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  1. Mike Sutton says:
    September 17, 2014 at 8:21 am

    This is an excellent site and a much needed resource. I recently published a book ‘Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s greatest secret’ that has unearthed considerable new details about Matthew. His correspondence with and treatment by the Darwin’s friend in the Dublin University Magazine in 1860 will be of great interest. My recent paper – delivered on the topic – as a Sunday Lecture at Conway Hall is a good introduction to the wealth of newly dicovered data. A number of other sources are published on PatrickMatthew.com. Please feel free to use any of the images on that site on your own. Details with links here: http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22298

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    • mikeweale says:
      September 17, 2014 at 3:19 pm

      Thank you Mike. This site is still “Under Construction” – I plan to add a section dealing with the question of “Did Darwin and Wallace steal or acquire their ideas from Matthew”. My personal view is that they didn’t, and the key observation here is that no-one other than Matthew wrote to Darwin to point out the obvious similarities after “Origin of Species” was published. This indicates that “On Naval Timber” really was not circulating in the right circles at that time. Still, “cryptomnesia” is still a possibility, and I certainly don’t wish to stifle debate on this issue.

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      • Dysology says:
        November 2, 2014 at 10:36 am

        Dear Mike

        Of course, how we interpret the evidence is for individual subjective assessment and my conclusions, based on the new evidence are debatable. But I would hazard to point out – by way of counterargument – to what you write above that people say many things that they do not put into letters (I do – don’t you?) and that a great deal of letters are absent from the Darwin archive. Therefore, as I argue in my book such archives are not like the fossil record – absence of evidence (in this case) is not evidence of absence. To think it is is as muddled as conspiracy theory thinking.

        I do suspect (mere informed guesswork) – as I point out in my book – that the letter archives of the likes of Selby, Jenyns, Chambers, Gray. Lyel and 19 others who either cited or were apparently ‘first to be second’ with unique Matthewisms might well turn up evidence (form diaries or letters) that others did tell Darwin and Wallace about Matthew’s prior discovery.

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    • mikeweale says:
      September 17, 2014 at 6:50 pm

      I should add that any and all pointers to correspondence involving Matthew are gratefully received, and will be incorporated into this site in due course. Mike, if you could provide dates and page numbers for the correspondence in the Dublin University Magazine I would be very grateful.

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      • Dysology says:
        November 2, 2014 at 10:50 am

        Dear Mike

        Firstly, I forgot my manners. I want to say thank you for buying my book and to thank you further for engaging with the newly re-discovered literature on who did read Matthew (1831) before 1860..

        Furthermore, I would like to add that I am not at all precious about my own conclusions that (1) it is more likely than not that Darwin and Wallace committed science fraud – or my other conclusion (2) that it is now proven more likely than not that Matthew did (directly and/or indirectly influence Darwin and Wallace pre-1858). I am happy to enter into a scholarly debate with anyone on the topic. How else might we all seek to make the best sense of the new data? I’m open to having my mind changed on either of the two conclusions above..

        I am currently in correspondence with Matthew’s third great grandson and have received a wealth of oral family history and family and other useful contacts . I am due to follow-up leads he has provided to family members and the family run Patrick Matthew Trust in the new year. We should correspond before I begin and – if the family agree – the information can (hopefully) be freely shared.

        Meanwhile – I took some of the Tay Briidge story from my book and posted it on my blog today. As always – please feel free to use anything useful. Here – http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22422

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      • Dysology says:
        January 14, 2015 at 9:16 am

        Page numbers regarding David Ansted’s (Darwin’s friend) trashing Matthew in the Dublin University Magazine – as requested: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/l7r2fbHOQVabJ8_WENTjuQ

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      • Dysology says:
        January 14, 2015 at 9:29 am

        Full reference found in my references section Mike: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/lSeD8e93R8yhnkMEMFq9IQ

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      • mikeweale says:
        January 14, 2015 at 5:35 pm

        Thanks for posting your references Mike! My webpage on the Dublin University Magazine piece is here: https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/short-articles/1860-62/1860c-edit/

        I’m not 100% convinced that the footnote was written by Ansted, for reasons I explain on the webpage.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 15, 2015 at 8:54 am

        Ah. Good points Mike. I missed the lot. Your case convinces me, I did seek to find out who were the editors at that time.But, unfortunately there is a gap in the record for the very period the DTA footnote was written. I think it unlikely, now that Anstead wrote the footnote. But we can never know for sure. If an editor slipped the footnote under his name and in that article- its a massive footnote – its a very odd (dishonorable) thing to do without his permission – the footnote being so offensive toward Matthew. Perhaps the Dublin University Magazine has an archive?

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      • Dysology says:
        January 15, 2015 at 9:03 am

        Alternative possibility re Anstead: Given that Anstead would have penned his article in ink, the Magazine typesetter might have had trouble reading a more hurriedly/carelessly penned footnote. We must remove from our minds the modern word-processing/emailing/spell-checking world of today. We are talking dipping pens, smudged ink and oftentimes illegible handwriting (just look at the photostats of Darwin’s letters – famously illegible).

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      • mikeweale says:
        January 15, 2015 at 12:37 pm

        I’ve seen editorial insertions of this type elsewhere (e.g. in Gardener’s Chronicle). I think the usual convention of the time would be to insert something like “– the editors” at the end of the footnote, to make clear the origin. This hasn’t happened here, but I’m not sure how often that convention was used. An alternative scenario was that the footnote was written by an editor, but then shown to Ansted for his approval before inserting it. Bottom line is – we don’t know for sure. The bigger picture is, regardless who wrote it, they failed completely to convey any understanding of the novelty, and its equivalence with Darwin, of Matthew’s writing. In that sense, it ties in with the Saturday Analyst reviewer (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/short-articles/1860-62/1860e-edit/), who basically fails to see it as novel either. And the bigger question is whether that displays just ignorance, or some sort of wilful ignorance on their part. Again, I think that remains an open question.

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    • mikeweale says:
      November 3, 2014 at 4:26 pm

      Thank you Mike for both your additional comments above. I would be very interested to learn of any additional info regarding Matthew’s life that may come from talking to his living descendants.

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      • Dysology says:
        November 7, 2014 at 10:18 am

        Dear Mike

        There exists a two volume account of oral history and Matthew family tree information in the hands of only a handful of Matthew’s descendants. I am currently seeking copies of it from one of Matthew’s descendants in the USA who is happy to share it – but I have advised him against sending the originals via the post as he proposed (for obvious reasons).

        I’m told it is written half in German and half in English. When I get that information I would like to have it translated. I was thinking (simply to add kudos to this research issue) of applying for a British Association grant (approx £5k) to have it translated and published as an e-book (funds from the e-book to go towards a Matthew memorial). When I get the manuscripts I will be able to assess whether they are as rich in important (untold) detail as I have been informed they are.

        I’ve suggested to the family member in question (yesterday) that I can pay him for copying and postal costs etc. Currently, awaiting a reply.

        You can email me at drmikesutton@hotmail.com (please cc in my university email address michael.sutton@ntu.ac.uk ) – which is probably a better way to communicate.

        Hopefully, we can collaborate to share something historically interesting and valuable with the rest of the world.

        Kind regards

        Mike

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      • mikeweale says:
        November 11, 2014 at 5:54 pm

        Sounds great! I’ve emailed you about this.

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  2. Dysology says:
    November 17, 2014 at 9:04 am

    Hi Mike

    Thanks for the emails. Still the best way to correspond. Meanwhile, thought I’d rapidly point out a promising publication for your political papers section (suspect you may already know of it). It is available in several libraries. Would you be looking to have a copy freely available on your site? Its a Chartist tract written by Matthew – who represented Perth for the Chartsts in the year he published Emigration Fields.:

    Matthew, P. (1839) Two addresses to the men of Perthshire and Fifeshire: containing propositions of a plan of national education, and other social improvements and reforms. Edinburgh. A and C Black.

    Interestingly, as I’m sure you know, the year Matthew’s first book was published there were riots across England, followed by two decades of similar unrest caused by overcrowding in the wake of the Industrial revolution. Therefore, in response to Richard Dawkins’s daft comment that Matthew should have trumpeted his heretical discovery and consequently seditious content of his 1831 book form the rooftops I wrote another inflammatory polemic pointing out the absurdity of such an ill-informed notion – when considered in the context of the times see:

    http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22452

    Best wishes

    Mike

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  3. Dysology says:
    November 22, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    Apologies for being tardy responding to emails Mike – rather overwhelmed with teaching this term and not been able to open all my work emails yet.

    Your web site is looking very good and is by far the best resource site for Matthew’s work. I shall do my best to point traffic this way.

    An observation

    I think there is an interesting anomaly – given all these publication you have found – in that Matthew was described by Darwin in his private correspondence – following the 1860 exchanges in the Gardener’s chronicle – as an “obscure writer on forest trees. ” Yet it is clear that others who cited Matthew pre-1858- such as Loudon (who William Hooker knew well) Selby and Chambers (both of who Darwin knew well) all cited Matthew on several occasions.

    I suppose we could give Darwin’s ignorance of Matthew’s popularity the benefit of the doubt on this one. I’m reluctant to do so however, because (as my book shows) Darwin had in his possession Matthew’s pre 1831 article on apple hybridization. And on the very first page of his Zoonomia notebook Darwin writes of apple trees. And later on what Francis Darwin thought was his fathers Eureka moment – as follows:

    Page 1 – “Two kinds of generation the coeval kind, all individuals absolutely similar, for instance fruit trees, probably polypi, gemmiparous propagation, bisection of Planaria, &c., &c.”

    Later in the same notebook he wrote about pippin apples:

    ‘Never They die, without they change; like Golden Pippens [sic] it is a generation of species like generation of individuals.’

    – For me the problem is understanding when apparent multiple coincidences such as this are (1) not really coincidental at all (2) perfectly normal coincidences. (3) not really multiple coincidences but a collection of individual ones.

    I had some correspondence with the pharmacist and blogger prof. David Colquhoun on this problem. We both agreed it can only be subjectively and qualitatively assessed. Which is not much help really when it comes to trying to reach a rational conclusion about what the newly discovered data about who read Matthew (pre 1868) now means in the story of Matthew. Wallace and Darwin.

    Updates:

    I’ve not heard back yet about whether my contact is going to photocopy and post the 2 volume collection on the Matthew family. Will let you know as soon as I hear,

    Best wishes

    Mike

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    • mikeweale says:
      November 27, 2014 at 3:02 pm

      Hi Mike, most of the short articles I’ve found were published after 1860, so have no bearing on how well-known/popular Matthew was before Origin of Species was published. Furthermore, I’ve found a, 1860 review of “On Naval Timber” (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/on-naval-timber/reviews/gardeners-chronicle-1860/) which starts “It is so little known that we were not aware of its existence till quite lately”. Then there’s the question of why no-one else wrote to Darwin or a journal or newspaper to point out the similarities between Matthew’s ideas and Darwin’s after the publication of “Origin”. If Matthew and his book really were “popular”, this seems very strange. So, I think the “obscurity” label is well justified, at least as far as 1860 goes.

      His book was quite widely reviewed in 1831-33 after its publication, so it would have been better known at that time. And you have found a number of references to people citing the book – clearly people read it although I would still say it never became a “popular” book – I think you would have found many more references to it if it had been. To my mind, the real mystery is why no-one picked up on his ideas on natural selection and evolution. Despite all your additional research, I think we still only have the one review in the Gardener’s Magazine (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/on-naval-timber/reviews/gardeners-magazine-1832/) (probably by Loudon) which makes any explicit reference to this, and even he seems unsure of whether Matthew is saying anything original. Why did Matthew “fail” where Darwin “succeeded”? That’s the real question.

