Patrick Matthew

TRANSLATING NATURAL SELECTION: TRUE CONCEPT, BUT FALSE TERM? Thierry Hoquet or True Concept but four-word shuffled plagiarised term?

To me, it looks on the face of it that a pertinent chapter (at least on the obvious issue of Darwin's and Wallace's plagiarism) is to be found in TRANSLATING NATURAL SELECTION: TRUE CONCEPT, BUT FALSE TERM? by Thierry Hoquet pp. 67-96 2013). What is interesting is that in this publication Hoquet cites Matthew's original, and prior to Darwin's and Wallace's supposedly miraculous independent 1858 replication of Matthew's theory, coinage of the term "natural process of selection". Hoquet notes Darwin (1859) wrote 'process of natural selection' in his book The Origin of Species, but Darwin's four-word shuffling of Matthew's term does not appear to interest him. 

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Those questioning whether or not Darwin plagiarized Matthew, are of course alerted to the fact, ignored by Hoquet, that Darwin has originally four-word shuffled Matthew's original phrase into his own regeneration of it.

 In my book (Sutton 2017), I point out why a plagiarist of  Matthew's theory of evolution by natural selection would risk such a thing. My own guessed reason for that is because Darwin had no choice, because the theory is about (1) "selection" that is (2)"natural" (as opposed to artificial) and is a (3) "process".  Therefore, Darwin would have felt he had no choice but to regenerate by four-word shuffling Matthew's original term for the concept he plagiarized from him, otherwise Matthew's theory could not be explained as well as the originator explained it before Darwin stole it. 

NOTE: I am most grateful to Hugh Dower for for sharing the link to the pdf containing Hoquet's publication.

In Mazur (2015), The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing the hegemony of the culture of Darwin, citing Kuhn, James Shapiro explains how paradigm changes in the study of are first met with resistance by those with a vested interest in old debunked paradigms. But the themes he mentions of the power of human nature as driven by love and the love of power are most fitting to resistance paradigm changes in the history of scientific discovery:

'...over time and as technology develops, partly as a consequence of what the scientific enterprise is doing, new phenomena come up and can't be explained away any longer in the same way. In the end there are always a group of people who defend the existing belief system more than is justified by the empirical observations.'

The newly discovered phenomena of who Darwin and Wallace knew, and who their friends and influencers knew, really did read Matthew's prior publication of the hypothesis of macroevolution by natural selection, cannot be explained by the old and credulous Darwinite paradigm of tri-independent discovery of Matthew's prior published conception.

Darwinist New Paradigm Resisting Bias Exposed by the Independently Verifiable Facts Rationally Presented: A Rational Essay

- By Mike Sutton -

The New Data facts (Sutton 2014) in the history of discovery of natural selection, most of which are my original discoveries, are proving immensely unpopular with Darwinists at the time of writing, because they have overturned their prior comfortable, yet unevidenced belief system in Charles Darwin's and Alfred Wallace's honesty and originality. For example, as its historical revisions page reveals (see the facts here), at the time of writing, administrator-editors on Wikipedia are systematically deleting them from its Patrick Matthew page.

The facts, discussed in this article, have also been reported in the national press (Caven 2014, and Daily Telegraph 2014 ) but were rejected on the Daily Telegraph science editor's, Sarah Knapton's, science blog site [archived] by Charles Darwin's biographer, James Moore, on the stated grounds that he merely believed they may not be original discoveries and his mere belief that they have probably been interpreted in the opposite direction. Given his purported expertise in this field, it is strange that Professor Moore is unaware of the fact that the New Data completely punctures the 155 year old Darwinite knowledge claim, started by Darwin's proven lies (see Sutton 2016 for the full peer-reviewed evidence) that Matthew's (1831) original conception of macro evolution by natural selection went unread by any naturalists /anyone at all, before Darwin and Wallace replicated it and claimed it as their own. Of course, as the published facts in fact prove, Moore was completely wrong and so is perhaps most surprised by that today, due to my original discovery that other naturalists in fact did read Matthew's prior-existing publication of the original theory of macroevolution by natural selection, before Darwin and Wallace replicated it without citing Matthew, is new and it disproves the prior believed, unevidenced, claims propounded by the world's leading evolutionary biologists that no one at all or no biologists, a (e.g. see de Beer 1962 and Mayr 1982) read Matthew's original ideas before 1860.

On the Wikipedia Patrick Matthew page, the agenda driven dishonest editor,  going by the name Dave Souza, systematically and fraudulently denied the existence of data that is 100 per cent proven to exist, it being in print in the 19th century publication record. Souza (see here) was actually caught in the act of deleting and denying the existence of what is independently verifiably proven to exist in historic published print. Souza's behaviour is seemingly a result of his dishonest frustration with the facts that prove Matthew's (1831) orignal conception of macroevolution by natural selection in fact was read and understood by others before Darwin and Wallace replicated it, without citing Matthew, claimed to have discovered it independently of Matthew or anyone else, and then excused their behaviour by writing the fallacy that no naturalists / no one at all read Matthew's orignal ideas pre-1858.

As this essay goes on to to prove, Darwin's and Wallace's influencers, facilitators and their influencers influencers read matthew's prior published idea because they cited them in the literature before Darwin or Wallace so much as put pen to private notepad on the topic of any kind of organic evolution.  Therefore, it is a fact that these New Facts are new and they are facts about what was actually published. It is impossible, therefore, then or now, to interpret them, rationally, in any opposite way. Moore's rejection of this unwelcome 'Darwin and Wallace, Independent Discoverers of a Prior-Published Hypothesis, Paradigm-Busting' New Data was made by him without, apparently, so much as having bothered himself to read a word of it!

Similarly proven wrong (see Sutton 2016), is the Darwinist historian, Peter Bowler's now redundant belief that Darwin's private notebooks and essays prove he took nothing from Matthew. Both Moore and Bowler are wrong because I, (Sutton 2014) originally discovered, that Darwin's private notebooks and private essays were started after or in the same year Darwin's associates and influencers, and his influencers' influencers actually read Matthew's ideas and then cited his book in the literature. The hard fact-based evidence that what has been discovered, about the pre-1858 readership of Matthew's original ideas is new, original, independently verifiable and significant is published in my peer reviewed philosophy of science article on this topic (see Sutton 2016).

The unwelcome New Facts are revealed in greater detail in this essay.

Many writing on the history of the discovery of natural selection and Patrick Matthew, including Charles Darwin (1860, (1861), Alfred Russel Wallace (1879), Cock and Forsdyke (2008) Milton Wainwright (2008), Christopher Hallpike (2008), Richard Dawkins (2010), William James Dempster (1983), Mike Sutton (2014), and Mike Weale (2015) conclude that Patrick Matthew (1831) - in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture - published the full hypothesis of macroevolution by natural selection many years before Darwin and Wallace put pen to private note paper on the topic and 27 years before Darwin and Wallace (1858) had their papers read before the Linnean Society.

Dempster (1983), Dawkins (2010) , Sutton (2014)  and Weale (2015) conclude that only Matthew got the entire complex theory of macroevolution by natural selection before Darwin and Wallace (1858) and Darwin (1959)  replicated it. Matthew, the proven originator of this, the unifying theory of biology, took his original ideas on natural selection forward for humankind in his second book Emigration Fields (1839), which was even recommended in the national press of New Zealand as essential reading for Captain Fitzroy of the HMS Beagle (Sutton 2016).

Matthew's orignal work was followed in print by Wallace and Darwin in 1858, who never cited him and excused themselves for not doing so by writing that Matthew's original ideas went unread until Matthew brought them to Darwin's attention in 1860. However, the facts of the historic publication record, as this essay demonstrates, prove that excuse to be a fallacy. Moreover, it is revealed that the facts prove Matthew to have been a multiple victim of science fraud by Darwin's plagiarising glory theft.

