Essay:Patrick Matthew: priority and the discovery of natural selection
Many writing on the history of the discovery of natural selection and Patrick Matthew, including Charles Darwin (1860)[1], (1861)[2]Alfred Russel Wallace (1879)[3], Donald Forsdyke (2008)[4], Milton Wainwright (2008)[5], Christopher Hallpike (2008)[6], Richard Dawkins (2010)[7] William James Dempster (1983)[8] and Mike Sutton (2014)[9], discuss and conclude that Patrick Matthew (1831) - in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture[10] - published the full theory of natural selection many years before Darwin and Wallace put pen to private notepaper on the topic and 27 years before Darwin and Wallace (1858) had their papers read before the Linnean Society.
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)[11] 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. The Arago Effect (Strevens 2003)[12], 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 as a norm in cases of scientific discovery, is that being first 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)[13] has built upon prior rationale for denying Matthew full priority over Darwin 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 based upon the recently proven fallacious premise (Sutton 2014)[14] that Matthew's unique views went unnoticed. Moreover, Dawkins demands also that Matthew should have "trumpeted his discovery from the rooftops". However in making this post-hoc demand, Dawkins does not, as other writers (e.g. Desmond and Moore 1991[15] and Secord 2000[16]) 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. Richard Dawkins fails also to address the issue that Matthew's Chartist political ideas were in his book and that he linked these quite clearly to the implications of his his natural selection discovery. This meant his unique ideas were especially both seditious and heretical in the 1830's and 1840s. Moreover, Dawkins and others are wrong to claim that Matthew's book was unread by anyone that mattered in the field of evolution, because newly available Big Data research techniques reveal solid evidence, from the independently verifiable published literature, that Matthew's (1831) book was, in fact, (all pre 1858) cited by other naturalists known to Darwin/Wallace - including Loudon (1832)[17], who edited and published two of Blyth's influential papers, Blyth (1835)[18] and (1836)[19] ; Robert Chambers (1832)[20], who wrote the highly influential book on evolution the Vestiges of Creation, which ran to 12 editions after being first published in 1842[21]; and Prideaux John Selby (1842)[22], who was the Chief Editor of the journal that published Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper[23], no less!
In conclusion, it is clear that 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 Orignator, 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 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 - Joseph Hooker being Darwin's best friend, 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 [24] 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 and that Selby and Darwin sat on several important scientific committees together. See Sutton (2014)[25] [26] for greater details of these and other naturalists in Darwin's and Wallace's social networks who, it is newly discovered, read Matthew's book before 1858.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ "Darwin, C. R. (1860a) Natural selection. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette no. 16 (21 April): 362-363."
- ↑ "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. (Third Edition) London. John Murray."
- ↑ "Wallace, A.R. (1879) 9 May. Letter to Samuel Butler. Unique WCP identifier: WCP1586. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum."
- ↑ "Cock, A. G. and Forsdyke, D. R. (2008). Treasure your Exceptions: The Science and Life of William Bateson. Springer"
- ↑ "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"
- ↑ "Hallpike, C. R. (2008) How We Got Here: From Bows and Arrows to the Space Age. Author House. Milton Keynes"
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ "Dempster, W. J. (1983) Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection. Edinburgh. Paul Harris Publishing."
- ↑ "Sutton, M. 2014 Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Media inc."
- ↑ "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"
- ↑ "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."
- ↑ "Strevens, M. (2003) The Role of Priority in Science. Journal of Philosophy. pp:55-79"
- ↑ "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. "
- ↑ "Sutton, M. 2014 Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Media inc."
- ↑ "Desmond, A. and Moore, J. (1991). Darwin. London. Penguin Books."
- ↑ " 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."
- ↑ "Loudon, J.C. (1832) Matthew Patrick On Naval Timber and Arboriculture with Critical Notes on Authors who have recently treated the Subject of Planting. Gardener’s Magazine. Vol. VIII. p.703."
- ↑ "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. "
- ↑ "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."
- ↑ "Selby, P. J. (1842) A history of British forest-trees: indigenous and introduced. London. Van Voorst."
- ↑ "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 "
- ↑ 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.)
- ↑ "Sutton, M. 2014 Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret. Cary NC. USA. Thinker Media inc."
- ↑ "Sutton, M.(2014) The hi-tech detection of Darwin’s and Wallace’s possible science fraud: Big data criminology re-writes the history of contested discovery.Peer Reviewed Papers from the British Criminology Conference, Vol. 14: 49-64"