Editing Patrick Matthew (section)

====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>
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[[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" />
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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>}}