Matthew uniquely coined his discovery the 'natural process of selection', and 28 years later Darwin (1859), in the Origin of Species, uniquely shuffled Matthew's term into his own unique re-coinage the 'process of natural selection'. Darwin and Wallace each claimed to their graves to have arrived at exactly the same theory, independently of Matthew and independently of one another.

As Robert Merton (1957) made clear in the classic and authoritative text on priority in science, the Royal Society has not officially changed its position on the rules of priority since those rules were established in the first half of the 19th century. Since that time, the Arago Effect (Strevens 2003), is the rule that has always been seen as a totally inflexible principle and has been followed as such in all other disputes over priority for discovery in science, except in the Matthew, Darwin and Wallace case. The Arago Effect, described by Merton, and also by Strevens, as a norm in cases of scientific discovery, is that being first to publish to the public, and most importantly in print, is everything when it comes to deciding who has priority for an idea or discovery in cases where one scientist claims to have made the same discovery independently of another.

Totally ignoring the Arago Effect convention of priority for scientific discovery, Richard Dawkins (2010) has built upon prior rationale for denying Matthew full priority over Darwin, for his own prior published idea and as an original great thinker and influencer in science, by creating a new, unique in the history of scientific discovery, "Dawkins's Demand Rule". Effectively, Dawkins demands that Matthew should not have priority over Darwin and Wallace, and his reasoning for that view is based upon the recently proven fallacious premise (Sutton 2014) that Matthew's unique views went unnoticed. Moreover, Dawkins demands also that Matthew should have and would have "trumpeted his discovery from the rooftops" if he understood it properly. However in making this post-hoc demand, Dawkins does not, as other writers (e.g. Desmond and Moore 1991 and Secord 2000) have done with regard to the fears and difficulties of writing on natural selection at this time, which faced Darwin and Chambers, explain that the first half of the 19th century was a time of great social unrest, tension and violent rioting, which made writing on the topic of natural selection a great threat to the social controlling interests of natural theology. Is Dawkins willfully ignorant of the fact that in the year 1794 Pitt passed his notorious Two Acts against 'Seditious Meetings' and 'Treasonable Practices'? In particular, the former curtailed topics of discussion at institutional scientific societies by requiring them to be licensed and proscribing discussion of either religion or politics (Sutton 2015a). Perhaps it is for reasons of historical ignorance that Richard Dawkins, whilst holding forth as an expert on the history of science, fails also to address the issue that Matthew's Chartist political ideas were in his book and that he linked these seditious ideas quite clearly to the implications of his heretical natural selection discovery. Consequently, it should go without saying, that this meant his unique ideas were especially both seditious and heretical in the 1830's and 1840s. How then was Matthew meant to trumpet his discovery when he had effectively silenced himself from doing so under the scientific conventions that followed in the wake of the laws of the land? Matthew explained this very fact to Darwin in 1860, in his second letter in the Gardeners' Chronicle (Matthew 1860b) when he explained that a respected naturalist of an eminent university feared to teach his bombshell ideas for fear of pillory punishment, and that his book was banned by the public library of Perth for the same reasons.  Moreover, leading Darwinists in the field of evolutionary biology and many others are wrong to simply follow Darwin's lead in the Gardeners' Chronicle and in every edition of the 'Origin of Species' after 1861 by claiming that Matthew's (1831) original ideas on natural selection were unread by any naturalists or more specifically any biologists, because newly available Big Data research techniques reveal concrete evidence form the historic 19th century publication record, from the independently verifiable published literature, that Matthew's (1831) book was, in fact, (all pre 1858) cited by a total of seven naturalists, and four of them were known to Darwin/Wallace - including Loudon (1832), who - after writing that he was far from certain that Matthew did Matthew have something original to say on the subject of 'the origin of species', no less, edited and published two of Blyth's influential papers, Blyth (1835) and (1836). Blyth was reported by Darwin (1861) from the third edition of the Origin of Species onwards to be his most prolific and helpful correspondent on the topic of organic evolution of varities. Robert Chambers (1832) also cited Matthew, and he then went on to write (anonymously) the highly influential book on evolution, the Vestiges of Creation, which ran to 12 editions after being first published in 1842 (Chambers 1842).  Prideaux John Selby (Selby 1842), who was the Chief Editor of the journal that published Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper, on evolution, no less, also cited Matthew's 1831 book, And Selby commented also upon text in Matthew's book on the natural selection relevant subject of pine trees thriving in rich non-native soils if there are no deciduous competitors, as did Jameson (1853), a botanist of the East India Company and regular correspondent of William Hooker - the father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker.

There is no direct evidence that Darwin read Matthew's book pre-1860. The fact that he wrote that he sent out for a copy after Matthew's (1860) complaint in the Gardeners Chronicle, only if true, meant that he did not have a copy in his extensive library or easy access to it elsewhere in 1860. But it is a fact Darwin was dishonest, because he did write falsehoods (Darwin 1860; 1861) about the lack of readership of the original ideas in Mathew’s book. The fact Darwin knew he was writing self-serving falsehoods about Matthew's readership is confirmed by the fact that Matthew (1860a), in his first letter to the Gardeners' Chronicle, claiming priority for his discovery of natural selection, informed readers that his book had been:

‘… reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity… by Loudon, who spoke of it as the book…’

Loudon was a famous naturalist. Darwin knew this, because the ‘books read’ section of his notebook of ‘books read and books to read’ (Darwin 1838)  proves he read and heavily annotated at least six botanical publications authored by Loudon. Yet, in his published reply to Matthew’s letter, Darwin (1860)  wrote the falsehood:

‘I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr Matthew's views.’

Significantly, the naturalist Loudon, had written in his 1832 review  of Matthew’s (1831) 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.’

Hence, new analysis of the literature, therefore, robustly calls Darwin's legendary honesty into question with reference to the weirdly neglected disconfirming evidence of the publication record.

I (Sutton 2014, 2016) present published evidence from Matthew's and Darwin's 1860 letters in the Gardeners' Chronicle that Darwin published two falsehoods, by way of claiming in the Gardeners' Chronicle that no naturalist had read Matthew’s ideas and by claiming from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward that Matthew's original ideas went unread, because, to repeat the obvious and significant fact already relayed, Matthew had already informed Darwin in print in the Gardeners' Chronicle in 1860 that his original ideas on natural selection were read by the naturalist John Loudon, who reviewed his book in 1831. Then, in his second 1860 letter in the Gardeners' Chronicle,, Matthew (1860b) directly corrected Darwin’s fallacious claim that no naturalists had read his book, by informing Darwin that an unnamed naturalist, a professor of an unnamed prestigious university, had informed him that he feared pillory punishment if he were to teach Matthew's ideas on natural selection. In that second published letter, Matthew further informed Darwin that his book was banned by the public Library of Perth, referred to by Matthew by its nickname in Scotland: "the Fair City". See Sutton 2016 for a peer reviewed account of the fact and significance of these plagiarism by glory-theft lies that were written by Darwin, as an excuse for his replication without citation of Matthew's prior-cited orignal ideas.

From the third edition of the The Origin of Species onwards, Darwin (1861) acknowledged Matthew's earlier work, stating that Matthew :"...clearly saw...the full force of the principle of natural selection", but wrote an outrageous falsehood where he continued: "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 Gardeners' Chronicle, on April 7th, 1860." Because we know Matthew in 1860 told him otherwise, at length and in detail in his two letters to the Gardener's Chronicle. Moreover, the natural selection relevant text that Matthew published from his book came from its main body as well as its Appendix. It is a myth started by Darwin that he hid all his ideas in the book's appendix. Darwin knew the truth was otherwise, despite starting the Matthew Appendix Myth, because he wrote to Joseph Hooker admitting it (Darwin 1860b):

 "The case in G. Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthews [sic] book, for the passages are therein scattered in 3 places. But it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that."