      I think it’s *possible* that Darwin and/or Wallace read the book, then maybe forgot they’d done so. I think that’s possible, but given all the evidence that points towards its obscurity I think one would have to wilfully adopt that position rather than adopt it based on the available evidence. I’m afraid a couple of references by Darwin to apple trees falls far short of the kind of evidence that would be needed to prove to the world that you are right on the plagiarism question.

      Just my two cents worth.
      Kind regards,
      Mike

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      • Dysology says:
        January 10, 2015 at 7:44 pm

        Dear Mike.

        There are other reviews besides Loudon’s in the Gardener’s Magazine – I name and cite them in my book.

        This one from the United Services Magazine shows that the anonymous author DID understand Matthew’s heresy. See how the author seeks to shush it as ano outrage? Thid is hard fact data that disconfirms your thinking that no-one understood the bombshell original discovery in Matthew’s book : https://kindle.amazon.com/post/ctp_tCKZS16uswMLvlAktg

        This United Services review of Matthew’s book was earlier discovered by Prof. Milton Wainwright.

        The United Services Magazine is proving rather important in my present work on Robert Chambers. More on that later.

        I hope you will weigh-in this hard factual evidence.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 11, 2015 at 8:42 am

        And yet another review is cited in my book here Mike: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/PzXfA4C1TWmOnDLR2mkYoQ

        I would like to add that it is important that we be even-handed in dealing with Matthew.

        I’m sure you agree with that necessity in sound scholarship. Therefore, it is important to view the 1830’s-40’s through an appropriately accurate historical lens. Darwinists do this for Darwin. For example, Desmond and Moore (in their biography of Darwin) fully explain that ALL writers AT THAT TIME greatly feared being associated with the kind of heresy and sedition and blasphemy that was in Matthew’s book on the origin of species. Secord (in his superb book (Victorian Sensation) explains fully why it was then – at that time – that Chambers had to anonymously publish the Vestiges. Of course, until my book – see: http://www.bestthinking.com/ebooks/science/biology_and_nature/biology/nullius-in-verba-darwin-s-greatest-secret

        no one knew that Chambers had read and cited both of Matthew’s books before he penned the first edition of the vestiges of creation in 1844. Incidentally, Chambers may well have been the outraged reviewer of the The Edinburgh Literary Review’s review of Matthew’s book. He wrote for the journal at that time. And Sir Walter Scott was his friend and patron and hero! The reviewer rounded upon Matthew with a “how very dare he” tone that is recognizable today by Darwinist rounding upon any who denigrate Darwin by proving wrong with hard and independently verifiable facts that expose as fallacious Darwin’s claims that “no one of consequence, and no naturalist known to him had read Matthew’s book.’ and who also reveal disconfirming evidence for Darwin’s and Wallace’s claims to have independently discovered Matthew’s prior published hypothesis.

        Please remember that your 21st century scientist lens of understanding is inappropriate for the first half of the 19th century for Matthew – just as it would be for Darwin. In other words everyone feared writing on the topic of natural theology – unless they were members of the church – such as the vicar parsons of Oxbridge. But even they got into trouble writing about evolutionary topics. As one among many who were so silenced and berated and punished ,Professor Baden Powel faced charges of heresy. So why are you claiming that absence of evidence – in the literature, when such evidence was so strictly forbidden – is absence of evidence?

        We would be naive to expect to find Matthew’s heresy discussed in print by reviewers or any other writer outside an illegal seditious pamphlet. I would refer you to my book that greatly discusses this reality, and in doing so relies upon the esteemed scholarship (respectively on Darwin and Chambers) of Desmond and Moore and Secord. Look at the history of what was going on in 1831 – to the 1850’s. The fear of revolution was rife. The Swing Riots, the reform Riots, the Chartist Movement (of which Matthew was a leader). Then might I refer you to the rules and conventions of The Royal Society and the British Association (see Secord) Matthew’s book broke almost every rule in their code. Unlike today, that code was strictly adhered to. The silent treatment of such works was the solution (see Desmond and Moore and Secord) . So please do not cherry pick what to ignore when it comes to Matthew – but light up in neon when it comes to Darwin…as Dariwin Worshiping pseudo-scholars do.

        Biased – Darwin worshiping Darwinists seem to believe that they can suspend the laws of the universe when it comes to the the painfully disconforiming evidence that Darwin and Wallace did not discover natural selection independently of Matthew’s prior-published hypothesis.

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      • mikeweale says:
        January 12, 2015 at 7:13 pm

        Thanks for your comment Mike. As I state in my comment you are replying to, “His book was quite widely reviewed in 1831-33 after its publication, so it would have been better known at that time”.

        Just a couple of points regarding the United Service Journal review (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/on-naval-timber/reviews/united-service-journal-1831/), if I may.
        (1) To my knowledge, the United Service Journal review was first cited by Wells (1973), not by Wainwright.
        (2) The full sentences you part-cite from that review are: “In thus testifying our hearty approbation of the author, it is strictly in his capacity of a forest-ranger, where he is original, bold, and evidently experienced in all the arcana of the parentage, birth, and education of trees. But we disclaim participation in his ruminations on the law of Nature, or on the outrages committed upon reason and justice by our burthens of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments.” I think you must agree that, from the full context, it’s clear that the “outrages committed upon reason and justice” are nothing to do with Matthew’s “ruminations on the law of Nature”, but are rather in approval with Matthew’s views on “our burthens [archaic: ‘burdens’] of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments [acts of Parliament, for example taxes on timber]”, views which also take up much of Matthew’s Appendix.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 14, 2015 at 9:35 am

        Ah – Many thanks Mike for pointing out that Kentwood Wells got the United Services Journal review of Matthew ( 1831) before Milton Wainwright cited it.

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      • Joachim says:
        January 17, 2015 at 2:04 pm

        Mike W. wrote:
        “The full sentences you part-cite from that review are: “In thus testifying our hearty approbation of the author, it is strictly in his capacity of a forest-ranger, where he is original, bold, and evidently experienced in all the arcana of the parentage, birth, and education of trees. But we disclaim participation in his ruminations on the law of Nature, or on the outrages committed upon reason and justice by our burthens of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments.” I think you must agree that, from the full context, it’s clear that the “outrages committed upon reason and justice” are nothing to do with Matthew’s “ruminations on the law of Nature”, but are rather in approval with Matthew’s views on “our burthens [archaic: ‘burdens’] of hereditary nobility, entailed property, and insane enactments [acts of Parliament, for example taxes on timber]”, views which also take up much of Matthew’s Appendix.”

        I read it differently. The author disclaims participation in Matthew’s ruminations on the law of nature and also disclaims participation in Matthew’s ruminations on the outrages committed upon reason … That is, I read it as a strong disagreement with Matthew’s ideas on natural selection as well as with his political views about entails etc.

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  4. Howard L. Minnick says:
    December 5, 2014 at 9:57 pm

    Mike & Mike

    Just catching up on a few issues…and now having seen this new correspondence between the two of you I’ve become even more resolved that Jim Dempster’s P. M. to prominence ship needs to again weigh anchor and get sailing already loaded with the marvelous detective work that Dr. Sutton has applied. For Mike Weale whom your contemporary of the same first name (Mike Sutton) has given me somewhat of a brief introduction so wish to convey my thanks for what I hope will be a productive journey. BTW Mike I am the 3rd Great Grandson of P.M. that Dr. Sutton told you about in his last post of Nov 22nd. In the last two days discussions between he and myself concerning the issue over the Matthew Saga Books by Wulfe Gerdts (another relative of mine who is one generation closer to P.M. than I) will be forthcoming to Dr. Sutton after the Holidays. Some older letters of P.M.’s written while he was traveling on the continent might verify some important dates for some of Dr. Suttons research.

    Anyways… I’m a botanist in my own right as well as an Army trained Engineer Officer now retired. Before I was called back to Active Duty I spent 12 years combined as a Range Conservationist with the U.S, Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management with the Soil Conservation Service…so I am not on unfamiliar turf you might say as far as the subject matter is concerned.

    Howard L. Minnick

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    • mikeweale says:
      December 15, 2014 at 12:40 am

      Thanks for your comment, Howard, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I agree that the time should be right, and hope that the time *is* right, for Matthew to be properly recognised for what he achieved. I think these achievements stand regardless of whether or not he was plagiarised. It will be fascinating to learn more, one hopes, in the “Matthew Saga Books”.

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  5. Howard L. Minnick says:
    December 5, 2014 at 10:21 pm

    It seems fitting that P.M. would quote a Latin phrase such as “idem velle atque nolle” at the end of his ONT&A writing…now that the two of you seem to have possibly formed a coalition with differing viewpoints and backgrounds. It rings well….and very possible was meant to be.

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  6. Joachim says:
    December 31, 2014 at 5:36 pm

    Dear Mike Weale, your website is excellent. As it seems to steer even Mike Sutton into a more open minded historical enquiry and away from his previous narrow minded prosecution of ostensible plagiarists, I’d say it’s brilliant. That’s a Patrick-Matthew-cause I can party with.

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 1, 2015 at 11:59 am

      Thanks Joachim – let’s party like it’s 1831! Thanks also for your website – http://historiesofecology.blogspot.de. It’s thanks to you that I found out about the Joseph Adams reference to natural selection. Please note that Mike Sutton and I are continuing to debate the evidence for the the plagiarism hypothesis, via private emails.

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      • Joachim says:
        January 1, 2015 at 1:39 pm

        I thank you! By the way, your blog posts are more than a mere collection of historical records as they contain your own interpretations and thoughts on them. So, why don’t you add dates to your entries?

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 3, 2015 at 12:34 pm

      My intention is to create a “timeless” website – hence the lack of date stamps. However, I agree it’s useful to get some idea of the date of creation of the content, so I’ve now amended the home-page to say this. I agree there’s a lot of my opinion inserted into the website, but this wasn’t my intention to begin with – it just evolved that way. When I get the chance, I’m going to re-edit my web pages to place the primary content first, and my opinions second.

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  7. Dysology says:
    January 10, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    Hi Mike

    The site is looking good.

    Just one gripe (which I think is justified) you write : https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/short-articles/pre-1860/1829-arb/ – that I use the Golden Pippens and 1829 article as evidence that Darwin lied when he said he never read Matthew. I suppose I do strongly imply it – I don’t think I write it .Its not one of the six lies. Is my research erroneous Mike – that Darwin’s notebook of books read records that he DID read the Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society for the years 1814-32? Are you aware that he did not cross off everything he read? And that fact is disconfirming evidence for your claim that what is not in Darwin’s notebooks of books read means he did not read Matthew’s paper of 1829.

    Here is the hard evidence for that disconfims your premise:

    The Athenaeum, which was the journal of Darwin’s and Joseph Hooker’s favourite gentleman’s club of the same name[4] advertised NTA and Emigration fields, then published a two page review that included mention of the latter (The Athenaeum 1839, p.v; pp. 476-477). Darwin’s co-authored book (King et al 1839) was advertised and reviewed on pages 446 to 449 in this very edition of the Athenaeum. We know Darwin read that publication, because his private notebook of ‘Books to Read and Books Read’( Darwin 1838 -51) reveals that he had extensive knowledge of what was in this particular 1839 edition of the Athenaeum. Darwin wrote in his ‘books to read’ section of his notebook:

    ‘Athenaeum 1839. p. 546[5] — Mr Conrad has published work on fossil shells of N. America. And ‘Dr Moreton’s Crania Americana. with remarks on geograph distrib of Man. Mentioned by Athenaeum 1839 p. 765. in Geograph. Soc??’

