Editing Patrick Matthew (section)

==Matthew's legacy in evolutionary studies==
Matthew, Darwin and Wallace are the only three people considered to have independently discovered the principle of natural selection as a mechanism for [[speciation]] ([[macroevolution]]). Others prior to Matthew had proposed natural selection as a mechanism for the generation of varieties or races within a species: [[James Hutton]] suggested the mechanism in 1794 as leading to improvement of varieties, and an 1813 paper by [[William Charles Wells]] proposed that it would form new varieties.

===Modern claims for Matthew's priority===
Although Darwin insisted he had been unaware of Matthew's work, some modern commentators have held that he and Wallace were likely to have known of it, or could have been influenced indirectly by other naturalists who read and cited Matthew's book.
* [[Ronald W. Clark]], in his 1984 biography of Darwin, commented that ''Only the transparent honesty of Darwin's character... makes it possible to believe that by the 1850s he had no recollection of Matthew's work''.<ref>Clark, Ronald W. 1984. ''The survival of Charles Darwin''. p130-131 {{ISBN|0-380-69991-5}}</ref> This [[begs the question]], for it assumes he did read Matthew's book. Clark continues by suggesting: ''If Darwin had any previous knowledge of ''Arboriculture'', it had slipped down into the unconscious''.<ref>Clark, ''Survival of Charles Darwin'', p131</ref><ref>If Darwin had read the book, it might have been an example of [[cryptomnesia]].</ref>
* In 2014, [[Nottingham Trent University]] criminologist [[Mike Sutton (criminologist)|Mike Sutton]] published in a non-[[peer review|peer-reviewed]] (i.e. not reviewed by experts in the field)<ref name="COPE">[https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_Guidelines_For_Peer_Reviewers_2.pdf ''e.g.'', Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Council Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers, September 2017.] In order to assign appropriate reviewers, editors must match reviewers with the scope of the content in a manuscript to get the best reviews possible. Potential reviewers should provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a fair representation of their expertise, including verifiable and accurate contact information. It is important to recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct (e.g. see COPE Case 12-12: Compromised peer review in published papers). When approached to review, agree to review only if you have the necessary expertise to assess the manuscript and can be unbiased in your assessment. It is better to identify clearly any gaps in your expertise when asked to review.</ref> proceedings a research paper that he presented 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."<ref name="Sutton (2014a)">Sutton MR (2014) The hi-tech detection of Darwin's and Wallace's possible science fraud: Big data criminology re-writes the history of contested discovery. ''Papers from the British Criminology Conference'', Vol. 14: 49-64 http://britsoccrim.org/new/volume14/pbcc_2014_sutton.pdf, but [[Patrick Matthew#cite note-Dagg2018-37|see Dagg (2018)]]</ref> On 28 May 2014 ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' science correspondent reported Sutton's views, and also the opinion of Darwin biographer [[James Moore (biographer)|James Moore]] that this was a non-issue (''below'').<ref name="telegraph.co.uk">[https://web.archive.org/web/20140528224139/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10859281/Did-Charles-Darwin-borrow-the-theory-of-natural-selection.html ''Did Charles Darwin 'borrow' the theory of natural selection?''] The Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2014, not according to [[Patrick Matthew#cite note-Dagg2018-37|Dagg (2018)]]</ref> Sutton published a 2014 non-peer reviewed [[e-book]] ''Nullius in Verba: Darwin's Greatest Secret''<ref name="Sutton 2014b">Sutton, MR (2014) ''Nullius in Verba: Darwin's Greatest Secret''. Thinker Media, Inc. (when questioned about the validity of the ebook, the editor dismissed intervention on the grounds that, "''Dr Sutton's book was one of our best sellers''". They confirmed that their publications were not peer reviewed, "''We are a publishing platform, not a publisher, operating under the US Law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which gives us tremendous freedoms and legal protections, but it requires us to be completely hands off the content and the authors. All work that is in compliance with our Participation Policy (PP) by an identity-verified author is published. ... I am very familiar with traditional peer-reviewed publishing. We are simply doing something different here''" Bob Butler CEO Thinker Media, ''pers. comm. JF Derry'' 25-July 17). See also [https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/bly003 Dagg (2018)]</ref> reiterating his argument, and alleging that "the orthodox Darwinist account" is wrong as "Darwin/Wallace corresponded with, were editorially assisted by, admitted to being influenced by and met with other naturalists who - it is newly discovered - had read and cited Matthew's book long before 1858".<ref name="bestthinking">Sutton, MR (2015) On Nullius in Verba: The book that uniquely re-wrote the history of the discovery of natural selection. Bestthinking, 12 September, but [[Patrick Matthew#cite note-Dagg2018-37|see Dagg (2018)]]</ref> <!-- excessive detail of dubious claims: Sutton's (2014) original research revealed that Loudon was editor of the journal that later published two of Blyth's (1835) <ref>''Blyth, E. 1835. An attempt to classify the "varieties" of animals. The Magazine of Natural History. (8) (1), Parts 1-2.''</ref> and (1836) <ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Blyth | first1 = E | year = 1836 | title = Observations on the various seasonal and other external Changes which regularly take place in Birds more particularly in those which occur in Britain; with Remarks on their great Importance in indicating the true Affinities of Species; and upon the Natural System of Arrangement | journal = The Magazine of Natural History | volume = 9 | pages = 393–409 }}</ref> papers on evolution, and that Selby was editor of the Journal that later published Wallace's (1855) Sarawak paper on the introduction of new species.<ref>Wallace, A. R. (1855) On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. ''The Annals and Magazine of Natural History''. Series 2, 16, 184-196.</ref> --> Sutton included as one of these ''naturalists'' the publisher [[Robert Chambers (publisher born 1802)|Robert Chambers]], and said it was significant that the book by Matthew had been cited in the weekly magazine ''[[Chambers's Edinburgh Journal]]'' on 24 March 1832,<ref>''Chambers, W. and Chambers, R (1832). Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. William Orr. Saturday March 24th . p. 63''</ref> then in 1844 Chambers had published anonymously the best selling ''[[Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation]]'' which, according to Sutton, had influenced Darwin and Wallace.<ref name="bestthinking" /> In 2015, Sutton further repeated his assertion of "knowledge contamination" in the Polish journal, ''Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy (F.A.G.)'' (Philosophical Aspects of Genesis),<ref name="Sutton (2015)">Sutton, M. (2015) [http://www.nauka-a-religia.uz.zgora.pl/images/FAG/2015.t.12/art.05.pdf On Knowledge Contamination:New Data Challenges Claims of Darwin's and Wallace's Independent Conceptions of Matthew's Prior-Published Hypothesis]. ''Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy (F.A.G.)'' (Philosophical Aspects of Genesis), Volume 12,  but [[Patrick Matthew#cite note-Dagg2018-37|see Dagg (2018)]]</ref> which Sutton asserts is [[peer review|peer-reviewed]], and about which, one of the journal's editors responded, "As to Sutton, he cannot justifiably claim much credibility for his ideas just because these are published in such a journal like ours, i.e. one adopting [[Epistemological anarchism|Feyerabendian pluralism]]. If he thinks otherwise, it is only his problem. Any reasonable person should know better."<ref>Dariusz Sagan ''pers. comm.'' to JF Derry 07-09-16.</ref> In addition to his [[Academic journal#Scholarly articles|papers]] and [[e-book]], Sutton disseminates his claims against [[Charles Darwin]] and [[Alfred Russel Wallace]] via several [[blog]] sites and [[Twitter]] accounts, and public lectures: to the [[Conway Hall Ethical Society|Ethical Society]], at the [[Conway Hall]], on 27 July 2014; to the Teesside [[Skeptics in the Pub]], at O'Connells Pub in Middlehaven, a ward of [[Middlesbrough]], on 2 October 2014; and to the [[Carse of Gowrie]] Sustainability Group, at the [[James Hutton Institute]], at [[Craigiebuckler]], [[Aberdeen]], on 17 March 2016.