From 1860 onward, Matthew would claim credit for originating the concept of natural selection, but it is an unevidenced legend that he had calling cards printed with "Discoverer of the Principle of Natural Selection" on them. The closest reality comes to this myth is the fact that the opening page of his second book contains the strapline 'By Patrick Matthew, author of "Naval Timber and Arboriculture"(Matthew, 1839). And he proclaimed himself as “Solver of the problem of species” on the title page of his political pamphlet “Schleswig-Holstein” (Matthew, 1864).

Matthew was multiply victimised by Darwin and Wallace and their friends. For 13 years, Professor John Lindley, a correspondent of both Darwin and Wallace and best friend of William Hooker, father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker, perpetuated the myth, which he first created, that Lobb was first to introduce the greatly admired and internationally famous California giant redwood trees into Britain, when in fact it was Matthew's son John who first introduced them and named them Wellingtonia (Gardener's Chronicle 1853. See also Sutton 2016a)  and it was Patrick Matthew, not Lindley, who was to first to propagate those trees in Britain. For 13 years, Lindley's Journal had the letter proving this fact. The highly suspicious facts of Lindley's bogus claims came to light only a year after his death, which is six years after Darwin replicated Matthew's ideas and excused himself by describing Matthew as an obscure Scottish writer on Forest Trees (Darwin 1861a) Lindley's highly suspicious glory-theft was first discovered by Sutton (2016a). From the perspective of some form of probable Matthewian knowledge contamination of the pre-1858 brains of Darwin and Wallace, the fact that Lindley was the best friend of William Hooker, father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker, and the fact that William Hooker was Alfred Wallace's mentor and correspondent before he headed off as a specimen collector and before he claimed to have conceived Matthew's prior published hypothesis in a miraculous and unique fit of cognitive enhancement, occurring in a state malarial delirium, should not pass unnoticed. Moreover, it should not pass unnoticed that Lindley was a friend and co-author with Loudon.

A typology of knowledge contamination

By way of a proposed typology of possibilities of “knowledge contamination” (Sutton 2016), all of which we now know could have occurred in Darwin’s case, prior published unique ideas may contaminate the minds and work of others in three main ways:

1. Innocent Knowledge Contamination: The spread of original ideas in a prior-publication via (a) subsequent published sources on the topic, which failed to cite the Originator as their source, or (b) word of mouth and/or correspondence to the replicator by those who read the Originator’s work or communicated with others who did — understood its importance in whole or simply in part — but failed to tell the replicator about its existence.

1. Reckless or Negligent Knowledge Contamination: (a) The replicator reads the original publication, absorbs information such as original ideas and examples and terms, but forgets having read it — and never does remember. (b) The replicator reads the original publication and takes notes, but forgets the source of the notes. (c) The replicator is told about original ideas in a publication by someone — who understands their importance in whole or simply in part — who explains they come from a publication, but the replicator fails to ask the name of the author and title of the publication.

1. Deliberate Knowledge Contamination (science fraud): The replicator reads the original publication, or is told about its contents, takes notes, or is given notes, remembers this, but pretends otherwise.

In 1860, after Darwin admitted Matthew had priority for first publishing the full principle of natural selection, his friend and Correspondent David Anstead mocked Matthew, essentially portraying him as a delusional and unoriginal crank in the Dublin University Magazine (Anstead 1860), In a gushing review of Darwin's Origin of Species. Charles Dickens's Magazine 'All the Year Round' (1860) quoted a paragraph of Matthew's (1831) original prose yet never cited Matthew as its source . Dickens and Darwin were fellow members of the Athenaeum Club, both joined on the same day (see Sutton 2104). In 1867, Matthew was platform blocked at the Dundee meeting of the British Association for Advancement of Science. Darwin's great friend Charles Lyell was guest of honour and papers on natural selection were given at the meeting by Wallace and by Chambers. Matthew's Published Letter - complaining at this gross injustice - was addressed to the Editor of the Dundee Advertiser (see Dempster 1983).

A most telling question in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace is: why did Darwin lie in his 1860 letter in the Gardeners' Chronicle when he claimed no naturalist had read Matthew's unique ideas after Matthew (1860) informed him in that very same publication that John Loudon (one of the most famous botanical naturalists of the first half of the 19th century) had reviewed it? Moreover, why did the botanist Joseph Hooker - who knew the botanist Loudon well, and whose botanist father and botanist friends such as John Lindley knew him very well indeed - approve Darwin's defense letter before sending it on (re-dated) to the Gardeners' Chronicle in which Darwin claimed in his defense that no naturalist had read Matthew's book pre 1860 - when Hooker had earlier read Matthew's letter telling Darwin that Loudon had reviewed it? Why, despite knowing about Loudon, and another (unnamed) naturalist that Matthew told Darwin about in his second letter in the Gardeners' Chronicle did Darwin go on to write the following year, in 1861, in his famous "Historical Sketch", of his precursors and influencers, in third edition of the Origin of Species, and in every edition of it thereafter, that Matthew's (1831) unique ideas on natural selection had gone unnoticed? Moreover, why did he lie about Matthew's ideas being unread to the famous French naturalist Quatrefages de Bréau in his letter of April 25, 1861 when he wrote:

"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."

The rules and conventions for determining who has priority for discovery in science have been weirdly ignored in the telling of the story of the discovery of natural selection.

According to the Arago effect, Patrick Matthew has full priority over Darwin and Wallace; even if the latter pair did discover natural selection independently of the Originator, Patrick Matthew. Moreover, the fact that the three naturalists, Loudon, Chambers and Selby played such influential roles at the epicenter of influence and facilitation of the pre-1858 work of Darwin and Wallace is arguably sufficient to claim that some kind of knowledge contamination from Matthew to Wallace and Darwin appears more likely than not. That apparent likelihood is surely increased by the fact that Loudon was part of William and Joseph Hooker's friendship network of botanists. In particular he was great friends with John Lindley, who was the best friend of William Hooker. And we know Lindley, most suspiciously, perpetrated the 'first fallacy fuelled glory theft' against Matthew before Lindley's correspondents Wallace and Darwin multiply victimised him by replicating his original ideas on natural selection without citing him and then falsely claiming in their defence that those ideas were unread before 1860. Moreover, Joseph Hooker, being Darwin's best friend once wrote once that Loudon was better than a dozen other naturalists put together and along with Lindley wrote a stunning review of one of Loudon's many botanical books - Arboretum Brittannicum. For his part, Robert Chambers was a geologist associate of Lyell - Darwin's good friend and geological mentor. As early as 1847 Lyell knew Chambers to be the anonymous author of the Vestiges  (Klaver 1997) , Chambers and Darwin met and corresponded in 1847 and thereafter engaged in correspondence. In 1847 Chambers gave Darwin a copy of the Vestiges, leading Darwin to write to his friend Joseph Hooker that he knew Chambers was its secret author. And Prideaux Selby was a good friend of many of Darwin's friends, including Darwin's father (see Sutton 2106 for the fully referenced evidence).

Despite the numerous strained arguments in that direction made by George Beccaloni (2016) in the comments section of the Patrick Matthew blog, the fact that Matthew was himself more likely than not influenced by earlier thinkers on organic evolution (see Sutton 2015 for the evidence) is not any kind of rational argument against the evidence that Darwin and Wallace were probably knowledge contaminated by Matthew's prior publication of the full complex hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection. Moreover, the fact that Darwin uniquely four-word shuffled Matthew's unique name for his conception from Matthew's (1831) "natural process of selection" into "process of natural selection", and that both Darwin and Wallace replicated Matthew's artificial v natural selection analogy of differences and more besides. See Sutton 2016 for the fully cited evidence and for greater details of the naturalists in Darwin's and Wallace's social networks who, it is newly discovered, read Matthew's book before 1858.