    Contrary to the impression given by Vorzimmer (1977), Darwin was not at all meticulous in recording which books he read, because the Athenaeum (1839) is not included in Darwin’s ‘books read’ section of his private notebook. We know he read it, however, because in the ‘books to read’ section of that same notebook he used it several times as a source of references for other sources.

    Reference for the above evidence is my book (Nullius in Verba) – or else: http://www.bestthinking.com/articleedit/edit/2449?catid=64&areaid=602&discid=1438

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  8. Dysology says:
    January 10, 2015 at 7:26 pm

    Dear Mike – the above link is wrong. The correct link to the evidence that undermines your fundamental premise that “whatever is not in Darwin’s notebook of his “books read” is evidence that he never actually read something is here: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/Pc0g58mfSB-hDA1ajyqa1g

    Moreover, might I add that the “books read erroneous premise” you have relied upon here is very similar to the irrational premise “how very dare they denigrate Darwin” premise deployed by Bowler that “Darwin never read Matthew because there is nothing in any of his notebooks or correspondence to say that he did.” Bowler’s reasoning is irrational because we know so much of the Darwin archive is mission – letters having been systematically burned and heavily pillaged, notebooks torn apart, pages ripped out etc etc. see: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/2zgz5-JuRjGEzbeLONbBEA

    I’m afraid that your premise that what is NOT in Darwin’s ‘books to read’ notebooks nor that what is NOT in his ‘books read’ notebooks is evidence that he never read something is as unrealistic and flawed as Bowlers reasoning.

    The simple truth – that we know as a fact – and I am sure can agree on is that Charles Darwin was more-likely-than-not not a robot who accurately recorded each and everything he did. The above link is just one of many evidences for this all too obvious fact.

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 12, 2015 at 6:25 pm

      Thanks for your comments Mike. In my webpage you are referring to (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/short-articles/pre-1860/1829-arb/) I state that you present “some evidence that Darwin may indeed have read Matthew’s article some time between 1838 and 1851”, and I then explain why I think “the evidence is equivocal”. I’m not claiming that the evidence goes one way or the other, only that it is equivocal.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 12, 2015 at 7:25 pm

        Many thanks Mike. Much appreciated.

        Sticking to hard facts only – all we can be 100% sure of is that he had the volume containing it in his notebook list “to read” that he started in 1838.

        That means we do not actually know whether of not he may have read it after that date – or even before that date.

        After all, I read the Origin twice over the years and the same with Dawkins’ “Selfish Gene”. I had both on my “to read” list last year even though I’d read both some 14 years earlier.

        We must, therefore, be careful about the tenuous nature of our premises. Your “may have read…” should in fact be “may have read at anytime after its publication.

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  9. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 12, 2015 at 9:02 pm

    Gentlemen,

    May I intercede a bit??? I do agree that separation of PM’s politics from his Forestry pursuits if at all possible would be convenient for all of us except for the fact that the times were of such a nature that only an ostrich could have avoided any conflicts…and only by way of sticking his head in the sand. May I point out for example that so called enactments such as the taxation of timber may appear to be outside of ones influence as a forest manager looking to improve the genetic legacy of his stands. That may seem to appear to be a sustainable conclusion but in reality it isn’t. It actually becomes an issue and an integral part of the puzzle…and that gentlemen is what we are faced with in Patrick Matthew’s case. Consider this. Before Independence and the founding of the United States The vast forests of Northeastern North America were claimed by the crown and were taxed…but much of it… especially in what is now the North Atlantic states were also placed off limits. So off limits that if you were to be caught cutting down one of a certain particular species you could be put to death on the spot. There was even a bounty offered for information that would lead to the arrest of such rebellious individuals. Why?… because that certain species was found to be the most superior species for the making of the great masts on tall ships…especially British Navel Ships. It wasn’t just Tea that the colonialist revolted against…and the War of 1812 as well.

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 13, 2015 at 12:12 am

      Thanks Howard, I appreciate your contribution! For the benefit of others reading this Comments page, I believe your are responding to my earlier comment here (https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/leave-a-reply/comment-page-1/#comment-38) and to Mike Sutton’s immediately before it.

      I completely agree that “science” and “state” are not separable, and especially not for Matthew who used his “law of Nature” to justify his political ideas (perhaps his Note B of his Appendix to NTA illustrates this best – https://archive.org/stream/onnavaltimberarb00matt#page/364/mode/2up). I was making a much smaller point, about whether the reviewer for the United Service Journal wished the reader to infer that Matthew’s “ruminations on the law of Nature” were “outrages committed upon reason and justice” – i.e. “heresy” as Mike Sutton puts it. I don’t believe the reviewer was implying this at all, but I invite interested readers to view my post linked above and make up their own minds.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 13, 2015 at 9:21 am

      You are right Howard.

      Politics cannot be taken out of a full understanding of this story.

      See: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/-iA7PqzMThqqwbPdb1_j7Q :

      The making of a vessel the size of HMS Victory alone required 6000 trees, 5000 of which were oak. One-third of British merchant marine vessels had to be built in the American colonies before the outbreak of the American War of Independence (McClellan and Dorn 2006), which (the very point you are making on taxation of the best timber – and punishment for breaking the law) was actually sparked by a dispute over the King’s claim to the best trees in New England.

      Anyone with a national responsibility to study economic botany (such as Darwin’s and Wallace’s great friends the Hookers of Kew – in the employ of the East India Company) was fully aware of the fundamental importance of naval timber for the British nation. That Matthew’s 1831 book – containing the full hypothesis of natural selection – was also about arboriculture would have made it all the more a must have item for both William and Joseph Hooker of Kew. Because of their interdependence with the mighty East India Company and other responsibilities for growing specimen trees and other plants in Kew.

      The possibility that William Hooker would not have been aware of NTA (Matthew’s 1831 book – Naval Timber and Arboriculture) between 1831 and 1858, and that he would not have read it, seems almost inconceivable. Given that people he knew very well – Jameson and Loudon (naming just two) read it and cited it.

      Knowledge about who read NTA (apart from the seldom told story of Loudon) is all newly discovered and independently verifiable hard fact. It is also such a hard fact that after Jameson – an employee of the East India Company – cited Matthew’s book in 1853 – William Hooker blocked his promotion! see: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/cWJDn2rPT6CbuJnOtlI7jw

      How we interpret all the New Facts is a different matter. That is the rub.

      For example, it would be easy to infer that William Hooker punished Jameson for citing Matthew’s heretical book. In reality, it is just (perhaps far more) as likely to be a mere coincidence. But what the hard New Facts (about who really did read Matthew’s book pre-1858) is that many naturalists in Darwin’s and Wallace’s social circle read it and cited it.

      By way of just a handful of issues to think about:

      What are we to infer from the fact that William Hooker was Wallace’s mentor pre 1858 and wrote a letter of introduction for him and bought specimen plants off him? Wallace’s Sarawak paper (1855) was published in a journal edited by Selby who many times cited Matthew’s book in 1842 – and Selby was a friend of Darwin’s father. And Selby and Darwin sat on many scientific committees together – all pre 1858! All of that information (among a mountain of other New Data) is contrary to the dominant Darwinist myth that no one read Matthew’s 1831 book (NTA) and that that no naturalists known to Darwin read it (Darwin 1860) and that it appeared to pass unnoticed (Darwin from the 3rd edition of the Origin of Species onward).

      Incidentally, Darwin wrote his “apparently unnoticed by any one” excuse for supposedly not having read Matthew’s book AFTER Matthew had informed him in a published letter in the Gardeners Chronicle (1860) that in actual fact two naturalists (Loudon and an unnamed professor of an esteemed university) had read it. Matthew even informed Darwin – at length in that same 1860 published letter – that the naturalist Loudon positively reviewed his book on the topic of species! So did Darwin write and have published a self-serving lie about Matthew’s book and its unique ideas passing unnoticed in every single edition of the Origin of Species thereafter? You decide. But I say yes! Charles Darwin was surely being far more than just economical with the truth. Wasn’t he?

      Is it more likely than not that some form of “knowledge contamination” passed (directly or indirectly) from Matthew’s full and unique prior-publication of the full hypothesis of natural selection in 1831 to Darwin and to Wallace pre 1858?

      Given that Matthew has proven full published priority for natural selection (see Dawkins 2010 in Bryson’s book “Seeing Further”) the onus is (according to scientific conventions drawn up by the Royal Society – see Merton 1957) on Darwin (effectively today, his Darwinists) to PROVE that he independently arrived at Matthew’s prior-published theory. I don’t see how that case can possibly made for either Darwin or Wallace in light of the New Data.

      In my opinion the New Facts establish the case that Matthew must now be awarded FULL priority over Darwin and Wallace.

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      • Joachim says:
        January 17, 2015 at 12:27 pm

        Mike Sutton wrote:
        “Incidentally, Darwin wrote his “apparently unnoticed by any one” excuse for supposedly not having read Matthew’s book AFTER Matthew had informed him in a published letter in the Gardeners Chronicle (1860) that in actual fact two naturalists (Loudon and an unnamed professor of an esteemed university) had read it. Matthew even informed Darwin – at length in that same 1860 published letter – that the naturalist Loudon positively reviewed his book on the topic of species! So did Darwin write and have published a self-serving lie about Matthew’s book and its unique ideas passing unnoticed in every single edition of the Origin of Species thereafter? You decide. But I say yes!”

        My strategy to assess such claims is to go along with them and see whether they lead to implausible conclusions. If it was true that Matthew’s book was widely read and known to everybody important in the story, Darwin’s “apparently unnoticed by any one” would immediately have been noticed as a lie by everyone who did read the book and did speak or write about it. So this either leads the argument ad absurdum (how could Darwin convince everybody of his lie to be true, if they knew it to be a lie) or implies a conspiracy among those who were in the know of Matthew’s ful book (including natural selection and not just the tree training).

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      • Joachim says:
        January 17, 2015 at 2:18 pm

        The solution, here, is that it was widely read as proven by Mike Sutton, but the idea of natural selection in it was not received by most readers. I guess that many simply overlooked it or did not gather what it meant.

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  10. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 13, 2015 at 1:42 am

    Mike Weale…

    I comment by the reply of the posting that I am reading but find that sometimes my post is inserted seemingly out of place in a completely unrelated string. ( I’m sure to facilitate ensuring that I am whom I present myself to be…) …I’m in no way fazed by that…and I do look at other angles. However… as I did with Jim Dempster’s tendency to become temporarily too myopic I like to open the barn doors and bring into the conversation pertinent information as well as a different perspective that wasn’t necessarily generic to his pursuit at the time. There is plenty of ammunition sitting idle that can create a more open discussion and that in particular it may become necessary to tie more of PM’s politics to fully understand where the actual edge of the puzzle may actually reside. The times that you gentlemen are trying to filter were what they were. Completely riddled with political emotion and at the same time suppressed expression of open thinking.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 13, 2015 at 9:52 am

      Again I agree

      Richard Dawkins totally ignores the historical context of heresy and sedition and blasphemy (and Darwin’s and Robert Chambers’ fears surrounding these issues – see Desmond and Moore (Darwin) and Secord (Victorian Sensation) when he demands that Matthew cannot have priority over Darwin and Wallace because he never “trumpeted his discovery from the rooftops”. Moreover, Dawkins ignores also the conventions of the gentlemen of science in the first half of the 19th century (see Secord) that insisted naturists should not comment in the work of those who trespassed on areas of natural theology, mentioned politics, mentioned news and hypothesized by deduction. Matthew broke all those rules in 1831 book!