However, there is no direct evidence that Darwin had read the book, and his letter to Charles Lyell stating that he had ordered the book clearly indicates that he did not have a copy in his extensive library or access to it elsewhere. The particular claim that Robert Chambers had read and transmitted Matthew's ideas that are relevant to natural selection is also not supported by the facts. The article in the ''Chambers's Edinburgh Journal'' (1832, vol. 1, no. 8, 24 March, p.&nbsp;63) is not a review but only an abridged excerpt from pp.&nbsp;8–14 of ''On Naval Timber'' that amounts to no more than a recipe for pruning and contains nothing of relevance to natural selection. It is headed "ON THE TRAINING OF PLANK TIMBER" and ends with ".— Matthew on Naval Timber."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://patrickmatthewproject.wordpress.com/on-naval-timber/published-excerpts/|title=Published excerpts (1831-32)|date=2015-05-12|work=PMP--The Patrick Matthew Project (by Mike Weale)|access-date=2017-05-29|language=en-US}}</ref> Even if it had been penned by Robert Chambers, this does not mean that he had read or understood, leave alone transmitted, the other passages of Matthew's book that do contain anything relevant to natural selection. Further, ''The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'' contain nothing of relevance about natural selection. Combining these facts, Robert Chambers had probably not read or received the message about natural selection in Matthew's book, likely did not promulgate it in the Vestiges, and probably neither in conversations.