The Missing Smoking Gun

Some commentators on the new data have rightly noted that there are no classic  'smoking gun'  objects of physical evidence in the form of a letter or note in a diary etc that Darwin or Wallace definitely read and copied the work of Matthew, or were definitely told about Matthew's work re-1858. Hower we do have some significant better then smoking gun evidence, because have two important items of better than smoking gun evidence of Matthew's pre-1858 influence on Darwin's and Wallace's work on natural selection.These are points 1 and 2 below. And we have smoking gun evidence (point 3) of who really did read Matthew's ides pre-1858:

1. We 100 per cent know that the orignal ideas in Matthew's (1831) book were read by Darwin's and Wallace's influencers and their influencers before Darwin and Wallace replicated them. This is better than 'smoking gun' evidence, because it absolutely disproves the 'no naturalist read Matthew pre-1859' premise that underpins the old Darwinite paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's dual independent conceptions of Matthew's prr-published hypothesis.

1. We 100 per cent know Darwin lied when he claimed no naturalist /no one at all read Matthew's prior-published ideas before he replicated them.This is also better than 'smoking gun' evidence, because it completely disproves the honest Darwin premise that also underpins the Darwinite paradigm of Darwin's independent conception of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis.

1. Due to our rational understanding of the concept and typologies of of 'knowledge contamination' we have a lot of smoking gun, evidence that those who read Matthew's (1831) orignal ideas had many opportunities to influence Darwin and Wallace and influence their influencers with Matthew's original ideas may years before 1858. This represents "gun smoke evidence" that such knowledge contamination took place.
2. We have no smoking gun evidence that Darwin and Wallace did copy Matthew's orignal ideas or were knowledge contaminated by them pre-1858.

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

Conclusion

The paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's supposedly dual independent conceptions of Matthew's prior-published orignal conception of macro evolution by natural selection is bust and completely overturned by the newly discovered fact other naturalists in fact did read and cite Matthew's book, containing the orignal conception of macro evolution by natural selection. The old Darwinite paradigm of tri-independent discovery of this, the unifying theory of biology, was built on the now newly fact-punctured premise (eg. de Beer 1962 Mayer 1982), which was started by the lie told by Darwin that became the credulously parroted myth that no naturalist read Matthew's (1831) orignal ideas before Darwin and Wallace replicated them and claimed them as their own independently conceived ideas. In fact, as the New Data 100 er cent proves, as opposed to none, Darwin's and Wallace's influencers, and their influencer's influencers did read and cite Matthew's book, and the orignal ideas in it, before either Darwin or Wallace put so much as private pencil to private notepad on the the topic of organic evolution.

Discussion and the way forward

The newly discovered phenomena of who Darwin and Wallace knew, and who their friends and influencers knew, really did read Matthew's prior publication of the hypothesis of macroevolution by natural selection, cannot be explained by the old and credulous Darwinite paradigm of tri-independent discovery of Matthew's prior published conception.

In Mazur (2015), The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing the hegemony of the culture of  Darwin, citing Kuhn, James Shapiro explains how paradigm changes in the study of are first met with resistance by those with a vested interest in old debunked paradigms. But the themes he mentions of the power of human nature as driven by love and the love of power are most fitting to resistance paradigm changes in the history of scientific discovery:

'...over time and as technology develops, partly as a consequence of what the scientific enterprise is doing, new phenomena come up and can't be explained away any longer in the same way. In the end there are always a group of people who defend the existing belief system more than is justified by the empirical observations.'

At the time of writing, leading Darwinists are actively engaged in shameful online obscene abuse of the author, lies and pseudo-scholarly fact denial. See the fully cited proof of this dreadful behaviour here.  History will not be kind to such pseudo scholarship and those disseminating it, because society relies upon the highest standard of scholarship, honesty and integrity from scientists and historians. As the Dysology hypothesis proposes, lies, fraud and other pseudo scholarship in these areas, if tolerated, may well lead to a spiraling decline of veracity in academic scholarship and education.

References

Anstead, D. (1860) The Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 55, January to June, 717-718

All the Year Round, Volume 3 edited by Charles Dickens, June 1860, p. 177

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

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

Caven, B, (2014) Did Darwin copy ideas for Origin of Species. The Scottish Daily Mail. April 11th. p. 21.

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

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

Cock, A. G. and Forsdyke, D. R. (2008). Treasure your Exceptions: The Science and Life of William Bateson. Springer.

Darwin (1838) "Darwin’s Notebooks of Books to Read and Books Read"

Darwin, C. R. and Wallace, A. R. (1858) On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London. Zoology 3 (20 August) pp. 45-50.

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

Darwin C. R. (1860). Natural selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette no. 16 (21 April): 362-363.

Darwin, C.R. (1860b) Letter to Hooker. 13th April, Darwin Correspondence Project, Available at: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2758

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

Darwin, C. (1861a) Letter to Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Br´eau. 25 April

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

de Beer, G. (1962)- Royal Society Darwin Medal winner - Wilkins Lecture for the Royal Society page 333.

Dempster, W. J. (1983) Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection. Edinburgh. Paul Harris Publishing.

Desmond, A. and Moore, J. (1991). Darwin. London. Penguin Books.

The Gardeners' Chronicle, 1853 , July, Vol. 14 page 373.

The Gardeners' Chronicle & New Horticulturist, 1866 Volume 26 p. 1191

Hallpike, C. R. (2008) How We Got Here: From Bows and Arrows to the Space Age. Author House. Milton Keynes.

Klaver, J. M. I. (1997) Geology and Religious Sentiment: The Effect of Geological Discoveries on English Society and Literature between 1829 and 1859. Brill publishing. (see page 66 footnote 16.)

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

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

Matthew, P. (1839) Emigration fields: North America, the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand; describing these countries, and giving a comparative view of the advantages they present to British settlers. Adam Black. Edinburgh. Longman and Co.London.

Matthew, P. 1860a. Letter to the Gardeners Chronicle. Nature's law of selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (7 April): 312-13.

Matthew, P. (1860b) ‘Letter to the Gardeners' Chronicle. Nature's law of selection’, Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, (12 May) p. 433.

Matthew, P. (1864) Schleswig-Holstein. Spottiswoode and Co. London.

Mayr, E. (1982) - Royal Society Darwin Medal winner - The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance. p.499. Harvard University Press.

Mazur, S (2015), The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing the hegemony of the culture of  Darwin, Caswell Books, New York.

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

Secord. J. A. (2000) Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago and London. The University of Chicago Press.

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

Strevens, M. (2003) The Role of Priority in Science. Journal of Philosophy. pp:55-79.

Sutton, M. 2014 Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Media inc.

Sutton, M. (2014a) The hi-tech detection of Darwin’s and Wallace’s possible science fraud: Big data criminology re-writes the history of contested discovery..Note: This is a peer reviewed British Society of Criminology journal article.

Sutton, M. (2015) On Knowledge Contamination:New Data Challenges Claims of Darwin’s and Wallace’s Independent Conceptions of Matthew’s Prior-Published Hypothesis. Philosophical Aspects of Origin Volume 12.

Sutton, M. 2015a Darwinist Defenses Simply Can't Stand Against the Powerful New Data.

Sutton, M. (2016a) Race for Giant Redwoods Fame. The Patrick Matthew Blog.

Telegraph (2014) Darwin "Stole" Theory of Natural Selection. The Daily Telegraph, page 12. May 28th 2014

Wainwright, M. (2008) Natural Selection: It’s Not Darwin’s (Or Wallace’s) Theory. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences 15 (1) 1-8 June, 2008.

Wallace, A. R. (1855) On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Series 2. 16. 184-196.

Wallace, A.R. (1879) 9 May. Letter to Samuel Butler. Unique WCP identifier: WCP1586. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum.

Weal, M. (2015) Patrick Matthew's Law of Natural Selection. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

'One common thread runs through the many different stories of denial: people, organizations, governments or whole societies are presented with information that is too disturbing, threatening or anomalous to be fully absorbed or openly acknowledged. The information is therefore somehow repressed, disavowed, pushed aside or reinterpreted. Or else the information 'registers' well enough, but its implications - cognitive, emotional or moral - are evaded, neutralized or rationalized away.'

Stanley Cohen (2001) States of Denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering. p. 1.

