Essay:Patrick Matthew: priority and the discovery of natural selection

This personal essay is not endorsed by RationalWiki in any manner, despite claims by the author to the contrary.

Please Note: Recently someone at Rational Wiki has added a deliberate falsehood above this essay and adds it every time it is deleted: "This personal essay is not endorsed by RationalWiki in any manner, despite claims by the author to the contrary". I have never once claimed anywhere that this essay is endorsed by anyone. The falsehhod (above) that I have is typical transparently dishonest Darwinite troll behaviour on social media at the time of writing. My essay, below provides references to other examples. In order to understand rather than condemn such behaviour I would suggest that perhaps it comes, at least in part, from deeply felt frustration. There is little else other than publish such silly falsehoods that those who weirdly worship the proven liar Darwin over the truth can do in response to the new data in the history of discovery of natural selection. Nevertheless, such falsehoods do provide most interesting and valuable data for those interested in such futile resistance to paradigm changing discoveries in science. Fact denial, abuse and lies, all deployed as desperate devices for trying to resist paradigm change should not really surprise us. For example, Lynn Margulis told Suzan Mazur: 'People are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any abstract notion of truth. Scientists especially tend to be loyal to the tribe instead of the truth." By way of confirmatory evidence for this observation, clicking the links that have been added above reveal that I simply and honestly refer to this Rational Wiki essay as just that - as my Rational Wiki essay, which is published on Rational Wiki, or refer to it as this Patrick Matthew rational Wiki page, written by me etc. Nowhere do I write that anyone anywhere has endorsed it. The actual and patently clear fact of the matter is that this Rational Wiki page, which is my Rational Wiki essay on Patrick Matthew, has always carried the standard bold disclaimer that this essay does not represent the views of Rational Wiki - as can be seen above: This essay is an original work by Nullius. It does not necessarily reflect the views expressed in RationalWiki's Mission Statement, but we welcome discussion of a broad range of ideas. It is a rather ironic and oxymoronic shame that Rational Wiki allows dishonest and clearly irrational agenda-driven trolls to work on it's pages as administrators. However, as this particular Rational Wiki Patrick Matthew essay reveals, Wikipedia editors are just as bad and perhaps even worse. Because, on the Wikipedia Patrick Matthew page, the agenda driven dishonest editor Dave Souza is systematically and fraudulently denying 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, too, 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.

This essay on Patrick Matthew, Darwin and Wallace deals in truth as defined by reference to independently verifiable 100 per cent proven facts only. These facts, most of which are my original discoveries, are proving immensely unpopular. For example, at the time of writing, paid administrators on Wikipedia are systematically deleting them from its Patrick Matthew page, as its historical revisions page reveals. The facts have also been reported in the national press and were rejected on the Daily Telegraph science editor's, Sarah Knapton's, science blog site by Charles Darwin's biographer, James Moore, on the 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. Moore was completely wrong, because the 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 , read Matthew's original ideas before 1860. 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. The pseudo-scholarly Moore made his classic Semmelweis Reflex ignorant rejection of this unwelcome 'Darwin and Wallace, Independent Discoverers of a Prior-Published Hypothesis, Paradigm-Busting' New Data without so much as having bothered himself to read a word of it! Similarly proven wrong, is 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 Sutton (2014) newly 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 Dr Mike Sutton's peer reviewed philosophy of science article on this topic,

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) , Donald 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 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. Dempster (1983), Dawkins (2010) , Sutton (2014) and Weale (2015) conclude that only Matthew got the entire complex theory of natural selection before Darwin and Wallace (1858) and Darwin (1959) replicated it. Weale (2015) concludes that Matthew was the first in print with the theory of macroevolution by natural selection. Matthew, the proven originator, took his original ideas on natural selection forward for humankind in his second book Emigration Fields, 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 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 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) 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 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 2015) 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. 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 solid evidence, 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) ; Robert Chambers (1832) , who wrote the highly influential book on evolution the Vestiges of Creation, which ran to 12 editions after being first published in 1842 ; and Prideaux John Selby (1842) , who was the Chief Editor of the journal that published Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper , no less! 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 (1860), 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’ proves he read and heavily annotated at least six botanical publications authored by Loudon. Yet, in his published reply to Matthew’s letter, Darwin 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.’

New analysis of the literature robustly calls Darwin's legendary honesty into question with reference to the weirdly neglected disconfirming evidence of the publication record. Sutton (2014) presents 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 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".

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 told him otherwise, at length and in detail. 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 otherwise, because he wrote to Joseph Hooker admitting it: "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 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".'. And he proclaimed himself as “Solver of the problem of species” on the title page of his political pamphlet “Schleswig-Holstein”.

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 he 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, and it was Patrick Matthew, not Lindley, who was to first to propagate the tree 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 6 years after Darwin replicated Matthew's ideas and excused himself by describing Matthew as an obscure Scottish writer on Forest Trees. Lindley's highly suspicious glory-theft was first discovered by Sutton (2016).

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. 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. 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.

In conclusion, 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' review, 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 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 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) 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.