=== Rebuttal of claims ===
Challenges to Matthew's claim to priority, or those made since he died, have essentially made reference to the same issues, that his description of [[natural selection]] was not accessible and it lacked lengthier development. Other criticisms have focussed on the differences between [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s and Matthew's versions of [[natural selection]], and sometimes [[Alfred Russel Wallace|Wallace]]'s too (''e.g.'', Weale 2015). If Matthew's ideas had made the impact on subsequent evolutionary thinking, as claimed, the signals ought to be there, either during Matthew's lifetime, or Darwin's. Yet, modern claims for Matthew's priority have been unable to provide evidence for this, that has withstood fact checking.

====Accessibility and development====
[[History of science|Historian of science]], [[Peter J. Bowler|Peter Bowler]] succinctly summarised some of those main reasons given for why Matthew does not deserve priority for [[natural selection]] over Darwin and Wallace,
{{blockquote|
Such efforts to denigrate Darwin misunderstand the whole point of the history of science: Matthew did suggest a basic idea of selection, but he did nothing to develop it; and he published it in the appendix to a book on the raising of trees for shipbuilding. No one took him seriously, and he played no role in the emergence of Darwinism. Simple priority is not enough to earn a thinker a place in the history of science: one has to develop the idea and convince others of its value to make a real contribution. Darwin's notebooks confirm that he drew no inspiration from Matthew or any of the other alleged precursors.<ref>Bowler, Peter J. 2003. ''Evolution: the history of an idea'', 3rd. revised edn. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p158</ref>
}}

[[Ernst Mayr]]'s opinion was even more clear-cut:
{{blockquote|Patrick Matthew undoubtedly had the right idea, just like Darwin did on September 28, 1838, but he did not devote the next twenty years to converting it into a cogent theory of evolution. As a result it had no impact whatsoever.<ref>Mayr, Ernst 1982. ''The growth of biological thought''. Harvard.</ref>}}

[[Richard Dawkins]] also grants that Matthew had grasped the general concept of [[natural selection]], but failed to appreciate the significance, nor develop it further,
{{blockquote|I agree with W.J. Dempster, Patrick Matthew's modern champion, that Matthew has been unkindly treated by history. 'But, unlike Dempster, I hesitate to assign full priority to him. Partly, it is because he wrote in a much more obscure style than either Darwin or Wallace, which makes it hard to know in some places what he was trying to say (Darwin himself noted this). But mostly it is because he seems to have underestimated the idea, to an extent where we have to doubt whether he really understood how important it was. The same could be said, even more strongly (which is why I have not treated his case in the same detail as Matthew's), of W.C. Wells, whom Darwin also scrupulously acknowledged (in the fourth and subsequent editions of The Origin). Wells made the leap to generalise from artificial to natural selection, but he applied it only to humans, and he thought of it as choosing among races of people rather than individuals as Darwin and Wallace did. Wells therefore seems to have arrived at a form of 'group selection' rather than true, Darwinian natural selection as Matthew did, which selects individual organisms for their reproductive success. Darwin also lists other partial predecessors, who had shadowy inklings of natural selection. Like Patrick Matthew, none of them seems to have grasped the earth-shattering significance of the idea they had lit upon, and I shall use Matthew's name to represent them all. I am increasingly inclined to agree with Matthew that natural selection itself scarcely needed discovering. What needed discovering was the significance of natural selection for the evolution of all life.<ref name="Dawkins (2010)">Dawkins, Richard(2010) "Darwin's Five Bridges: The Way To Natural Selection". In Bill Bryson "Seeing Further: the Story of Science & the Royal Society". HarperPress.</ref>}}

In response to Sutton's [[e-book]], Darwin biographer [[James Moore (biographer)|James Moore]] said many people came towards a similar perception during the 19th century, but Darwin was the only one who fully developed the idea:
{{blockquote|Patrick Matthew has always struck me as a non-issue. Many people understood the issue of natural selection but it was only Darwin who applied it to everything on the planet, as an entire vision of life. That was his legacy. I would be extremely surprised if there was any new evidence had not been already seen and interpreted in the opposite way.<ref name="telegraph.co.uk" />
}}

In response to Sutton (2015)<ref name="Sutton (2015)" /> Darwin and Wallace scholar, [[John van Wyhe]] commented, {{blockquote|This conspiracy theory is so silly and based on such forced and contorted imitations of historical method that no qualified historian could take it seriously.<ref name="Alexander (2016)">Alexander, Michael (2016) Perthshire Charles Darwin claims are 'so silly', claims leading international academic. The Courier, May 17 https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/167010/perthshire-charles-darwin-claims-are-so-silly-claims-leading-international-academic/</ref>}}