Proof Darwinite Historians of Science and Scientists are Misleading the Public via the Press about New Discoveries

Desperate Darwinites are writing fallacies to misinform the public via the press that I have discovered nothing new in my published research on the history of  discovery of natural selection (see the evidence of their fact denial behaviour here).

So what has, in reality, been newly discovered that eminent professional Darwin scholars apparently don't wish you to know about?

Here are the new, fully and independently verifiable, evidenced bombshell discoveries (Sutton 2014) that rewrite the history of discovery of natural selection:

1. Darwinites can no longer claim - as they did before my book was published - that Patrick Matthew's prior published conception of macroevolution by natural selection was unread by any naturalists before Darwin and Wallace replicated it. Because I originally discovered seven who cited the book that contains it in the pre-1859 literature. And Darwin and Wallace, and their influencers, knew four of them well. Hence it is most significantly newly discovered and 100 per cent proven that routes of potential knowledge contamination from Matthew's (1831)  book into the pre-1858 minds of Darwin and Wallace. The date evidence of this newly discovered  publication record now debunks the old Darwinite claim that Darwin's notebooks and private essays prove he independently discovered natural selection.

2.  Darwinites can no longer claim that Darwin was an honest scientist. Because it is proven that from 1860 onward, following information provided by Matthew himself. that he lied about the prior readership of Matthew's book and the original ideas in it by other naturalists. Darwin told at least seven other lies in order to convince the scientific community that he independently conceived the idea of natural selection.

3. It can no longer be claimed that Wallace was an honest scientist. Because I originally discovered that he edited one of his letters in his autobiography to conceal his claim that he thought he was owed money and favours by Darwin and his associates for cooperating with the presentation of his replication of the concept of natural selection alongside that of Darwin in 1858.

4. Darwinites can no longer claim that Matthew's conception of natural selection was contained solely in the appendix of his book. I reveal exactly how much is actually contained in the main body of his book and that Darwin lied when he wrote that Matthew's ideas were solely contained in the appendix. Because Matthew referred him to just some of the relevant text from the main body of his book and Darwin wrote to admit the fact to Joseph Hooker.

5. Darwinites should no longer claim that Matthew never understood what he conceived on the grounds that he never shouted about it from the rooftops. Because I show how the first half of the 19th century was governed by laws and conventions that forbade anyone from doing such a thing, and others from discussing it. Moreover, Matthew told Darwin as much when he explained his book was banned from Perth public library in Scotland and that an eminent naturalists could not teach for fear of pillory punishment.

Veracious knowledge is power. Get the New Data facts in my book (Sutton 2014) and my latest peer reviewed science article (Sutton 2016)

Cohen's (2001) 'Staes of Denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering' explains how people deny the significance of sufficient evidence that something is happening or happened in the past. Cohen explains how people do this with regard to a range of things such as marital infidelity, alcoholism, terminal illness, child abuse and genocide.

Linking Cohen's ideas on 'states of denial' with Sykes's and Matza's (1957) Classification of the Techniques of Guilt Neutralization provides a powerful combination of explanatory frameworks that helps us to understand how bias is the beginning of the spectrum of dysology that leads ultimately to the capacity to create hate crime in human societies.

If the logic of Sutton's 2015  'States of Denial Spectrum Hypothesis' stands up and if it is not disconfirmed by evidence regarding how hate crimes emerge and flourish, then the current evolutionary biology micro-cultural 'state of denial' of the existence and significance of the New Evidence (Sutton 2014) about who did read Matthew's original ideas on natural selection before Darwin and Wallace replicated them is a social problem in need of a solution. And if it is, then dreadfully biased historical scholarship in the field of evolutionary biology is just one among the great multitude of examples of published poor scholarship, in all fields of enquiry, in need of rather urgent attention.

Expert' Darwin scholars and others spent 155 years in a classic state of denial of the obvious and significant facts of Darwin's serial lying about Patrick Matthew, his book and who really did read the original ideas in it. This is the same phenomenon that explains why society failed for so long to see the obvious and significant facts of Sir Jimmy Savile's child abuse and that of  Catholic Priests.

A note on 'states of denial' and the scientific community's belief in the version of events supplied by evolutionary biologists on the discovery of natural selection.

Evolutionary biologists have got themselves into an embarrassing "State of Denial" about the newly discovered sufficient evidence that Matthew did influence Darwin and Wallace..

The literature record proves that Darwin lied by writing the very opposite to the fact we 100% know he knew to be true when, in 1860, Matthew informed him in writing that his ideas had been read because staff at Perth Public Library in Scotland (the Fair City) had read them and so banned his book! Moreover, Matthew went on to inform Darwin that two naturalists had read Matthew's (1831) original ideas on natural selection. One - the interntionally famous naturalist John Loudon - cited him. The other was frightened to teach Matthew's original ideas on the origin of species for fear of Pillory punishment! Darwin's published lie in response to these facts was that Matthew's ideas had been completely unread. And Darwin convinced his credulous readers by that very lie that Matthew could not have influenced him or Wallace or any of their pre-1858 influencers.

Darwin's lie was malevolent (Cohen p, 22) because he knew all the facts but blatantly lied to conceal the truth (here). According to Cohen, such convincing lying reinforces the liar's own denial of the real facts (Cohen, S 2001 'States of Denial' page 31).

Incidentally, besides the fact his 1831 book is newly discovered to have been cited by seven naturalists pre 1858 (as opposed to the Darwinist version that none read his ideas) the originator of natural selection, Patrick Matthew, most likely influenced Herbert Spencer (via Robert Chambers - who is one of those seven naturalists). See here.

The New Data that proves there were routes for knowledge contamination from Matthew's 1831 ideas to Darwin and Wallace via the four naturalists they knew who read Matthew's book and cited it pre-1858. In fact, they cited it years before Darwin or Wallace published a word on the topic. Cohen (p. 22) helps us interpret what this means:

'Denial is always partial, some information is always registered. This paradox - or doubleness - knowing and not knowing is the heart of the concept. It creates what Wurmser nicely calls 'Pseudo-stupidity.'

And we have seen plenty of pseudo-stupidity so far in the mass media and on various social media with various attempts to spin the obvious significance of the new facts into a Darwinist comfort blanket of denial that they have any significance at all - despite the fact they completely puncture the myth upon which Darwinists have built their paradigm of belief in Darwin's and Wallace's claims to have each independently discovered Matthew's prior-published original ideas. Those same ideas we now newly know did influence Darwin's and Wallace's facilitators, influencers and friends who not only read but cited them in the newly re-discovered literature. See: here.

It seems to me - after reading Stanley Cohen's excellent book "States of Denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering' - that such biased scholarship combines to create an enabling environment for all kinds of dangerous quackery and claptrap, as well as a dysological pseudo-scholarly soup in which hate crime can grow and flourish. If this turns out to be the case, then evolutionary biologists - writing disproven fallacies on the history of discovery of natural selection - are just one micro-culture of scholars who are unwittingly (or perhaps half-wittedly) making the world a dangerous and unpleasant place in which to live. See: here. I believe we all have a duty to ensure such pseud0-stupidity does not prevail in the world of science and history of discovery.

Key points from Cohen's (2001) 'States of Denial' on the question of the significance of the newly discovered fact that other naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace did read Matthew's prior-published ideas on natural selection before Darwin and Wallace replicated those ideas and then claimed in their defence that no naturalists had read them before 1858.

"Why though is it a 'paradox' that denial relieves us from immediate anxiety, but that we must 'renounce its comforts' to remain alert to long-term dangers?" (p.31) [Note: I think my States of Denial Spectrum answers this question].

Darwin (1859) and Wallace (1858) replicated both Matthew's (1831) hypothesis of natural selecton  and his original explanatory analogy of differences.

In 1860 Matthew, wrote two letters to the Gardener's Chronicle to inform its editor and readership that he had - 27 years before Darwin (before Wallace as well, therefore) - had published his original discovery of the entire complex hypothesis of natural selection and his original coining of the artificial versus natural selection 'analogy of differences', which perfectly explains it. Both letters were published.