      In my opinion, such dysology needs to be addressed by the scientific community. If biologists and those Darwinists deemed expert on the history of the discovery of natural selection do not address these facts with honest, integrity and sound scholarship (not by dint of cherry picking pseudo-scholarship to favor Darwin and Wallace only) then the intellectual discussion of the discovery of natural selection will become dominated by other disciplines. See http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22452
      for how the actual historical facts of the time would have meant Matthew – nor anyone else – could trumpet his discovery form the rooftops (why else was Chambers 1844 Vestiges – which was far less heretical than Matthew’s 1831 book – published anonymously until after his death?

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 13, 2015 at 12:11 pm

      Thanks Howard, I’m sure you are who you say you are – let’s not get too metaphysical! Regarding where “replies” go, click on the “Reply” box next to a previous comment in order to insert it as part of that thread, or use the “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom of the webpage to start up a new thread. Note there are no “Reply” boxes next to “replies-to-a-reply-to-a-reply”, so you have to back up to the previous “reply-to-a-reply” in order to add something to that thread.

      But don’t worry if your reply ends up somewhere else – I’ll provide connecting links to ensure continuity.

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  11. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 13, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    The bishop of everything Darwin is exactly that proverbial ostrich… the deification if you would… so afraid of facing the reality of the facts that he has not only stuck his head deep into the sands of his imposed apathy but I believe him to also have on numerous occasions deeply embedded his cranial cavity… ( with an exceptionally large empty reserve )…in another sector of his anatomy…one where the sun never shines. His indifference to the very factual evidence that Evolution in every aspect of behavioral and physical life is exactly why every living thing becomes what it is over time… resulting from every aspect of the environment that it is exposed to…and that my friends is exactly the place to challenge his pious self serving impositions. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Obviously fear of being labeled a heretic and the dangers that it presented during the period of 18th and 19th century thinking is an essential part of why we are pursuing the entire issue here…and isn’t it that same fear that Dawkins capitalizes on… knowing that if he can continue to be the mediator…then he controls…everyone else’s ability to think, act and openly express.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 13, 2015 at 3:16 pm

      Yes.

      I was thinking only today: Had Darwin not lied in 1861 when he claimed Matthew’s book “remained unnoticed” – a lie he repeated in every edition of the Origin of Species thereafter (see:https://kindle.amazon.com/post/nzJDkkb4TYKU8HJwxW8zyw) – following Matthew’s published letter to him in the gardeners Chronicle of 1860 to the precise contrary facts – then all Darwinists would surely be called Matthewists today and we would all be hailing Matthew as the man who discovered natural selection and in his so doing influenced Darwin to go and collect so many fine evidences to support it and promote it.

      Indeed, surely, had Darwin simply re-iterated what Matthew informed him in print in the Gardeners Chronicle (1860) the naturalist Loudon had written about his book in 1832 (which is an independently verifiable fact because its in the published literature) then the game for Darwin and Wallace would have been up!

      Somehow, the fact that a lie – and not a 100% independently verifiable fact was – “written” by Darwin is akin to something not being “written” in a holly book.

      Weirdly, it seems not to matter to Darwinists that Darwin lied, published a fallacy, was economical with the truth – or however else we may wish to interpret Darwin’s proven fallacy-spreading.

      Seemingly, what matters to Darwinists is the fact that their namesake never admitted the truth about a man, incidentally, not named Darwin!. And so they think the truth inconsequential. Had Darwin written the truth about Loudon in the Origin (and he knew what the truth was – as do we all – because he read it in print the year before!) then we would not be discussing this issue 154 years later!

      Darwinists need to take a long hard look at this claim and then tell us all why it would not be so.

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  12. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 13, 2015 at 2:30 pm

    Btw Dr. Sutton I came across an interesting blog from a certain article yesterday…one rather short but static…in the fact that no one else has commented on it since 2009 I believe…or was it 2012. Anyways I couldn’t pass the opportunity to attempt to give it renewed life so I added my two cents worth. The article is titled ‘Darwin’s Questionable Priority Over Patrick Matthew’ posted 15 October 2009. The blog is called Probaway-Life Hacks. It concerns the Beagle’s over all mission….another piece of factual information like that of Syms Covington that has been lost in the clutter of Darwinistic fairy tales. It may linger in the air for eons but what the heck… I at least tried to keep the actual integrity of the actual story.

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  13. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 13, 2015 at 5:17 pm

    haw…haw…haw…I’m a 65 year “Old Man” who hates computers with a passion…and doesn’t want to learn of all their whistles and bells as well as their other intricacies such as cutting and pasting. However.. I have to admit I do love the word spell and the fact that I can hit a key and send a message around the world. I’d rather be outdoors with my camera any day rather than cooped up inside looking at a screen….or learn about using it beyond typing out a letter which took me a while…only because I have three sons scattered about who don’t answer their telephones vocally but who are always in front of some other device…which brings me to my other next hated activity…texting on my cell phone.

    Anyways…here’s the https… you may have to place it for me:

    (see:https//probaway.wordpress.com/…/darwin’s-questionable-priority-over-thomas-matthew)

    Don’t ask me why it’s thomas-matthew because the article is clearly about Patrick Matthew. One of the tags in the left hand margin erroneously has Thomas Matthew as well.

    You might also want to see Dr. M. Wainwright’s response to another Probaway posting since you’ve used him for other references. That https is;

    (see:https//probaway.wordpress.com/…/darwin-credits-patrick-matthew-with-discovering-his-theory-first)

    Now there is an example of misplaced priority !!! (“his”) !!!

    HLM

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  14. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 13, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    I knew you would…

    HLM

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  15. Leave a Reply | Bad Data, Rubbish Research and Quackery Uncovered says:
    January 14, 2015 at 9:03 am

    […] Leave a Reply. […]

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  16. Dysology says:
    January 14, 2015 at 9:23 pm

    Mike – picking up on Howard’s momentum (elsewhere discussed) – I think it would come better from a natural scientist such as yourself to extend invitations to these three professors who have all contacted me positively about the New Data on Matthew, Darwin and Wallace: Professor Donald Forsdyke (biology, genetics) , Professor C. R. Hallpike (anthroplogy) , Professor Sean Thomas (Canada – forestry)

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  17. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 14, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    That’s really great guys!!!

    HLM

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  18. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 14, 2015 at 11:53 pm

    Mike and Mike,
    Already predisposed to not having the bindings cut on my original set of Wulf’s ‘ The Mathew Saga ‘
    volumes I (168 pgs.) & II (211 pgs.)…I went to several printing shops and obtained quotes for having them copied to send to you Dr. Sutton. All were in the $60.00 to $80.00 (U.S.) range so I had to decide which company to use by having a sample made from the copiers to be used to do the job. The company I chose quoted me around $70.00 plus tax. I know it could have been much less but since there are only about 30 copies in print I wish to preserve the original status of my own. I purchased three sets from Wulf and gave a set to both of my younger sisters…the youngest of whom…just happens to be married to the second of four sons of the largest fruit growing family in the entire state of Utah…( Several varieties of Apples, Peaches, as well as Sweet & Pie cherries and a few Pears). These 4 sons together have well over 1200 acres from 4 farms that together encompass over 2400 acres since they also raise several crops of alfalfa each year as well…after all… this is the West and we still have a lot of cowboys still hanging around. Anyways… that’s where I am on my end. I will be mailing you the copies within a few days time.

    HLM

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  19. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 15, 2015 at 12:32 am

    Mike,

    I’m very sure he would have.

    Believe me… I’m most certainly not out of my element… for in my youth I spent many an hour picking Apples and Cherries…and even was notoriously known to be a member of a scandalous rowdy bunch of kids who dared filch apples off of the trailers as they turned the corner adjacent to the house I grew up in on their way to the packing plant and the cider mill.

    HLM

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    • mikeweale says:
      January 15, 2015 at 12:43 am

      I’d be interested to learn more of your “backstory” Howard. You say you only learned of your blood relationship to P.M. about a decade ago? How did that come about? Please email me (link on PMP homepage) if you don’t want to share publicly.

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  20. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:50 am

    Wow Mike…that’s not an easy task…I’ve had a very full life…but the persons most responsible for most of all this resurgence are Cousins 5 generations removed… Earl Jones of New Zealand and Wulf Gerdts of the Hamburg area of Germany…and of course through them and the Patrick Matthew Trust…Jim Dempster. I’m 6th generation and like Wulf come from the German branch through P.M’s Second Oldest Son …” Alexander” who was also… as you will soon find… known affectionately by his family as “Sandy.” Some of the letters written to and from both Scotland and Germany reprinted in the two volumes soon to come will bare much of this and other more pertinent information out as well as supplement some of Dempsters information as well.

    Earl Jones on the other hand is descended through another of P.M.’s sons…”James” who with his brothers “Charles” and “John D.” were sent speculatively speaking… first… to the Gold fields of California…WHERE THEY MADE LOTS OF MONEY… most likely as merchants selling dry goods and mining supplies to miners…rather than by actually trying to dig it out of the dirt. That’s why we need to get a big portion of Wulf’s books translated from German to English. There’s so much information that may lie hidden there. Then it was on to New Zealand for Charles and James in speculation of buying land for P.M.s next venture quest. John D. is the big question mark and a missing link. He suddenly seems to vanish around 1857. We do know from other sources that he collected seed stock of the Giant Sequoia and also giant Coastal Redwoods from the Calaveras region of California and either personally returned with them to Scotland or had them shipped by freighter to his father in Scotland where they were the first to be planted outside of their native indigenous native stands. The first were planted at Inchers then more were planted at Gullie Hill and the Secret Spring near Sterling Castle. Other Seedling stock of these Mammoth species of trees were given by P. M. as living gifts to various friends…many of which were also planted. But the significant point here is that John D. Matthew …referred to in some accounts as a botanist in his own right… is lost from any further record at this point.

    I’ve known “of Wulf” for years having been brought up in many conversations during family visits to my fathers Parents and his only sister in the state of Missouri. All of that since I was in my teens in the 60’s. However all I really knew was that he and Grandmother Helen Matthew Minnick, Aunt Julia Matthew Bills and Uncle Alexander Matthew were Cousins to Wulf. AIl I knew for years was just that…that he was a family cousin from Germany. It won’t be until 2005 that I learn about Patrick Matthew and my relationship to him…and I must mention at this juncture that Wulf’s own personal story is most certainly an amazing one…but that’s going to have to wait for a while.

    It’s late I’ll try and write some more later.

    HLM

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  21. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 11:25 am

    Interesting that the official Twitter account for Cambridge Historical books picked up on the important new discovery that Robert Chambers cited Matthew in 1832.(pre vestiges, pre-origin and before all his meetings and correspondence with Darwin and with Lyell) .Looks like it might will be added to future forewords of re-issued editions of The Vestiges- See: https://twitter.com/supermyths/status/554733456312524801

    Mike – whoever is there Twitter admin (Cambridge Library) might be interested in Mathew?

