Patrick Matthew

The Charles Darwin Violin 

The Charles Darwin Violin has been repaired, restored and re-voiced. For breaking news and other pre-restoration images of the violin and its unknown maker's unusual choice of London plane tree (lacewood) timber, and why it led to the violin being necromanced as the Charles Darwin Violin, visit the Patrick Matthew Blog. HERE

"So the Darwin violin is born, and like his theory, has not been newly created." (Andy "The Poet" Sutton, March 2024)

The Charles Darwin violin is over 100 years old and constructed entirely from London plane tree wood (a one piece front and  one piece back and then entire neck) from London plane tree wood. The London plane tree is a hybrid. There are two competing stories for its origins. This resonates with the competing stories for the theory of the theory of The Natural Process of Selection. The Darwin lobby claimed multiple mere coincidence story of three individuals coming up with the theory independently of one another versus the plagiarism / knowledge contamination of the hybridizing expert, Paterick Matthew's (1831) book story, which i based on the newly discovered empirical data (see Science Fraud, the book) that Darwin superfans are seeking to conceal from the scientific and wider community through empirical fact denial, published falsehoods, criminal workplace harassment and deliberate lies.

From  THE MYSTERIOUS HISTORY OF THE LONDON PLANE TREE -31 May 2018 (here) (archived here)

(1) According to the Woodland Trust, the London plane’s parents were the oriental plane and the American plane, which come from two different continents on the opposite sides of the world. It is thought they hybridised naturally in Spain and at some point made their way to Britain in the 17th century.

(2) An alternative version of the new plane’s “discovery” is in in the mid-17th century by John Tradescant the younger in his famous nursery garden and ark in Vauxhall. Tradescant was an avid plant collector and botanist, a prime example of the English aristocracy’s longstanding fascination with plants. Both parent trees may have been residents in this garden so it’s tantalising to think that the London plane tree started its journey here, but we will never really know the exact origins.

The Lacewood London Plane Tree is well suited as a tree able to adapt to polluted environments and London was really heavily polluted in the 19th century due to amount of coal being burnt for heating etc. One needs only to read Charles Dickens book Bleak House for dreadful accounts of lethal "pea souper smog". Patrick Matthew (1831, e.g. p. 68) wrote of how pine trees thrive in good timber soil but were adapted by nature to grow in spare soil. neither Matthew nor Darwin wrote about why plane trees were so well adapted to very heavily polluted environments such as London. One proposed reason for their being so circumstance suited (a theme Matthew wrote about for many other species) is their thick leathery leaves that allow pollution to be washed away by rain and their regenerative bark.

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In the criminal justice system it is universally accepted that juries are very often unable to comprehend the evidence due to its extreme complexity. The evidence of Darwin's lies about who he actually knew did read and fully understand Matthew's book and the theory in it, before he stole the theory and called it "my theory" thereafter is very involved and interlaced with those in his inner circle who aided and abetted him.

Here we are just examining a small interconnected segment of the evidence (see Science Fraud for the full empirical evidence led story)

The Darwin and Gavin Cree connection to Patrick Matthew's 1831 Theory

Darwin’s own private notebook of the books he actually read records he read Volumes 7 and 8 of Gardener’s Magazine.. Now, although Darwin’s notebook gives no year for the publication of these two volumes, which is confusing because in every new decade this magazine started a new series with volumes restarting at 1 again.

One volume 7 covers 1831 and anther volume 8 covers 1832. The latter contains Loudon’s all-important review of NTA, in which Loudon (correspondent of Darwin and friend of his best friend's (Joseph Hooker's) father, William Hooker, write that Matthew appeared to have something original to say on the origin of species! Volume 8 also makes reference to observations made by Darwin’s grandfather on pp. 308 and 502 about forest trees—no less!

To be even-handed, however, it seems most likely since Darwin was compiling a list of things to read and things read on March12, 1842 that it was volumes of that decade—Volume 7 of 1841 and Volume 8 of 1842—that he recorded reading in his notebook, although we cannot know that for sure. But even in Volume 7 of 1841 on pp. 440 to 444 Matthew and his 1831 book is the subject of an article by the celebrity arborist Gavin Cree (Cree 1841) on tree pruning. In that volume on p. 216 Charles Darwin is mocked as being delusional regarding his observations on earthworms.

So, whatever decade Darwin was referring to in his notes there is a published reference to Matthew and his 1831 book in both! According to the facts, Matthew was hardly an obscure author of an unread book/theory in the first half of the 19th century.

To underscore the point yet further, Darwin’s private notebooks and his archived library reveal he read at least five publications that either cite or contain articles about Matthew and NTA:

(1) The Athenæum (1839) (block advertisement
for Naval Timber and review of Emigration Fields).

(2) Loudon (1831) (citing Matthew in Bibliography).

(3) Loudon (1838) (article citing Matthew).