In his first letter, Matthew informed Darwin that the internationally famous botanist/biologist and polymath naturalist John Loudon had reviewed his book. Darwin knew Loudon's work well. His pre-1858 notebooks are jam packed with references to his work - some of which Darwin heavily annotated. Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker knew Loudon and his work well - pre-1858 Hooker referenced Loudon's work many times and, reviewed it highly in the press and corresponded in praise of Loudon. That 1832 review of Matthew's book by Loudon contained the following line: (Loudon, 1832: 702-703) '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 . Darwin replied to Matthew's (1860) published letter with a lie - claiming the opposite to what he had just been informed by Matthew. Darwin wrote that no naturalist had read Matthew's ideas:" I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr Matthew's views, " Darwin's 1860 letter of reply was published in the Gardener's Chronicle. Matthew replied with a second published letter to Darwin - correcting him by making it very plain that another naturalist had also read his original ideas but feared teaching them because they trespassed on the territory of natural divinity, which dominated science in the first half of the 19th century. Matthew (1860) wrote back and the Gardener's Chronicle published his second letter: '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,..'

Darwin elsewhere responded in private to Matthew's first 1860 Gardeners chromicle letter with his same first published lie. Following Matthew's letter and his reply, with dishonest  information to the contrary, he wrote a private letter in 1861to the famous French naturalist Quatrefages de Bréau in his letter of April 25, 1861 Darwin lied:"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." Then in 1861 in the Third Edition of the Origin of Species - and in every edition thereafter, Darwin continued that exact same great self serving lie about Matthew's book, and who read the ideas in it. That third lie corrupted - for 155 years - the history of the discovery of natural selection. Darwin (1861) wrote in the third edition of The Origin of Species - despite being informed of the exact opposite by Matthew only the year before - the following lie:' Unfortunately the view was given by Mr Matthew very briefly in scattered pages 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.' These are clear lies by Darwin because as Cohen (2001,p, 37) explains, in relation to lies in general, they are assertions that are known to be untrue. They were written with an intention to deceive and dupe the world about the facts and the false intentions of the liar - Charles Darwin.

Darwin's best friend - Joseph Hooker - approved Darwin's (1860) lying letter of reply to the Gardener's Chronicle, signed, re-dated it and forwarded Darwin's letter of reply to the Editor at Darwin's insistence. Hooker, who had earlier in 1858 misled the Linnean Society into believing Wallace gave his permission for his Ternate paper to be read before the society in accompaniment with Darwin's, knew Loudon was an internationally famous naturalist and yet he approved Darwin's lie. Why?. We may speculate that Hooker was possibly engaged in an act of what Cohen p, 40 refers to as ' self-deception'. : "So long as they remained ignorant of the details they could 'say later 'We didn't know'". Perhaps Hooker knew there were facts to the contrary, but was deliberately ignorant of the details of those facts?. In this role he played in the story of Matthew and Darwin, Hooker may have sought to ensure he remained willfully ignorant of exactly what Loudon had written in 1832 about Matthew's original ideas.'

Alternatively, Hooker knowing colluded in a great cover-up with Darwin in order to help his best friend commit the World's greatest science fraud by way of plagiarising glory theft of the influence of the originator Matthew on the scientific community. This might be so, since I originally discovered in 2014  that Loudon went on to edit two journal articles on the topic of organic evolution written by Blyth (1855, 1856). And Byth was Darwin's prolific informant and influencer. For Darwin or Hooker to admit that Loudon cited Matthew's original ideas would mean admitting that 'knowledge contamination' routes existed between Matthew's 1831 book and Darwin's and Wallace's supposedly independent replications of his original ideas and explanatory examples.

We know Darwin acted in 'bad faith' by lying that Matthew's bombshell ideas were unread before he replicated them, and that Hooker may have been acting in similar bad faith. But what of other Darwinists? Cohen (2001, p.40) wrote of how the majority of Germans in WWII must have known that something dreadful was being done to the Jews but that they chose, as an act of 'bad faith', not to want to know the details. In that way, they both knew and did not know that something dreadful was happening. They were in a particular 'state of bad faith denial' Perhaps, by way of analogy, the Royal Society Darwin medal winners Sir Gavin de Beer and Ernst Mayor were acting in bad faith when they simply parroted Darwin's great lie that Matthew's ideas were unread by anyone/any biologist. They being the World's leading experts in the field we might be forgiven for insisting that they must surely have read Matthew's two 1860 letters to Darwin about two naturalists who had read his original ideas. Remaining ignorant of the details whilst parroting Darwin's lie suggests de Beer and Mayr were both in a 'state of denial' - either as an act of deliberate bad faith - or else they were in 'active denial' (Cohen 2001, p. 32) by way of 'plugging leaks' in the story of Darwin's and Wallace's claimed independent discoveries of Matthew's original ideas with deliberate lies. In light of what I have uniquely discovered, it would be an act of bad faith for us not to ask the Royal Society: 'Could de Beer and Mayer (or any other Darwin Medal winner) win the Darwin Medal by writing the dreadful truth about Darwin's lies about who really read Matthew's ideas before Darwin replicated them? If not, why not?

In light of my original (Sutton 2014) discovery that, as opposed to the prior 'knowledge claim' that no one known to Darwin or Wallace read Matthew's original ideas on natural selection before they replicated them in 1858, that seven naturalists read them - four known to Darwin/Wallace and three (Loudon, Chambers and Selby) at the epicentre of influence on their work on the same topic - read and cited Matthew's book pre-1858 - it would be an act of bad faith for us to fail to investigate the private journal and correspondence archives of those seven naturalists (and those they knew) to see whether Darwin or any of his closest associates (such as Lyell, Joseph and William Hooker, Wallace, Huxley or Jenyns etc) knew about Matthew's original discovery pre-1858.

In light of the 100 percent proof that - as opposed to none - we now know that there are several newly-unearthed routes of potential knowledge contamination of Matthew's original ideas into the pre-1858 minds of Darwin and Wallace via their influencers, it is arguably an act of bad faith, therefore for other scholars (e.g. Weale 2015 ) to deny the significance of the New Data by simply, without evidence, or critical argument, dismissing its significance by merely claiming that the evidence that Matthew influenced Darwin and Wallace is simply "weak" and not, therefore, worthy of their academic consideration.

Darwin's expert biographer, James Moore (2014)  responded in the national press to the original news that I had discovered naturalists who did read and cite Matthew's ideas. His response was the knee-jerk dismissal that he doubted I had discovered anything new that had not already been discovered and interpreted in the opposite direction. Moore's fallacious dismissal (Cohen 2001, p.31) of the facts being anything new might - depending on his state of mind and intentions - be described as (a) 'a psychotic negation of manifest facts'; (b) a 'plugging of leaks' in the orthodox story by lying (Cohen 2001, p.31) (c) a refusal (state of denial by dually knowing and not knowing) refusal to believe it or an inability to 'take it in' (Cohen 2001, p.24.) because, if true, the facts seriously threaten his sense of personal and professional cultural identity.

There is much in the behaviour of Darwin and his Darwinists that is worthy of further investigation by social scientists interested in 'states of denial', veracity, and science fraud by plagiarising glory theft.

The notion of the 'comfort zone' sits well with Cohen's 'states of denial'  to help us understand why Darwinists of today are behaving exactly like those of the past in their refusal to engage with the facts that disprove the premesis upon which they have built thier paradigm of Darwin's and Wallace's independent discoveries of Matthew's prior published discovery of natural selection.

Matthew versus Darwin in the Gardener's Chronicle 1860: 100 per cent proof of Darwin's lying plagiarising science fraud by glory theft of Matthew's influence on those who influenced Darwin's influencer Blyth and other naturalists before 1858

Somehow, the obvious and significant facts of Darwin's lies in the three letters transcribed in full, below, have been cognitively blindsighted by Darwin scholars from 1860 until the publication of my book 'Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret' in 2014

In the three complete letters transcribed on this page  (two by Matthew and one from Darwin) we see firstly how Matthew lays claim to his priority for prior-publishing the full hypothesis of natural slection. In his letter or reply to Matthew, we see how Darwin is forced to admit that Matthew got the whole thing first. We see in particular that Darwin lies in his letter about no naturalists having read Matthew's ideas, because Matthew's first letter informed him that Loudon (a famous naturalist whose work was very well known to Darwin) had read it.

