In science, being first has always been everything (see my RationalWki essay) and under the Royal Society's rules - as enshrined in the Arago Effect - no amount of confirmatory evidence gathering can ever transmute a prior published hypothesis into your own.
Yet when it was shown tin 1860 hat Patrick Matthew beat Darwin and Wallace by 27 years to publish the full hypothesis of natural selection , Darwin capitulated immediately in the press and admitted as much. But that was far from the end of it, because what should have been named Matthewism is today called Darwinism because Darwin's powerful friends, closed ranks on his behalf - and for the most part simply ignored Matthew. Unable to ignore his pending paper at their conference, however, powerful members of the British Society for Advancement of Science slyly platform blocked him from speaking about his discovery (see Sutton 2016 for the full disgraceful details).
Two of Darwin;s supporters went so far as to "trash-talk" the situation in 1860 - signifying Matthew as an unoriginal crank. And this same shamefully ignorant Darwinist defense dysology is still wheeled out by desperate Darwin supporters to this day.
Back in the 19th century, Darwin's friend, Professor David Anstead - or at the very least his anonymous editor weirdly adding footnotes on his article - mockingly rubbished Matthew in the Dublin University Magazine (January to June) in 1860) effectively writing that he was an over opinionated crank who had written nothing original. The footnote can be read here .
Matthew sent a letter to the Dublin University Magazine in February 1860- three months before the Gardener's Chronicle published his letter of April 1860. They ignored that letter until after April 1860. Although Darwin had admitted in print - in reply to Matthew's April letter in the Gardener's Chronicle that Matthew had got the whole unique theory right 28 years earlier, the Dublin University Magazine (1860) pretended the truth was otherwise and that Matthew had written nothing new:
'In the Gardener's Chronicle for 7th February 1860 is a long communication from Mr Patrick Matthew of Gourdie, NB the author of a treatise 'On Naval Timber and Architecture,' in 1831, in which a claim is made by the author to have been the originator of Mr Darwin's theory of natural selection. In a letter to the editor of this journal Mr Matthew has repeated the claim and considers himself wronged by the remarks in our journal of February (vide p 235). We cannot however perceive, either in the extracts from his work, or in his remarks, any thing more than a repetition of a fact long familiarly known, namely that many species pass into each other by insensible gradations—a fact acknowledged by all naturalists, and to account for which, Lamarque's theory of the modification of specific characters was not the first invented. A statement that individuals and varieties were often involved in a struggle for existence, in which the strongest and the best adapted to the circumstances of the moment would prevail—a knowledge of the existence of sporting varieties in many well known species, and the possibility of certain modifications introduced into species in consequence, do not interfere with Mr Darwin's claim to be regarded as the first who has put forward the principle of natural selection as the method adopted by nature to insure a succession of varieties resulting in species adapted to continue throughout all time and in absolute perfection, the chain of created beings.'
It is peculiarly unjust since Darwin (1860) had fully admitted in the Gardener's Chronicle - in reply to Matthew's claim - that Matthew was first to discover the entire original process of natural selection as an explanation for the origin and extinction of species.
On 24th November 1860 an anonymous naturalist, writing in the Saturday Analyst and Leader added further insult to injury by proposing that a replicator, such as Darwin, should be praised for his originality by way of his replication of something he claimed not to have read:
"...of Mr. DARWIN’s labours, or the merits of his extraordinary book. It would not detract from them even if he had been acquainted with every word that had been previously written on the subject. But it is very possible that two minds may think out the same original conclusion for themselves without any communication between them. If all that DALTON has written on definite proportions had been previously published, still if he had thought it out for himself, without knowing of the previous discovery, he would unquestionably be entitled to the praise of originality."
If only they had the benefit of BigData technology back in 1860 - Matthew would have been able to show just how many of Darwin's and Wallace's friends, facilitators and admitted influencers had read and cited his 1831 book pre 1858, and how many more were 'first to be second' with unique Matthewisms. For all we know, the anonymous author of the Saturday Analyst and Leader was among them.
We do have that BigData technology. Moreover, we who do not credulously deify Darwin as capable of such a miraculous immaculate conception of a prior published theory have no biased 19th century excuses for allowing Darwinists to continue to flout the rules of scientific priority, to come from far and wide to stamp on Matthew's unmarked and unknown grave and to deify their darling Darwin namesake at the expense of justice, reason and veracity in the history of scientific discovery.
Visit Patrickmatthew.com for more information on this topic
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