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  22. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    Perhaps the site needs expanding to have a link to Matthew’s deeds Mike?

    I found some obscure bit interesting records – I’m going to share a few. This one I like: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QlFBAQAAMAAJ&q=%22gourdiehill%22&dq=%22gourdiehill%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nve3VIPNKrKt7Aag3YHoBA&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBw

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  23. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 5:45 pm

    Here is the paper Matthew submitted but was not allowed to read – because he was platform blocked by the old strategy of taking too long over other papers: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rvA4AAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA143&dq=%22patrick+matthew%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ofu3VJK5E-TB7Abg-IDoCQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAzhG#v=onepage&q=%22patrick%20matthew%22&f=false

    See Nullius for a discussion: https://kindle.amazon.com/post/8R6uwfVqSNKKujTvDj9zrA

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  24. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 15, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Mike and Mike

    Wulf is key to a lot of information as you will find in the books. Because he had built up a lucrative Import-Export business in Germany he and Margot…(the t is silent btw )… were able to actually travel the world and were able to visit a number of P.M. related sites as well as P.M. descendants through all of his sons with the exception of the missing John D…our missing link. Pictures of them with descendants and historical notes will include even Errol Jones herself. He and Margo began this life’s journey together sometime after…as a German Prisoner of War…being repatriated back to Germany from Camp Custer, Michigan in 1947. He and Margot got married in Fiji a few years later while seeking out products for his trade. You will find pictures of them with some of the descendants in the books. You will also find him with Dempster…and you will also see him at P. M.s actual gravesite. He was I might emphasize… a complexity of nature…a truly remarkable and talented man…very amiable and very funny…especially when he wanted to be… but very pragmatic and a ferocious collector of information and research. Most of his work for our purposes will be found in his more weighted genealogical research…but let me assure you …he clearly understood that historically Patrick Matthew’s role in the History of Evolution was an essential element so it did not escape him. But you will be exposed to much more of P.M.s family life in the tracing of this family history…even a bit more about his daughters who never married…( a result probably of the heresy and seditious nature surrounding the politics of their father )… as they exchange letters with their relatives across oceans and upon the continents.

    Wulf …as I mentioned… was a German POW. As a very young private in the Herman Goering Division he was wounded and captured along with 45,000 other German Soldiers at the Battle of Montecito shortly after the Allied invasion of Anzio in 1944. He had a brother who was also a Bomber Pilot in the Lufwafte but whose plane was shot down on a mission against the Allies and was killed. Wulf was first sent by ship to a POW camp in Hampton Roads Virginia…then was later transferred by train to Camp Custer, outside of Battle Creek, Michigan…and you’ll never guess what he did for a time while he was there…so.. I’ll have to tell you. He and many of the other POWS tended, took care of and harvested the fruit from several large Apple, Cherry and Plum Orchards nearby the camp…as well as planting and harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers. So you see… it runs in the entire family. He and Margot spent hours and hours working and proudly displaying the fruits of their labor from thier own small little home garden in a little urban burgh across the river from Hamburg.

    There’s more to come…later

    HLM

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    • Dysology says:
      January 15, 2015 at 8:39 pm

      That’s fascinating information Howard. Many thanks.

      The 2 volumes certainly appear to be a good account of what happened to the family after 1831. We know lots about Darwin’s but not of Matthew’s descendants. I’m sure many people will be interested in seeing the pictures and reading the oral histories.

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  25. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    The Patrick Matthew Trust did erect a monument at the site of what used to be the Matthew Estate at Gourdiehill…and I think that someone did erect a gravestone as well but because of the text being in German I’m not quite sure if it was P. M.s. There is also a picture of Wulf laying down and with a small artists paint brush is highlight the letters on another gravestone,,,again… not sure of whose.

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  26. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    I don’t think the site has the prospectus of the Scots New Zealand Company.Matthew was its director https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=17jctgAACAAJ&dq=%22patrick+matthew%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Z_-3VI-_Lout7gbPqIDgAQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAzigAQ

    He authored it, which is why it should be included.

    This venture rendered him bankrupt. https://kindle.amazon.com/post/AkAWeR4xRKyI1ImBTI3cMQ

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  27. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    Report of Matthew’s Scottish Sequestration :https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SkowAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA137&dq=p.+matthew+gourdie-hill&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ngK4VP_GC6GQ7AbSv4DgAg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=p.%20matthew%20gourdie-hill&f=false

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  28. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:23 pm

    That the most influential Robert Hogg mentions seeing Matthew’s Golden Pippin “sport” in 1846 (note the pre 1858 date) is most interesting. Who did Hogg associate with as well as Matthew. Because Matthew would have told him about ONTA! The book says Robert Matthew. Robert did run the orchard after Patrick. : https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UstBAAAAIAAJ&q=%22gourdie-hill%22&dq=%22gourdie-hill%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TQS4VJPBPM-u7Abk04GwDg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBTgK

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  29. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:26 pm

    One here for Howard – check out the Duncan connection my good friend: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=joPotHcm8XkC&pg=PA311&dq=%22gourdie-hill%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4AW4VNehIpGy7QbU04GoAw&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q=%22gourdie-hill%22&f=false

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  30. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    Another for Howard – the Duncan’s were of Norwegian origin: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uXPFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22gourdie%22&dq=%22gourdie%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6Qe4VIDLEay27gaC4IGwCg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBDgU

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 15, 2015 at 10:15 pm

      Dr. Sutton

      Yes they were somewhat Norwegian as were the families of Robert de Bruce and William The Conqueror …all a.k.a. as Normans collectively…who if you know your history… is how the major succession of Scottish land grants occurred over the preceding generations before Adam Duncan’s and Patrick Matthew’s time….de Bruce from William… and Duncan and Oliphant from de Bruce…Duncan and Oliphant being the two lines that P.M’s descendants. go directly back to de Bruce through… first through his Mother Agnes Duncan by way of Robert’s daughter Margaret ( The Stuart Line…also Adam Duncan’s line)…and through P.M’s wife…who is actually his cousin… Christian Nicole… by way of de Bruce’s illegitimate daughter Mary… whom he gave in marriage to the son of his loyal friend…as well as one of several protectors… Robert Oliphant… the Castle Keep of Sterling Castle at the time of William Wallace’s defeat of Edward Longshanks at Sterling Bridge. Loyalty does have it’s rewards….and it was passed on by… none other than… inherent nobility…isn’t that interesting!!!

      Another interesting side note… (which I will get to in a few minutes)…since you brought me to this record and the previous one… naming of the Duncan apple…both of which I have seen before. I remind you… I once mentioned to you before about the relationship of the Duncan Haldane Estate to that of the Duncan Estate of Gourdiehill inherited by P. M.’s Mother Agnes Duncan… I must also point out that Gourdie Manner was entirely a separate holding of the Duncan family dynasty and not to be confused with another Duncan inheritance…that being Gourdiehill.

      There is a book on the history and relationship of the Duncan’s to their benefactor…Robert de Bruce. I can’t remember the title or the name of the author but I read it 3-4 years before I knew anything about Patrick Matthew or my relationship to him. (Little did I know then that I would be here today talking on the very subject.) At the time… I was still on Active Duty as an Army Engineer Officer and was on what would me a 4 1/2 year …(May 1989-Nov 1993)…assignment as an Assistant Professor of Military Science at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green Ohio. I being somewhat of a Military History buff… had become a good friend of the Archivist at Bowling Green State University. library. (He was the one… several years later… who looked up the information about “On Naval Timber and Arboriculture and found that an original copy signed by P.M. and given to a certain person was for sale in California and currently in the collection of a Mr. Jeremy Norman… and which he mistakenly thought was worth $27,000.00. ) Having misplaced a decimal point. He was very excited about it and knowing that BGSU did not have a copy asked me if I would allow him to photo copy it…which I did along with a copy of Emigration fields. This all came about because Wulf had personally given me ring bound copies of both… at a wedding in 1995 in Missouri… of a 7th generation P. M. descendant… my cousin’s daughter… Becky Macy. I’ll save that story for later… but it answers part of the question about how I first learned about my relationship to Patrick Matthew. In planning the wedding we just decided to send Wulf and Margot an invitation out of courtesy with little if any inclination that they would actually come.

      I had mentioned to my archivist friend about some of my heritage. he helped me find some historical and biographical readings on Robert de Bruce. I read the book mentioned simply because of the continuous family passage of folklore that has for generations been passed down that we were related to Robert de Bruce since both the families of my Grandmother… Helen Matthew Minnick… and the family of my Grandfather… Benjamin Franklin Minnick… did indeed come to the United States… in the later nineteenth century… for the Matthews,,,who settled in Missouri…and the later 18th century for the Minnick’s (also Minnich)… first in Virginia… then later into Missouri… from Scotland.

      Now finally…for the other historical note that I actually did mention before I got into this entire string. Again I point out to you as mentioned weeks ago about the Adam Duncan and Lord Nelson relationship and how both were played upon for their exploits…as well as…those of Sir Thomas Cochran… by the Classic Novelist… Patrick O’Brian… in his “Master and Commander” series and the fictional character of Capt. Abbrie. (sp) During the French and Indian wars where Duncan’s brother Alexander was doing those things that would emulate him also…especially… in the mind’s eye of another Classic novelist…James Fenimore Cooper using alexander for his character Major Dundee in his novel… “The Pathfinder” …Adam Duncan just so happened be the aide to Admiral Keppel who was in command of the British Fleet bringing General Braddock’s Brigade to the colonies to battle the French and their Indian Allies. If you don’t already know who Braddock’s aide was then I’ll tell you. It was George Washington…and Washington took over command of those forces after Braddock was killed in the wilderness on the trail to Ft. Duchesne. Thought you might find that interesting.

      HLM

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      Reply
      • Dysology says:
        January 15, 2015 at 10:39 pm

        Thank you Howard.

        Has you family tree aver been drawn as a diagram?

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 15, 2015 at 10:55 pm

        Yes…and admittedly with a few missing pieces which is where the direct correlation between how Agnes Duncan is related to Adam Duncan hasn’t fully been established…by wulf who got some info from Earl Jones. That was part of what he was working on when age and the end of life overtook. It’s not a matter of if…it’s a matter of how. Wulf’s first priority was Patrick’s father’s family first. He does have info on the Duncan side which I haven’t seen as of yet but with all the Matthew- Darwin activity and Dempsters entrance upon the scene much of that was put aside and now resides with Wulf’s younger brother Han’s who I have never had any contact with.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 15, 2015 at 11:17 pm

        Two other lines that I strongly remember from that tree were Hays and de Johnstone as well

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 16, 2015 at 5:33 am

        I think the connection has to be with the Hays because they once owned the Gourdiehill estate before the family of Agnes Duncan’s father…and the Hays are tied directly to the Duncans of Glenneagles.

        Like

  31. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    Matthew’s family history here – (for Howard) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ozRfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22gourdie%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bQm4VPmYDsrX7QbB3IDgCg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAjgy#v=onepage&q=%22gourdie%22&f=false

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 15, 2015 at 10:39 pm

      Curious…but I wonder if the MP…George Dempster mentioned in the last beginning paragraph on page 10 might have linage connection to our own Jim Demptster???