In Matthew's second letter he informs Darwin of a second naturalist who read his ideas but feared to teach them - for fear of pillory punishment. And we see Matthew informs Darwin that the public library of Perth in Scotland (he refers to Perth by its well known other name as 'the fair city', from Sir Walter Scott's 1828 book the 'Fair Maiden of Perth') banned his book.

Despite being informed of the true facts to the contrary, Darwin went on to lie in a letter to the influential French biologist Quatrefages de Bréau in his letter of April 25, 1861 that no one at all Matthew's book before 1860:

"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."

Note: Had Loudon's friend and co-author (and William Hooker' best friend) the botanist Professor John Lindley not, seven years earlier, published a fallacy, to start the 13 year-long myth, that Lobb, rather than John and Patrick Matthew, was first to introduce giant Californian redwood trees into Britain,  and that Lindley - rather than John Matthew (or another as yet unknown writer before that) - was the first  to name the tree Wellingtonia -  Darwin's much parroted 'obscure writer on forest trees' excuse for apparently not having read Matthew's book would have been ludicrous, given the fame Lobb and Lindley enjoyed between 1853 and 1866.

In reality, Loudon (1832) certainly did notice what Matthew had conceived:

Then from the third edition of the Origin of Species (Darwin 1861), and in every edition thereafter, Darwin committed lying, plagiarising, science fraud by glory theft of Matthew's original prior-published ideas and their possible influence on Darwin's influencers. Because, Loudon went on to be Chief Editor of the journal that published two of Blyth's influential articles on evolution, and Blyth was Darwin's greatest influencer and most prolific informant on the topic of organic evolution of varieties. By continuing the same lie, Darwin wrote the line that cognitively blindsighted Darwin scholars have been blindly parroting as the gospel truth for the past 155 years:

'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.'

THE THREE LETTERS THAT PROVIDE OBVIOUS AND SIGNIFICANT EVIDENCE THAT CHARLES DARWIN COMMITTED LYING, PLAGIARIZING SCIENCE FRAUD BY GLORY THEFT OF PATRICK MATTHEW'S RIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED AN IMMORTAL GREAT THINKER AND INFLUENCER IN SCIENCE

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Note: Seemingly countless Darwin scholars credulously parroted Darwin's 1861 lie that Matthew buried his ideas in his book's appendix to create the Appendix Myth as a fallacious excuse for why Darwin supposedly never read Matthew's work before 1860. The 'real fact' of the matter is that the text Matthew quotes in this letter from his 1831 book 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture', to prove hs got the whole hypothesis of natural selection first, is from both the main body of his book as well as its appendix. At the end of his letter, Matthew even provides the corresponding page numbers for his text to make this obvious fact abundantly clear. Darwin knew this because, after reading this letter from Matthew, he wrote to Joseph Hooker in 1860 to explain as much:

'The case in G. Chronicle seems a little stronger than in Mr. Matthews [sic] book, for the passages are therein scattered in 3 places. But it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that.'

Patrick Matthew's letter claiming his priority to his prior-published hypothesis of natural selection. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette. April 7th (1860) pp. 312-313):

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 3rd 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, Gourdie Hill, Errol N.B., March 7.

(2)

In the following letter from Darwin we see the very beginning of his published lying to steal Matthew's glory by creating fallacies to 'victim blame' Matthew for Darwin's own failure to cite his prior-published work. Such victim blaming is a classic tactic employed by those in a 'state of denial' (Cohen 2001) of highly disturbing 'real facts' .

Charles Darwin's letter of reply to Patrick Matthew's first priority claiming letter in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette April 21st (1860). pp. 362-363:

Natural Selection.—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 that 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. If another edition of my work is called for, I will insert a notice to the foregoing effect. Charles Darwin, Down, Bromley, Kent

(3)

In the following letter, we see Matthew correct Darwin on his lie that no naturalist had read his origination of natural selection before 1860. Moreover, Matthew explains that at least one public library banned his book for its heresy in explaining the origin of species without reference to natural divinity, but instead by means of natural selection. Furthermore, he explains that a least one naturalist - a professor - read his ideas but feared being pilloried by the cutty stool if he taught them.

Patrick Matthew's letter of reply to Darwin's published lie in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, May 12th (1860). p.433:

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.

~~~

 Although others explain that Darwin returned from the voyages of the Beagle still believing species to be immutable (see Sulloway 1982)  and only came to think about evolution by natural selection by reading books years later, according to his son, Francis Darwin (see Oldroyd 1984) [archived: https://archive.is/WGVww], Charles Darwin perhaps began to think and write in his private notebooks the first tiny germ of his thoughts about evolution (that would eventually led him to write about macroevolution by natural selection) in 1832. That was the year following publication of Matthew's (1831) book, which contains the first publication of the theory. However, despite mentioning Eiseley several times, Oldroyd's article most conveniently completely ignores the evidence Eiseley found that Darwin plagiarised Matthew’s  theory, by way of the discovery that Darwin, in his private essay of 1844, replicated Matthew's highly idiosyncratic forester's explanatory analogy of differences between trees selected by mankind in nurseries versus those selected by nature. Indeed, Oldroyd conveniently fails to mention Matthew at all, despite the fact Darwin and Wallace each admitted Matthew got and had published the whole theory before they replicated it - supposedly miraculously independently of one another and completely co-incidentally.

Although it is only a rational possibility that Darwin knew about Matthew's (1831) book, poignantly entitled 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' whilst on the voyages of the Beagle - incidentally a a Royal Navy naval ship, the possibility should be considered a probability. Darwin is a proven serial liar about Matthew and his other influencers (e.g. see Sutton 2015 on his proven lies about Matthew, and see Dower on his proven lies about von Buch), so Darwin has lost all rights to be given benefit of the doubt on any of his stories about how he came to think and write about the theory of evolution by natural selection. 

Notably, 1832 was the year in which Loudon (a naturalist well known to Darwin and his closest associates) published a review of Matthew's bombshell book and wrote that Matthew appeared to have something to say on what he termed the 'origin of species'. That was the phrase Darwin would later adopt for the title of his book of 1859, which replicated Matthew's theory, originally four word shuffled Matthew's original name for it from 'natural process of selection' to 'process of natural selection', replicated Matthew’s artificial v natural selection analogy of differences and stole many more of Matthew's highly idiosyncratic explanatory examples. And we know Darwin was receiving publications, via correspondence sent by friends, when the Beagle was at various ports from as early as 1832 (e.g. here).

Darwin would later claim – as a direct lie after Matthew wrote to him in 1860 explaining that Loudon reviewed his book and another naturalist professor of an eminent university read but feared to teach the theory in it – alternately that no naturalist / no one whatsoever read Matthew’s book and the original ideas in it before 1860.

The fact remains that, whatever possibilities are determined to be rational probabilities by different writers on Darwin Wallace and Matthew, Charles Darwin is a proven serial liar and plagiarising glory thief.

To conclude, readers of this page might wish to contemplate the fact that if Darwin did not plagiarise Matthew's (1831) complete theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858/59, Matthew's four word name for it (natural process of selection - shuffled by Darwin to process of natural selection) and highly idiosyncratic analogies and examples to explain it, in a book read and then cited pre-1858 by Darwin's and Wallace's key influencers and influencer's influencers and Wallace's Sarawak paper General Editor, Selby, then the fact Darwin first found fame by writing about his voyages on a naval ship and the theory that made him most famous was fully published, years before he put pen to private paper on the topic, in a book entitled 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' is just one more of a multitude of incredible, miraculous, multiple coincidences in the story of Matthew, Darwin and Wallace (see Sutton 2017 for the others).

A series of flashcards that set out Darwin's proven self-serving and glory-theft plagiarising lies about the pre-1858 readership of Matthew's (1831) original ideas can be found on the Patrick Matthew Blog: Here

Proposing the Concept of "Significant Gunsmoke Evidence": Here

The more routes for knowledge contamination, reason has it, the greater the probability that one was taken.

Can we rationally ruminate on the likelihood of Darwin's guilt as a plagiarist from what remains of the lost stolen, or purposefully destroyed by Darwin, correspondence we have from him and his friends and associates? Well, we certainly can in light of the proven lies Darwin wrote in his letters and his book "The Origin of Species", including his confession to Joseph Hooker that he lied by claiming Patrick Matthew's theory was buried in only the Appendix of his 1831 book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. Other than that, no one has any real idea what scandal or gossip Victorian men of science involved themselves in outside the world of their formal letters. Looking at the worst side of Victorian life and values, how many - for example - might have availed themselves of the plight of child prostitutes during their trips to London? We have zero idea on that one. Maybe some did. Maybe none did.

One thing is for sure however, and that is that Darwin and his associates and his influencers and his influencer's influencers were not exactly what they pretend to be in their correspondence. Who is? Writing that is no more speculative - in my mere opinion - than the reasoned opinion of anyone else that it is unlikely any of those who cited Matthew's 1831 book shared the ideas they read in it with Darwin or one of Darwin's friends or contemporaries, who could then have passed Matthew's ideas, or the title of the book containing them, on to Darwin. Why is it unlikely such a thing would happen? Unlikely based on what knowledge, as opposed to mere wishful thinking, is it unlikely?

Speculating, for example as some have, that the Vestiges would have been better had Chambers read Matthew is based on no more than a mere presumption that Chambers was a plagiarist - or else a presumption that he did not despise the Chartist Matthew (Chambers was famously very much against the vote for the working classes) - or that Chambers agreed fully with Matthew's theory. But the fact Chambers cited both of Matthew's books and famously loved reading and was supposed to have had a photographic memory is evidence his brain may well have been influenced by Matthew. We know, from admissions of it in their own correspondence and publications, that Chambers influenced both Darwin and Wallace. So Chambers is just one more newly unearthed route for knowledge contamination - via Chambers's The Vestiges of Creation book.

One major point here is the fact we know humans are very bad at keeping secrets. That acknowledgement of human behaviour is the exact same reasoning against conspiracy theories such as the daft idea of NASA's faked moon landing. Namely, too many people at NASA would have had to be in on it to keep it a secret. Correspondingly, the more people who knew about Matthew's ideas the more likely they shared them - or the title of the book containing them - directly with Darwin and/or via his other friends, associates and correspondents (so many of Darwin's letter are lost or else he destroyed them). Moreover, the list of those we newly know did read Matthew's ideas is growing.

Also, we know Matthew (at least if we believe him - and unlike Darwin he has never shown himself to be a liar) did discuss his ideas with that professor of a renowned Scottish University who feared to teach or write about them; as Matthew told us all in the Gardeners' Chronicle in 1860. And we know that in 1831 the United Services Journal told its readers - in writing - not to even contemplate Matthew's ideas on the laws of nature. So those then heretical ideas surely were spoken and written about pre 1858.

Then add to all of the above reasoning and evidence the proven fact that Darwin did not discover the theory of evolution by natural selection while on the voyages of the Beagle observing finch beaks in the Galapagos islands (see Sulloway 1983) but, by his own admission, got it from reading books, originally four-word-shuffled Matthew's earlier original "natural process of selection" name for his theory to its only grammatically possible equivalent "process of natural selection" (see Sutton 2017). Then, add to that fact the fact that earlier in his 1844 private essay (as Eiseley (1981) so importantly discovered) replicated Matthew's (1831) highly idiosyncratic foresters trees selected by mankind to be raised in nurseries versus those selected in the wild by nature - surely establishes on a balance of reasonable probabilities that the proven serial liar Darwin was at least influenced by Matthew pre-1858 and more likely than not read and deliberately plagiarized his book. Don't you think dear reader? And if that is not enough to convince you then consider that fact that as opposed to Darwin's proven lie (see Sutton 2014) that no naturalist read Matthew's (1831) bombshell breakthrough pre-1858 that several known to have influenced Darwin and Wallace and their influencers did so (see Sutton 2015). And to cap it all, add to that other lies Darwin told about his influencers not influencing him (see Dower 2009).  As if that is not enough to convince the most obstinate Darwin worshipper to rethink, on top of that cap we must consider the great weight of circumstantial evidence that the Big Data IDD method (Sutton and Griffiths 2018) unearthed on who was apparently first to be second in print with what the IDD method revealed are apparently original terms and phrases ('Matthewisms') coined by Matthew in his 1831 book. At which, point I must direct you to the current nonsense that the obscene and obsessed malicious cyber-stalker and Darwin fanatic Derry has added to the Wikipedia page on Patrick Matthew from the idiotic blog site of Dishonest Dagg The Plagiarist that I have mistaken books containing these Matthewisms for something other than what they so obviously are. The point is not what the publications that were apparently first to be second are about, but the possibility that those who wrote them might have been knowledge contaminated from reading directly or from someone else who read Matthew's book. Clearly some of those who were first to be second with 'Matthewisms' were closely associated with Darwin (evidence here). A further discussion on the first to be second (F2B2) hypothesis can be found in this article, that is a response to a desperately disingenuous and essentially dishonest review of this area of my research. 

Who edited the journal that published Blyths' influential articles on species and varities, articles that Darwin scholars know influenced Darwin, and some of Blyth's articles Darwin admitted influenced him? It was Loudon. What did Loudon read and review in 1832? It was Matthew's (1831) book. What did Loudon say it contained? Something seemingly original on the question of "origin of species", no less! That is evidence for a route of knowledge contamination from Matthew to Loudon to Blyth. But when it comes to the F2B2 question, my research (Sutton 2014) further uniquely unearthed the fact that Blyth's friend and twice co-author Rober Mudie (Mudie was born in Forfarshire - same Scottish county as Matthew) was apparently first to be second with Matthew's apparently unique term "rectangular branching".

So the routes for Matthewian knowledge contamination of Blyth are proven and should not be ignored. Blyth did not get the theory of evolution by natural selection into any of his papers - he thought species were immutable, but his very likely influencer Matthew (1831) did originate the theory. Not mentioning these facts - or seeking to bury them under lies - as Wikipedia does - would be cherry picking the data to suit the conclusion you wish to reach. Would it not? 

Now we know the above facts do we not have a scientific duty to consider and weigh them? 

And there is so much more evidence than this in my books (Sutton 2014 and 2017). 

Darwin, by his own proven lying behaviour, has lost the right to be accorded the benefit of the doubt when it comes to any question of his honesty about his influencers.

Just how many otherwise stunningly miraculous multiple "coincidences" are needed to sum the the probability they are not all a coincidence?

I do think it is 100% proven on a balance of reasonable probabilities (the civil law) test of guilt - as opposed to 100% proven beyond reasonable doubt (the criminal test of guilt) that Patrick Matthew's (1831) theory influenced both Darwin and Wallace to plagiarise his theory in their paper of 1858 and in Darwin's (1859) Origin of Species. 

A conversation via email with another Darwin, Wallace and Matthew scholar influenced me to write this section to this page on Patrick Matthew. But who would know he influenced me to write this unless I wrote here that he did so and named him accordingly? For that reason, I have not attributed him as my influencer. That failure is not done out of meanness, but to prove my point that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in a case such as this. 

A smoking gun may well exist. And I know several places to go digging for it.  But I'd need a large grant to fund the excavation. 

Further reading on the Charles Darwin and Patrick Matthew Supermyth can be found on Supermyths.com HERE

THE ANSWER IS 30

Known UK Library holdings of NTA: HERE. Archived Here