To coincide with Sutton's presentation to the [[Carse of Gowrie]] Sustainability Group, Darwin author, Julian F. Derry sent an open letter, saying,
{{blockquote|contrary to what Dr Sutton has told you tonight, Patrick Matthew did not influence the course of evolutionary history in the way that is claimed [. ...] Dr Sutton is not the myth-buster that he calls himself [and,] has been either, wrong, inaccurate or irrelevant in his conclusions [. ...]  Darwin and Wallace were the first to propose adaptive changes via incremental gradualism producing species better suited to their environment, making natural selection sufficiently novel in this sense [. ...] The title of Darwin's book could have been inspired by several sources[, ...] Chambers likely never saw Matthew's book[, ... and, t]his is how the history will remain, despite Dr Sutton's efforts to have it modified<ref name="Derry (2016)">Julian F. Derry (2016) An Open Letter, 17 March 2016 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317180623_An_Open_Letter_17_March_2016</ref>}}

==== Analysis of comparative speciation concepts ====

Sutton's claim that Darwin and Wallace plagiarised evolution by natural selection from Matthew also has been refuted by Joachim Dagg,<ref name="Dagg2018">{{cite journal|last1=Dagg|first1=Joachim L|title=Comparing the respective transmutation mechanisms of Patrick Matthew, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace|journal=Biological Journal of the Linnean Society|volume=123|issue=4|pages=864–878|date=2018|doi=10.1093/biolinnean/bly003}}</ref>
<div style="margin:30px;text-align:justify;">[Wallace's] concept of lineage-adaptation as a sequence of extinctions of less fit and survival of fitter varieties and his gradualism put him closer to Darwin than to Matthew. But he emphasized environmental changes for differential extinction and some form of isolation for lineage-splitting and speciation, whereas Darwin's mature theory saw competition as a sufficient cause of divergence, differential extinction, lineage-adaptation and lineage-splitting. This is not to say that Darwin was right in this view and Wallace wrong. By current standards, they were both right and wrong in different respects (competitive vs. environmental selection, sympatric vs. allopatric speciation).<br />
The perspective emerging from this comparison shows at least four unique theories (Matthew, early Darwin, mature Darwin and Wallace), each interesting in its own right. Each theory integrated change in conditions, variability, competition and natural selection in ways that allowed for species transformation somehow. Apart from this similarity, the theories differ significantly from each other in the mechanisms underlying transformation. However, this difference does not lie in the struggle for survival and survival of the fittest, but in the way in which natural selection is integrated with variability, competition and environmental conditions. Transmutation is a convergent result of structurally different mechanisms.<br />
The similarity of Matthew's scheme to the theory of punctuated equilibria is equally superficial. Eldredge & Gould (1972) took Mayr's model of allopatric speciation and combined it with Wright's model of genetic drift in order to explain gaps in the fossil record as results of relatively swift evolutionary change in small and isolated populations. Although catastrophes can produce such populations they are not required, and the mechanism underlying the punctuated record is the drift within small and isolated populations, not the absence of competing species that would prevent species transmutation. Therefore, viewing Matthew (1831) as an anticipator of the theory of punctuated equilibria (e.g. Rampino, 2011) is as wrong as claiming his scheme identical to Darwin's or Wallace's.</div>

====Darwin's contemporaries====
While completing a doctoral thesis on ''Disputes of Plagiarism in Darwin's Theory of Evolution'' at the University of Zielona Gora, where the journal ''Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy (F.A.G.)'' (Philosophical Aspects of Genesis) is based, Grzegorz Malec published a critical review of Sutton (2015), in which the main difficulty of valid identification of communication pathways was discussed, along with observations on Sutton's alternative approach,
{{blockquote|If Sutton is right and Darwin was a plagiarist, it will be the most shocking discovery in the history of science. But he must present hard evidence to convince anyone that Darwin read Matthew's book before 1859 and had known those fragments concerning natural selection. Eventually, he should prove that Darwin learned about Matthew's idea from one of his friends or correspondences [...] Sutton's line of reasoning can be reduced to one simple pattern: since Wilkin could read Matthew, then he must have done so, and because he could have discussed his evolutionary views with Joseph Hooker (1817-1911), then he did, and since Hooker could have informed Darwin about Matthew's book, then he did. But all of this is inferred by Sutton without offering any hard evidence that this really happened. Similar situation concerns Mudie, Main, Conrad, Roget, Johnson, Selby, Emmons, Laycock, Powell and Leidy [...]  It seems that Darwin's acknowledgement to Matthew in his letter to The Gardeners' Chronicle, and putting the latter's name in the list of predecessors in the historical sketch in On the Origin of Species, was fair enough.<ref name="Malec (2015)">Malec, Grzegorz (2015) There Is No Darwin's Greatest Secret. ''Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy (F.A.G.)'' (Philosophical Aspects of Genesis), Vol. 12, pp. 325-331 http://www.nauka-a-religia.uz.zgora.pl/index.php/pl/nowosci/46-fag-2015/933-fag-2015-art-10</ref>}}