      Once again Gourdie House or Lundee Manner… as it was later called by Alexander the older brother to Adam Duncan is not to be confused with Gourdiehill. In the book that I just previously mentioned It does tie The Gourdiehill estate to the Duncans of Glenneagles. It’s mentions that they had to flee to Gourdiehill in Perthshire near Errol in a paragraph concerning the sacking of Blairhouse by the Jacobites.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 16, 2015 at 6:05 am

        Actually that should be Blair Castle…I forgot from my days at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia and living in Alexandria that Blair House is actually across one of the streets of our White House in Washington D.C.

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  32. Dysology says:
    January 15, 2015 at 11:03 pm

    I just noticed that someone has edited the Wikipedia site on Matthew – and it wasn’t me. To add the following with reference to the Daily Telegraph article on “Nullius”:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Matthew

    ‘Patrick Matthew (20 October 1790 – 8 June 1874) was a Scottish landowner and fruit farmer. He published the principle of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution in 1831, over a quarter-century earlier than Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. However, Matthew failed to develop or publicise his ideas but both Darwin and Wallace were aware of Matthew’s work.[1] They published their ideas in 1858, and in doing so might have been responsible for ‘the greatest known science fraud in history by plagiarising Matthew’s complete hypothesis of natural selection, his terminology, observations and creative explanations’.[2] ‘

    I expect that will get pulled-down by “the worshipers” pretty soon.

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 15, 2015 at 11:26 pm

      I was wondering about that myself and thought it might have been you…I’ve been needing to have someone fill the citation request about the Redwood trees and about John Matthew’s role in getting them to his father. for over a year now since I put that and the family history portion in back when Dempster was still alive. You know more about that stuff than I do …would you mind doing that for me???

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      • Dysology says:
        January 16, 2015 at 6:04 am

        Dear Howard

        I’ll have a go. Put a message here with the text you want adding and I will try to add it. I’ll need a full reference (clickable link form you to a reliable source that supports what you write) .

        Meanwhile, the following may will be of interest.

        I discovered that James Matthew was living at Waterbutts in 1845 (presumably the Old Manor house) . On the map of Goudie Hill you can see Waterybutts written a little higher up. Go to Patrickmatthew.com and scroll right to the very bottom of the page to see the map.

        I think Matthew’s son James was born in 1830 – so if it was Matthew’s son that would have made him just 15. It’s possible it was him. But could he have been a member of the Society of Shipmasters at 15 (as the record below also says)? Could it have been an older relative? Anyway, the interesting thing is that Watery butts has not been demolished. It is then a building Matthew would have visited often. Its a working farm today as far as I can tel. The house is valued at about £255,000.

        See:
        https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kAFBAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&dq=%22matthew+esq%22+%22errol%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3BS4VIf5JeTN7Qal6oCwAQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22matthew%20esq%22%20%22errol%22&f=false

        Moreover the link below is of details of someone who also has old family connections with Waterybutts area and is asking for any details about their family etc. They provide and email. They might have found something on your ancestors. Or perhaps the family names they mention are of use to your research on the family:

        http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/PERTHSHIRE/1999-03/0920741653

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      • Dysology says:
        January 16, 2015 at 8:22 am

        I resolved the redwood issue on the Mathew page on Wikipedia Howard. The referencing conventions were a little askew. I gave it a separate heading “The Matthew Giant Redwood Legacy” It should be easy for you to add any additional information – besides the existing website reference to it if you wish.

        I also added text on my work – including my book and peer reviewed journal article. At that stage a Wikipedian Editor froze anyone-ones ability to view the page, I’m not sure what it will look like after they have mangled it. In my experience most Wikipedians are unread nerdowell pseudo-scholarly petty-martinets with less gumption and fewer brains than a computer chess game.

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  33. Dysology says:
    January 16, 2015 at 8:57 am

    Howard & Mike

    I can attest that On the Wikipedia Patrick Matthew page the only thing I’ve ever inserted is the text I added today. I’ve no idea who it was who has added the earlier information about the Science Editor – Knapton’s – Telegraph article on my book. Today, I set up a Wiki account (TheScienceFraudSquad) in order to resolve Howard’s editing issues on Matthew’s Giant Redwood Legacy. I took the opportunity to then insert links to my peer reviewed journal article and book. This can only be done in Wikipedia once you have a notable publication. My book and other research on this topic of Darwin’s science fraud alone would not count. But since it is cited in two national newspapers and also a scholarly peer-reviewed journal article then it is now cit-able on Wikipedia.

    I had no idea until looking at its edited history page today today that Mike had first set-up the Matthew page on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Matthew&action=history

    Consequently, I’d like to add the caveat that I do not refer to you Mike in my disparaging remarks (above) about Wikipedians. I see that you are not actually a Wikipedian Editor – so I think i got away with it 😉

    Mike

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 16, 2015 at 6:22 pm

      I just looked at the Matthew Wikipedia site and noted the 2 links you added along with the Redwood citation… and thank you for doing that…however not knowing exactly what the editors are referring to in the RED error message about a missing reference tag… how do we resolve that???

      Also… Is there anything that we might want to add to the New Zealand citation material about P.M.s sending Charles and James to New Zealand … note:cit.(5)… and …correspondingly…is there anything that we might want to place into the New Zealand Wikipedia page under certain existing subtitles…especially of Immigration ( Note:Emigration Fields)…History… Agriculture…(…as well as Agricultural Trade…) with links to yours and Dr. Weale’s Sites as well as citations that will return back to the Matthew Wikipedia cite. I feel that their might down the road…be material from our upcoming German to English translation… but also might there be some additional from your own work or Dempster’s work or even possibly from Errol Jones

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      • Dysology says:
        January 16, 2015 at 6:44 pm

        I did resolve the red tag and make it all neater Howard. The red tag went and the page looked great. I even gave the redwood legacy a neat sub-heading. What you are currently viewing is the “talk” page only. A Wikepedian editor has for some reason blocked all views of the actual “article” page (its been that way since I sorted the problem early this moring and then inserted text on my book and peer reviewed journal article, I have no idea why the actual “article” page is currently blocked..

        It is of interest that the Captain f the Beagle was Governor of New Zealand when Emigration Fields was published and heavily cited and reviewed as important (also rubbished in a scathing review by the Athenaeum – The journal of Darwin’s favourite club). So much could go in. Especially how and why The Scots New Zealand company went bust and made Matthew bankrupt. Matthew’s sons also sold large numbers of trees and shrubs to the the Governor of new Zealand – who also happened to be personal friend of Darwin (all in my book- citing Errol Jones).

        Yes a lot could go in there – but I’m not going to add all that independently verifiable data if some Wikipedia petty martinet or other is going to crash the page, lock it, delete it or edit the facts out to suit their agenda – as so often is the case on Wiki.

        I say, lets see what they do to the page before investing more time and facts on it.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 16, 2015 at 8:25 pm

        I’m staying here with this Hanoverian issue. Maybe that might be what caused Wulf;s mental block because remembering what he had on the family tree chart I couldn’t actually see how the de Johnstones… which to me seems more French/ Norman than Hanovarian…fit it…there were too many missing ties causing some confusion in the development of the family tree…and there are French relatives… so going to France really wasn’t a hard line to take…until the Boneparte issues came up in P.M.s times…so to be honest I don’t know.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 16, 2015 at 8:42 pm

        Something to contemplate is the fact that the name Matthew is Germane…and with the advent of the Roman empire into the region of the English Isles…many of the conscripts that the Romans brought with them were also Germane…so the names they carried… many of which remained…after the Roman withdrawl because there was not enough capital in the coffers of Rome to bring them all back…and as a result… were assimilated into the Paint/Celtic culture.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 17, 2015 at 7:41 am

        Mike And Mike

        They have restored the Matthew Wikipedia site now and everything is still there that hahad previously been sited including your own updated links and the citation for the Redwoods…it’s not just the reading page any more it is the actual site…so I think that we will be good to go . Everything has really been of a positive nature of late so the momentum on this project of yours is moving forward…my contribution of the two volumes is ready to be sent to you so I need the postal address that you want me to send them to.

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 16, 2015 at 8:15 pm

      That’s why the down the road statute…I agree we’ll have to see what happens…I just thought of it from a utility stand point….

      …and while I’m here… I’m totally in the dark on the Hanoverian issue. I know the monarchy issues with the end of the House of Stuart and the rise of the Prussian prominence and the ushering in of the Hanoverian age of the Georges that didn’t end in Great Britain till after the reign of Queen Victoria… definitely were an agitating force…with Royal cousins attempting to preempt each other… and I’m not familiar enough over the entire issue that later…the Schleswig- Holstein issue raised… so I couldn’t tell you. Errol I’m sure has the most insight of any on that subject. Maybe the English translation of Wulf’s books will shed some light. If it’s true that there was a name change it’s a mystery to me. I’ve never read any of the Schleswig- Holstein material since all I have is ONTA…Emigration Fields…Demptster’s ‘Evolution in the 19th Century: Patrick Matthew’ book…Wulf’s The Matthew Saga… two thirds of which is in German and a few emails or letters from Dempster and Errol respectively. Wulf devotes only a page or two to Schleswig-Holstein…and the only thing I can glean from that is this quote from either a Dane named Rublick…or someone else.

      “It is a natural sequence in the condition of man, that the superior civilization under a state of peace gradually makes way against the inferior when no strong boundary line divides them. Hence the line of demarcation between Schleswig and Denmark, as Germans and Danes, will gradually advance northwards, that is, if the Germans do not decline from their ancient energy.”

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      • Dysology says:
        January 17, 2015 at 8:22 am

        Many thanks Howard

        It will be interesting to see what Wulf’s volumes reveal. When they arrive, Mike Weale and I will assess what we can and then the plan is to seek funding for translation and dissemination.

        There is the possibility that 18th and 19th century Scots politics had some hand to play in Chamber’s decision not to cite Matthew’s actual discovery of natural selection. Since Matthew’s book insulted Chamber’s patron Sir Walter Scot would explain it. Moreover I’ve found in my latest work that Chambers was very anti-Chartism. He was also a Freemason – whilst there lies the favourite realm of conspiracy theorists, it does reflect his politics.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 17, 2015 at 11:13 am

        Mike S.
        I got a cheerio from Bevan Jones after I had informed him that down the road you might be contacting him. He indicated that things were well and that his Grandmother Errol… though aged was still doing well. You might want to run your Hanoverian question by him to ask his Grandmother. ( I included his email to you previously) She lives not too far from his residence. Since you asked me your question about the possibility of P.M.s Grandfather changing his surname…the only names I could bounce my head around were the names Hays and de Johnstone. Neither would seem to be the answer especially Hays since that is more than likely the connection of P.M.’s Mother… Agnes Duncan… to the Glennagles and Camper Down Duncan’s. Especially since Gourdiehill was part of the Hays Family holdings before the family of Agnes Duncan inherited it… which you will find briefly mentioned in the opening of Volume I page 2. (…You might want to read the caption of the picture below the Hays mention…It talks about a giant Holly tree that once stood on the manner yard of Gourdiehill …which when you misspelled the word holy the other day gave me a chuckle… because it was the first thing I thought of when I read your
        correction…).

        It was important that I get the copies done as professionally as possible and to get them to you as quickly and safely intact as possible was more the reason for my concern.

        HLM

        Liked by 1 person

      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 17, 2015 at 11:33 am

        The newly revealed to me fact that P.M.’s Grandfather also feared and fled the Jacobite incursion as did the Duncans from Glenn Eagles after the sacking of Blair Castle is just more poignant reality of the political turmoil of those times…which cannot continue to be ignored. The transitional demise of the House of Stuart before the onslaught of the Hanoverian period was also just as disruptive politically as well…No different than our own Liberal Democrats and the divisionally polarized Conservative and staunch Tea Party Republicans here in my own country today.