(4) The Gardener’s Magazine (1841) (article throwing down a challenge to Matthew on tree pruning). Assuming this is the one Darwin refers to and not the 1832 one containing Loudon’s important review of NTA.

(5) Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society of Edinburgh (1814–1832) (block
advertisement for NTA).

This is just one more fact that tells us exactly why Matthew belongs at the very centre of Darwin’s story and not on the fringes, as the Darwin Industry wants you to believe.

The interlaced (like lacewood) facts prove Matthew wasn’t obscure in the 1830s and 1840s, and neither was NTA. Therefore, Darwin’s excuse-claim that Matthew's (1831) was unread is demolished by verifiable facts proving books about Matthew were held in Darwin’s own hands before he replicated the theory in NTA.

A prolific author, fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society, and a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Loudon was a friend and correspondent of William Hooker and co-published with Hooker’s close friend and fellow economic botanist John Lindley.

Lindley crops as a devious and malicious anti-Matthew character throughout the Patrick Matthew v Charles Darwin story in Science Fraud, the book. But here we have seen just one small segment related to Cree and his palpably intense dislike for his pruning critic Patrick Matthew.

The Gavin Cree to David Low connections to Charles Darwin via the 1831 book of Patrick Matthew

In 1834 David Low was apparently First to be second into published print (F2B2) with the apparently original Naval Timber and Arboriculture (NTA) phrase “long continued selection” in his book Elements of Practical Agriculture: Comprehending the Cultivation of Plants, the Husbandry of Domestic Animals and the Economy of the Farm.

Although he never personally cited Matthew (1831), he was founding editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture at the time it published Gavin Cree’s (1832) letter on pruning that criticised NTA. Thus it was Low who ruled as editor in favour of Cree against Matthew in that edition of the journal (Canadian Agriculturalist 1859, p. 32). Low (1844) wrote about naval timber on pp. 583–585 of his book on “landed property” and did so again on p. 88 of his book on forest trees (Low 1853).

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Just four years older than Matthew, Low was a highly esteemed professor of agriculture at the University of Edinburgh. Most importantly, like many who cited NTA—or else apparently first duplicated apparently original Matthewisms from NTA—Low was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture of Sweden.

Darwin adopted the exact same original NTA Matthewism in his essay of 1842 (Darwin 1842, pp. 32 and 33) where he writes in secret:

“Now according to analogy of domesticated animals let us see what would result. Let us take case of farmer on Pampas, where everything approaches nearer to state of nature. He works on organisms having strong tendency to vary: and he knows only way to make a distinct breed is to select and separate. It would be useless to separate the best bulls and pair with best cows if their offspring run loose and bred with the other herds, and tendency to reversion not counteracted; he would endeavour therefore to get his cows on islands and then commence his work of selection. If several farmers in different regions were to set to work, especially if with different objects, several breeds would soon be produced. So would it be with horticulturist and so history of every plant shows; the number of varieties increase in proportion to care bestowed on their selection and, with crossing plants, separation. Now, according to this analogy, change of external conditions, and isolation either by chance landing a form on an island, or subsidence dividing a continent, or great chain of mountains, and the number of individuals not being numerous will best favour variation and selection. No doubt change could be effected in same country without any barrier by long continued selection on one species: even in case of a plant not capable of crossing would easier get possession and solely occupy an island.”

Then in Origin (Darwin 1859, p. 192) he used it again:

“As every one would be surprised if two exactly similar but peculiar varieties of any species were raised by man by long continued selection, in two different countries, or at two very different periods, so we ought not to expect that an exactly similar form would be produced from the modification of an old one in two distinct countries or at two distinct periods.”

Low published a number if notable books such as Elements of Practical Agriculture (1834), The Breeds of Domesticated Animals (1840), and An Enquiry into the Nature of the Simple Bodies of Chemistry (1848).

On p. 546 in another of his books On Landed Property, and the Economy of Estates (1844) Low was once again apparently F2B2 with an apparently original NTA expression—once again without citing Matthew. In this later book he uses Matthew’s apparently original phrase “overpowering the less.” This discovery of Low twice replicating Matthew’s unique phrases in different books appears to confirm the veracity of the F2B2 hypothesis, the value of the method in identifying plagiarism of ideas, and the influence that such plagiarism has on others. This conclusion is further confirmed by the fact that in his F2B2 use of this NTA phrase Low replicated Matthew’s exclusive theme that trees grown by means of artificial selection in nurseries were inferior to those naturally selected by nature. The exact same highly important theme that Eiseley (1979) discovered Darwin replicated in his 1844 private essay! Low (1844, p. 546) writes:

“The Wild Pine attains its greatest perfection of growth and form in the colder countries, and on the older rock formations. It is in its native regions of granite, gneiss and the allied deposits, that it grows in extended forests over hundreds of leagues, overpowering the less robust species. When transplanted to the lower plains and subjected to culture, it loses so much of the aspect and characters of the noble original, as scarcely to appear the same. No change can be greater to the habits of a plant than the transportation of this child of the mountain to the shelter and cultivated soil of the nursery; and when the seeds of these cultivated trees are collected and sown again, the progeny diverges more and more from the parent type. Hence one of the reasons why so many worthless plantations of pine appear in the plains of England and Scotland, and why so much discredit has become attached to the culture of the species.”

