miraculous dual immaculate conceptions of the Originator's (Matthew's) unique discovery and his "literary DNA" that explains it.
This new species - the Nullius in Verba - will in all likelihood bring about a scholarly extinction event - a catastrophe for Darwinists - as it assumes an overtopping power of occupancy in the veracious literature on the history of the discovery of natural selection.
Darwinists, literally, have two choices now - one rational the other not: Adapt or dysology.
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Andy Sutton
May 13, 2015 at 7:21 am
I am intrigued by the whole idea of "he never meant it literally". It reminds me of what, in my view, many Christians have done, repeatedly, when confronted with new evidence that some claim in The Bible is no longer needed to explain some phenomenon hitherto credited to God. They change their stance to "that part of The Bible is not meant to be taken literally". It strikes me that if Darwin had not meant a statement to be taken literally he would qualify it as such. To assume that his writings are not to be taken literally unless he qualifies them as literal would be a silly way to view things. The norm is, surely, that his statements should be interpreted as literal unless there is an explicit qualifier, or an extremely obvious context dictates it can't be literal, However, given that this is a response to a serious challenge, such a context isn't apparent. He must have intended it to be taken literally. At what point did anyone first say that Darwin's statement should not be taken literally. Is there documentation of that being said before Mike's challenge? If it is a new response, in the light of Mike's challenge, that kind of suggests a retreat from evidence just like many Christians seem to have done. Everything is literal except the bits which can be disproved, and what is deemed to be literal changes as more disproof comes along.
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Mike Sutton
May 15, 2015 at 8:01 am
Andy Sutton writes of one Darwinist's new position in light of the disproving ' "New Data":
"Everything is literal except the bits which can be disproved, and what is deemed to be literal changes as more disproof comes along."
And in so doing he coined a potentially classic quote of the future in the history of the world's greatest scientific dscovery.
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