        …and yes… as I mentioned in another post the Matthew Wiki site looks great..and hopefully down the road we can tie it to the New Zealand Wiki site.

        HLM

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      • Dysology says:
        January 17, 2015 at 12:39 pm

        Dear Howard

        Many thanks

        Yes – thanks for the “heads-up” reminder to contact the New Zealand “clan”. i Very much hope Erroll Jones has been told about the New Data and that her valuable book is cited and frequently referred to in “Nullius”.

        Hopefully, the Wikipedia page for Matthew will not be vandalized by the daft-as-a-brush hoards of Darwin, Wallace and Dawkin’s groupies – but I’m not confident. Thankfully, Mike Weale set it up. That should give him some sway over the most certain attempted eradication of the cold-hard and factual information I have posted on it today.

        Like

  34. Dysology says:
    January 16, 2015 at 10:27 am

    Some additional newly re-discovered (yesterday) information on the importance of Matthew’s orchards in the 19th century. Information on Robert Hogg meeting with Darwin (1869) and earlier visiting Matthew’s orchard and meeting Robert Matthew: http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22610

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  35. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 16, 2015 at 4:09 pm

    I couldn’t agree more… but still it does serve somewhat of a purpose and could be worse.

    Thank you very much.

    HLM

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 16, 2015 at 4:14 pm

      oops…. that was meant for your change notification to the Matthews Wikipedia post.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 16, 2015 at 6:28 pm

        Yes – agreed it serves a purpose – but perhaps only because its being free an immediacy has rendered the Encyclopedia Britannica extinct. Anyway, for now the Matthew page is still (at the time of my writing) “blocked” we can see only the briefer and earlier pre-my edits – “talk” version. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Matthew

        Howard. I have a question or two about Matthew that you might be able to help with.

        I’m working on the manuscript of my co-authored book (with Iris Macfarland’s posthumous authorship). The book is a biographic work on Robert Chambers – with a major chapter on the New Data and its influence on the Vestiges and how we can now view that book through a clearer lens. .

        Iris spent much time reading Chamber’s personal correspondence in the official family archive in Edinburgh (you will remember – of course – that Chambers cited Matthew in 1832 but never cited Matthew’s influence upon his own highly influential book on evolution the Vestiges of Creations (1844). Iris discovered that Chambers (1) had a great sympathy for the Jacobites and (2) hated the House of Hanover.

        Errol Jones wrote that Matthew was of Hanovarian ancestry – is that true? And if so do you know the Hanovarian family name/s from which he came? Secondly, Errol Jones also wrote that Matthew’s grandfather (John Matthew – I think) had fled to France during a Jacobean assault on his home and lands and that when he returned took the surname Matthew as an assumed name. If that is true, do you possibly know what that grandfather’s original surname was?

        Mike

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  36. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 17, 2015 at 12:48 am

    Mike S.
    What postal address do you want me to send these two books to???

    HLM

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    • Dysology says:
      January 17, 2015 at 8:03 am

      Dear Howard

      I’ll email my postal address to you from my Hotmail email account now.

      By the way – The Wikipedia page on Matthew is now functioning. I inserted information regarding the “New Data” .The sub-subheading “Redwood legacy” is now there. If you would like me to add anything else into that for you, let me know,

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 17, 2015 at 8:43 pm

        Mike S.
        Someone named Joachim posted directly to me…May I ask who he is? He’s offering to assist in the translation… but his requirement is that my two volumes be digitized. I don’t think this is the person you have spoken of… so I want to establish here and now that you will be the one who I have decided will be the one deciding how that gets accomplished.

        HLM

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  37. Dysology says:
    January 17, 2015 at 10:35 pm

    He is was banned from the Best Thinking website Howard. Something to do with using an inappropriate email account, I suggest you visit his website to determine what kind of person he is. As far as I know he operates secretively behind his pseudonym. Personally I would not trust someone who will not reveal his identity. He could mistranslate and misrepresent the work. Here is a sample of his dreadfully dishonest and abusive “work”: http://historiesofecology.blogspot.de/2014/12/shyster-advocacy-in-darwin-conspiracies.html

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    • Howard L. Minnick says:
      January 18, 2015 at 5:11 am

      Give me a little credit Mike. That’s why I drug him to your door to find out who he is.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 18, 2015 at 9:58 am

        Apologies Howard. I suspected as much.

        I used my reply simply to be 100% certain that you did know what his views and apparent aims are.

        I think “troll” is the epithet usually applied to such individuals.

        The individual in question was banned from Best Thinking because they were hiding behind an apparently fake ID – or otherwise would not reveal their real identity.

        Personally, I have no problem with people hiding behind an anonymous identity if that is what they feel they need to do to have freedom of expression (even if that expression is abusive, cowardly,based on dishonest cherry-picking misrepresentation, pseudo-scholarship and just plain daft-thinking) .

        However, as I suspect you wholeheartedly agree (from your message above), such individuals should not expect to interact with us and seek co-operation with us and seek for us to trust them when they do not reveal their actual public identity.

        I think that perhaps there is a place for people like the individual in question. By writing their dishonest nonsense they enable us to point them out in order to use them as examples (data if you will) that serves to tell the difference between sound scholarship and pseudo-scholarship,

        Hopefully, by publishing their nonsense, the individual in question serves society like a dead virus, He/she provides an inoculation against more dangerous pseudo-scholarship – that might otherwise lead people to make dangerous decisions – such as taking quack-cures rather than efficacious medicine etc.

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      • Joachim says:
        January 18, 2015 at 10:45 am

        Howard,
        Mike Sutton is the only person, here, who has multiple twitter accounts,multiple blogs, multiple websites. My first name is Joachim and my last name is two clicks from here and one from my blog. The reason for this has to do with my job not you or Mike Sutton or anybody here. Not everybody has t decadent freedom of being established in some academian ebony tower.

        The “banning” at ThinkerMedia is a farce. I posted a comment there, the administrator requested me to rewrite it or else he would delete it. I resolved that I don’t give a damn, let him delete it and will never again visit that website. I now see that the administrator was not honest to his own words and did not simply delete my comment. Instead he made up some nonsense about me using a fake e-mail account. That is impossible for ThinkerMedia, because you have to go through a special registration process before you can post even one comment there. But there you see how mental these folks are. They constantly project their own dishonesty onto others.

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      • Dysology says:
        January 18, 2015 at 10:47 am

        Howard & Mike W

        Just for the public record

        Of course, as I’m sure you know, the other danger of sending Wulf’s volumes (digitized) to an untrustworthy recipient is that the documents could then be selfishly commercially exploited. (published for sale) .

        As you know, (it’s just good to ensure our intentions are published in an open forum) I took the initiative to contact Mike Weale .about the two volumes so that we may both co-operate (despite our differences of academic interpretation of what the New Data means) to put these materials into the public domain – as 100% free and 100% open access documents – for public benefit only.

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  38. Joachim says:
    January 18, 2015 at 10:50 am

    Anyway, I wish you all t he best luck with brining back the history of Patrick Matthew. A history that is fascinating in its own right, even without that silly plagiarism issue pressed by Mike Sutton so much.

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  39. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 18, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    That’s a matter of perspective J …and sufficient evidence of mere coincidence… the most abused of all rationales in an extremely heavy Darwinist bag of tactical manipulation…and not just an occasional occurrence of such ongoing tendencies to stretch the truth tends to bring in a strong and higher precedent for a need to question.. That is the purpose. of why this needs to be pursued. Good Luck to you my friend.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 18, 2015 at 6:39 pm

      Howard

      Towards a Timeline of Absolute Solid Facts in the History of the Discovery of Natural Selection

      Here is something of interest. If we stick entirely to what we can only know 100% for sure, we must accept the fact that science fraudsters have in the past created elaborate paper trails to seek to prove they originated/discovered/ proved something themselves. Therefore, it is not enough that Darwin wrote dates on his unpublished notebooks or any other unpublished documents, We shouldn’t work from the premise that he was totally honest because we know he was capable of outright lying and otherwise being exceedingly “economic with the actuality” – for example we know he lied when he wrote that Matthew’s book had “remained unnoticed” because the year before Matthew told him that John Loudon and an unnamed professor of natural history had read and understood their significance. So those dates on his notebooks and essays could be a fabrication of Darwin’s

      Working upon the premise that there was no one conspiring with Darwin (conspiracies do happen but I’ve always plainly and deliberately steered clear of the notion in this story of scientific discovery) then the first move towards any solid proof we have of when Darwin understood natural selection is when he sent his private 1844 essay to is best friend Joseph Hooker. All we have to go on in this case is the date that correspondence between Hooker and Darwin informs us that Darwin’s best friend,Joseph Hooker, was sent a copy of that 1844 essay in 1847. See: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/correspondence-volume-3

      Outside of the evidence (comprising only letters between Hooker and Darwin – supposedly copies of genuine originals saved by Darwin) of correspondence between Darwin and his best friend Hooker (note: Hooker also proved himself dishonest by way of his letter that misled the Linnean Society to believe that Wallace had consented to having his paper jointly read by Darwin’s before the Linnean Society in 1858) is that Darwin sent an abstract of his 1844 essay to the US botanist Asa Gray in 1857.

      What we know for a fact is that 1855 is the year that Wallace’s Sarawak paper was published in the journal edited by Selby – and that Selby had read and cited Matthew’s book in 1842.

      So – accepting the premises that there was no conspiracy – then the earliest “proof” we have of when Darwin understood natural selection is as late as 1847. If we take Darwin’s proven dishonest best friend, J. Hooker, out of the equation then we are left with Asa Gray- who we can be fairly certain was sent an abstract of Darwin’s 1844 essay in 1857 – which is two years AFTER Darwin read Wallace’s Sarawak paper, which was edited by Selby who had read Matthew’s book and cited it in 1842! Incidentally, Selby ordered a copy of Matthew’s book in 1840 – when he wrote to his friend the famous naturalist Jardine to ask hi to get hi a copy.

      So there we have it:

      (1) . Based on the premise that two proven liars – who lied to help Darwin achieve priority for the discovery of natural selection (Hooker for Darwin in 1858 and Darwin for himself in 1861) were not conspiring and lying in this particular case then the earliest “proof” we have that Darwin understood natural selection is not his essays of 1842, nor his essay of 1844 – because we have only Darwin’s unreliable word for it that he penned those essays on those dates – Instead it is 1847.

      (2) If any reader finds they simply cannot trust that 1847 “proof” coming as it does form the word of two proven liars on the very topic it is about, then we are left with a date of 1857. Which is two years AFTER Wallace’s Sarawak paper was published.

      With the facts plainly stated. With the premises upon which they are based plainly stated. With the facts of Darwin’s and Joseph Hooker’s dishonesty when it came to winning Darwin priority, then members of society must now decide which date they feel safe with. Personally, mine is 1857.

      These hard facts alone are a powerful argument for awarding the Originator – Patrick Matthew – full priority over Darwin for the discovery of natural selection.

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  40. Dysology says:
    January 18, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    For Mike W

    Mike – the clickable to pdf file for Strivens on the Argo Effect and scientific priority can be found in this blog post http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=22613

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  41. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    Howard

    I did say that a Wiki Darwin worshiper would not allow me to insert the New Data – today one of them deleted the whole lot. Even the Matthew Redwood information and even the earlier links someone inserted to the Daily Telegraph. Here is the culprit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dave_souza

    He wrote start again! I deleted his changes and put it back the way it was. I expect now to receive a warning for inserting veracity into Wikipedia because the facts upset individual official Wiki Editor petty martinets.