It is of paramount importance at this juncture to note that this newly discovered evidence in fact provides Darwin with a defence against Eiseley’s (1979) claim that Darwin’s use of artificially selected trees to explain natural selection in his unpublished 1844 essay is clear evidence of plagiarism directly from NTA. Although Low almost certainly got it from Matthew (1831), Darwin could just possibly have got it from reading Low (1844).

Whatever the case, again we see Matthew’s progeny in the relevant literature as influencing the man who influenced the man. Moreover, and most importantly, we should note that Low published his book containing the analogy in 1844, which is the very same year Darwin’s private essay replicated the exact same highly idiosyncratic tree analogy.

This is strong evidence of NTA influencing Low and passing it on to Darwin, or of NTA directly influencing Darwin, or both.

Interestingly, in his notebook of “Books Read and Books to Read” Darwin writes in December 1839, “Advertised. David Low Treatise on Domestic Animals; also Illustrations of the Domestic animals of Gt. Britain—must be read carefully.” However, in that same notebook Darwin makes no mention of having read Low’s Elements of Practical Agriculture or of On Landed Property. In Origin, however, we know Darwin went on to use the same apparently NTA-coined phrase “long continued selection” as several other writers did following Low’s 1834 first replication of it. Whereas Low hyphenated the phrase, Darwin used it without the hyphen just as Matthew had it in NTA. This is suggestive Darwin got the phrase from NTA, not from Low, who probably got it from NTA. But we cannot be sure one way or the other.

Twice replicating phrases apparently first coined in NTA is unlikely to be purely coincidental given that Low was apparently twice to be first with these apparently original Matthewisms in different publications and, most significantly, was a former Perth Academy schoolmate of Patrick Matthew.

Professor David Low of Edinburgh University might even be the unnamed professor that Matthew (1860a) referred to in the Gardeners’ Chronicle as the professor at an esteemed university who could not teach NTA’s heretical hypothesis of natural selection for fear of pillory punishment on the cutty stool.

Conclusion

The evidence of Darwin's science fraud by plagiarism is extremely interlaced, like lacewood. In just this very small snippet of the empirical evidence in "Science Fraud" the book we can see how this complexity has protected Darwin and his fact denial superfans and authoritarian supermyth supporting and facilitation toadies.

The Darwin Lacewood Violin is a perfect tool to help explain the facts.

Perhaps it would be most fitting to have both The Patrick Matthew Violin and the Charles Darwin Violin play Bach's St Matthew Passion?

The John Loudon to Matthew to London Plane Tree Connection 

The famous naturalist John Loudon, who cited Matthew's (1831) theory in 1832, saying he appeared to have something significant to say "on the origin of species"  also landscaped the grounds of the ancient Scone Palace in Scotland. Matthew's place of birth was on Rome Farm that once occupied those grounds. Loudon would later attribute Matthew as a renowned botanist (see Science Fraud for the details)

Loudon also designed the Derby Arboretum (Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin lived and died in Derby).

London Plane trees grow in the Derby Arboretum.  "They were planted to replace trees that had died between 1840 when the original plantings were done and 1860. The cause of the trees' demise was disease, age or air pollution but the London plane trees are resistant to air pollution and those planted in the Arboretum thrived to such an extent that they threatened the original concept of famous designer John Claudius Loudon. Loudon had been recruited by local mill owner and philanthropist Joseph Strutt who gave the site to the people of Derby and in the process created not only England's but the world's first public park. Another tree next to the entrance and opposite the plane does not feature on the Tree Trail but is worthy of note as it is an example of a "top graft", a practice common in the 1800s but less frequently used nowadays. The catalogue identifies it as a Camperdown Elm and shows that it was introduced to the Arboretum about 1850." (Derby's heritage - archived 2024)

Some men such as the theory plagiarist and serial liar Charles Darwin underrate their best blessings

Two travelers, worn out by the heat of the summer’s sun, laid themselves down at noon under the wide spreading branches of a Plane-Tree. As they rested under its shade, one of the travelers said to the other, “What a singularly useless tree is the Plane! It bears no fruit, and is not of the least service to man.” The Plane-Tree, interrupting him, said, “You ungrateful fellows! Do you, while receiving benefits from me and resting under my shade, dare to describe me as useless, and unprofitable?

                                                                                                                                                                                              From Fables of Aesop

Some interesting links on the London plane tree

• The Secret History Of The London Plane Tree  https://archive.is/Obmta

Known UK Library holdings of NTA: HERE. Archived Here

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