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  42. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    For the record: This is what Dave Souza an official Wikipedai Editor deleted today:

    The New Big Data Discoveries

    In 2014,[8] Mike Sutton developed newly available Big Data research techniques to uncover substantial new dis-confirming evidence for Darwin’s (1861) claim, from the third edition of the Origin of Species onward, that Matthew’s book had “…remained unnoticed…” until Matthew drew Darwin’s attention to it in 1860. Supporting his argument that either direct or indirect knowledge contamination from Matthew to both Darwin and Wallace was more likely than not, Sutton uniquely discovered that seven naturalists had in fact cited Matthew’s book in the literature pre-1858, He found that four of those naturalists were known personally to Darwin/Wallace and that three played major roles in influencing or else facilitating their work pre-1858.

    The naturalist, gardener, engineer, botanist, editor and polymath John Loudon, who reviewed Matthew’s (1831) book in 1832,[wrote that he thought it possible, although he was not quite sure, that Matthew had something original say on subject of ‘the origin of species’. In 1861, Darwin was well aware that Loudon had read and reviewed Matthew’s book, and that he had commented upon its original ideas on organic evolution, because the year before Matthew had told him so in his reply to Darwin’s published letter of capitulation to Matthew’s prior-published priority for the discovery of natural selection letter in the Gardeners Chronicle in 1860 Matthew also informed Darwin in that published letter that another unnamed naturalist – a professor in an esteemed but unnamed university – had read Matthews ideas but could not teach them for fear of facing the “cutty stool” (a pillory type punishment that involved standing upon a three legged stool in church and being forced to admit sins to the congregation) which means Darwin told something of an untruth when he wrote from the third edition of the Origin onward that Matthew’s ideas had “remained unnoticed” until Matthew drew attention to it in 1860. However, Sutton (2014) uniquely revealed that in 1835 and 1836 Loudon was the Editor of the journal that published two influential papers written on the topic of species variation by Darwin’s friend and correspondent Edward Blyth – who was one of Darwin’s most influential and prolific informants.

    Sutton further discovered that Prideaux John Selby, Chief Editor of the journal that published Alfred Wallace’s Sarawak paper cited Matthew’s (1831) book many times in his own book on forest trees,[which was the same year Darwin penned his first unpublished essay on natural selection. In his book, Selby wrote that he could not understand Matthew’s explanation for the power of occupancy of non-native trees under certain ecological conditions. Sutton reveals that Darwin and Selby sat on several of the same important scientific communities and that several of Darwin’s closest friends knew Selby extremely well, including Darwin’s father who had been a guest at Selby’s house.

    Sutton discovered also that Robert Chambers – who authored the highly influential Vestiges of Creation, which is attributed with putting ‘evolution in the air’ in the first half of the 19th century.[ also cited Matthew’s 1831 book in 1832. Moreover, Chambers also cited Matthew’s (1839) Emigration Fields. Both Darwin, from the third edition of the origin of Species onward and Wallace admitted the great influence of Chambers’s Vestiges. Wallace admitted it was a great personal influence upon him and Darwin wrote that it served to facilitate public acceptance of the general topic of evolution. Sutton (2014) further explains that Darwin met and corresponded with Robert Chambers pre-Origin. Chambers was also a member of the Edinburgh Geological Society, as was Darwin’s close friend and geological mentor Charles Lyell. Despite all of this, and more, newly discovered circumstantial evidence about those at the epicenter of influence and facilitation of the Pre-1858 published work of Darwin and Wallace on natural selection having earlier cited Matthew (1831), or associating with those who did, and despite considerably more evidence that Sutton (2014) provides in Nullius in Verba regarding Darwin and Wallace replicating Matthew’s hypothesis, explanatory examples for it, key prose and his use of artificial selection as a heuristic device to explain its counterpart in nature, all claims that Darwin and Wallace each plagiarized Matthew remain unsubstantiated by definitive evidence that Darwin or Wallace personally encountered Matthew’s work until after he drew Darwin’s attention to it in 1860.

    The Matthew Giant Redwood Legacy

    Patrick Matthew’s son sent trees from the USA to Scotland in the 19th century and many of those giant redwood trees survive to this day.

    Many of the giant and coastal US redwood trees planted by Matthew in the 19th century are now of significant interest as botanical specimens of national heritage.

    The Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh celebrate Matthew’s legacy by illuminating the giant Matthew redwoods of Benmore

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  43. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 19, 2015 at 5:07 pm

    Are you kidding me??? What an unethical abuse of aggrandized entitlement for someone piously obstructing truth to maintain their own facades misinformation and agendas.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 19, 2015 at 5:32 pm

      To repeat what I predicted of the typical behavior people earlier:

      In my experience most Wikipedians are unread nerdowell pseudo-scholarly petty-martinets with less gumption and fewer brains than a computer chess game.

      I rest my case.

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  44. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    Howard and Mike

    No.

    This is what biased crafty Darwinists do.

    Here is the history page. (link below) The Webpage on Patrick Matthew is run by Mike W,

    Perhaps Mike would intervene to stop the censorship of information reported in two national broadsheet newspaper articles by the Telegraph Science Editor and also on my peer reviewed article? These are credible sources reporting new discoveries?

    This Wikipedia “editor” – is involved in snaky biased brute censorship.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Matthew&diff=643222848&oldid=643221898

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  45. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 19, 2015 at 5:31 pm

    What reasoning did Souza give for the entire deletion…the reasoning and justification are supposed to be justifiably presented and considered by consensus with other editors and posted in their Deletion Log.

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  46. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    He simply said it was “the opinions of Sutton”. This is why Wikipedia will eventually fail. This is why it is in massive financial trouble. This is why it is a joke run by clowns.

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  47. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 19, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    Though you did for warn me of this possibility…I still suffer the disappointment that despite the credibility of every piece of information someone would actually have such a delinquent, deleterious, as well as pathetic subversive mentality to use their position to protect their own or someone else’s position and not afford equal representation as well as information that definitively qualifies in the rules of inclusion for quorum discussions.

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    • Dysology says:
      January 19, 2015 at 6:04 pm

      But is that not the key theme in the story of Matthew and Darwin?

      The difference is that what they – as individual empowered small agents – are up to now is in the spotlight.

      Now, such Darwinist dysology is hard data. What they are up to is actually being published for scholars to study. On the Internet delete never means delete. They leave their footprints.

      And those footprints – like those I found with Big Data analysis – will be scrutinized until the time that veracity wins out. And veracity always wins in the end. I would not like their legacy to be mine Howard.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 19, 2015 at 6:17 pm

        Oh…believe me… I absolutely agree…and the validity of your points will eventually reach a level of recognition that I’m sure will convince and generate enough momentum to be much more openly received than it presently is in this early stage. As I said before it’s only a matter of time.

        HLM

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 19, 2015 at 6:33 pm

        As aggravated as I am that this in fact occurred… just as you warned me it might…I agree that it should be left in Dr. Weale’s capable hands to arbitrate and negotiate to hopefully amiably reconcile.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 19, 2015 at 6:43 pm

        Btw check your email… I just returned a letter to Margot Gerdts in Gemany and CC’d you and Bevan Jones in N.Zealand… so you should be able to catch up on that. Forgot that Wulf’s email no longer is active so using it as a repository backup with all the information it once retained is no longer viable…what a shame.

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      • mikeweale says:
        January 20, 2015 at 12:17 am

        Mike S and Howard, I’m afraid I hold no sway over Wikipedia, nor did I create the “Patrick Matthew” page on Wikipedia – that was done in 2004 by somebody else.

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      • Howard L. Minnick says:
        January 22, 2015 at 10:36 pm

        Dr. Weale

        I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that it was Dr.Jim Dempster who originally created the Patrick Matthew page on Wikipedia…and “I” am the one that supplemented the information of his business enterprises and business concerns that often prompted his travels to and from the continent as well the one who outlined which order his children came into being. I also set the seedling Redwood information tying in the unknown status of the son John D. Matthew as well…those first plantings in Matthew’s Carse of Gowrie being the first of it’s kind to be planted outside of their native indigenous California Eco cline. I even gave the citations which though different than those given by Dr. Sutton were likewise summarily and arbitrarily dismissed…and replaced with a “citation needed” earmark.

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  48. Howard L. Minnick says:
    January 19, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    Yes… I’m well awareof their financial decline and their posting of yellow highlighted requests for donations which if someone in their unraveling admin department had enough reasonable and intelligent intuitiveness to actually see the correlation…then quite possibly… they wouldn’t be like so many others… cramming their craniums into remote areas of their anatomies. I guess until then contempt of their practices shall continue to prevail until they bury themselves alive !!!

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  49. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    I think they will – like birds that evolve by way of their selfish genes to lay their eggs early (when the winter is hardly out) – have stolen a march on more traditional encyclopedias and driven them to virtual extinction by achieving a Matthewian (artificial) “power of occupancy” in a (human social) niche. However, one late cold snap and they will perish – leaving the field open for new varieties to flourish.

    Wikipedia being free will eventually become a victim of its own success. Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. Pay nothing and you get petty martinet nerdowells who are in it because no one else better than them will work for nothing.And Wikipedia is powerless – because they can’t upset the “staff” who work for nothing.

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  50. Dysology says:
    January 19, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    Howard

    See what happens on Wikipedia .here we see that a plainly biased-Darwinist editor (check out his profile) deleted interdependently verifiable facts (citation sources of those I newly discovered – contrary to prior Darwinist myths that non read Matthew’s book) on the fallacious basis that those facts are merely “Sutton’s opinions” and then the editor replaced those proven New Facts with the laughable knee jerk-Semmelweis reflex comment of an arch-professional Darwinist (James Moore who co-wrote wrote a biography of Darwin) who fallaciously merely “thinks” nothing new has been discovered, But MOORE IS PROVEN 100% wrong. They deleted the links to what had been newly discovered. The FACT that Loudon edited Blyths work The FACT that Chambers cited Matthew twice! The Fact that Selby cited Matthew and the Fact that he then was the chief editor of the journal that published Wallace’s Sarawak paper.

    So Wikipedia gives these biased bozo-clowns licence to delete facts and to replace facts with a fallacious opinion on the basis that the hard 100% solid new facts are merely an opinion.

    Here is what the Wiki Editor newly wrote in his arch brute-cowardly-vandalism of the hard 100% solid newly discovered facts – and replaced with fallacious opinion of a biased Darwinist as though it counts for anything more than a derisory snort by anyone with an ounce of gumption, an ounce of integrity and any knowledge of the literature::

    “The criminologist Mike Sutton’ has published research as a paper presented in 2014 to a British Society of Criminology conference proposing that both Darwin and Wallace had “more likely than not committed the world’s greatest science fraud by apparently plagiarising the entire theory of natural selection from a book written by Patrick Matthew and then claiming to have no prior knowledge of it.”[13] On 28 May 2014 The Daily Telegraph science corespondent reported Sutton’s views, and also the opinion of Darwin biographer James Moore that this was a non-issue, and it was doubtful “if there was any new evidence had not been already seen and interpreted in the opposite way.”[14] Sutton published a 2014 book Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s Greatest Secret presenting his argument based on new Big Data analysis.[15]”

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