terça-feira, 24 de fevereiro de 2015

Carta aberta para a Royal Society conceder a primazia do termo e do princípio da seleção natural para Patrick Matthew

Open letter to the Royal Society. 20.01.2015

Dear Royal Society

Charles Darwin (FRS), Alfred Russel Wallace, and Richard Dawkins (FRS) and others, among whom I include myself, acknowledge that Patrick Matthew (1831) – in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture – published the full theory of natural slection many years before Darwin and Wallace put pen to private notepaper on the topic and 28 years before Darwin and Wallace (1858) had their papers read before the Linnean Society.

Matthew uniquely coined his discovery the ‘natural process of selection’ and 29 years later Darwin uniquely shuffled Matthew’s term into his own unique re-coinage the ‘process of natural selection’. Darwin and Wallace each claimed to have arrived at exactly the same theory, used the same terminology and the same unique explanatory examples, independently of Matthew and independently of one another.

The purpose of my open letter, therefore, is to request of the Royal Society an official statement to explain whether the Royal Society will affirm that Patrick Matthew, by dint of his achievement at publishing first one of the greatest discoveries in science, should be officially awarded full priority over both Darwin and Wallace for his great unique breakthrough?

I presume the Royal Society has not unofficially changed its views on the rules of priority? In this regard I wish to remind the Royal Society of the Arago Effect to which it has adhered in all other disputes over priority for discovery in science – which is that being first is everything.

Ignoring the convention of priority, and specifically ignoring the Arago Effect, Richard Dawkins (2010) and others have created a new, unique in the history of scientific discovery, “Dawkins’ Demand Rule” , which is that Dawkins demands that Matthew should not have priority over Darwin and Wallace because it was previously their mere un-evidenced ‘knowledge belief’ that Matthew’s unique views went unnoticed. And because Dawkins demands that Matthew should have “trumpeted his discovery from the rooftops” at a time of great social unrest and tension when his political ideas, linked to and including his natural selection discovery, were criminally seditious and heretical. However, newly available Big Data research techniques reveal solid evidence, from the independently verifiable published literature, that Matthew’s (1831) book was, in fact, (all pre 1858) cited by other naturalists known to Darwin/Wallace – including Loudon (who edited and published two of Blyth’s influential papers), Robert Chambers (who wrote the highly influential book on evolution – the Vestiges of Creation) and Prideaux John Selby (who edited and published Wallace’s Sarawak paper). (see: my peer reviewed paper for this new evidence http://britsoccrim.org/new/volume14/pbcc_2014_sutton.pdf ).

In sum, would the Royal Society please make an official statement regarding whether or not it has abandoned its former acceptance of the Arago Effect? (see for references to papers on it:

If the Royal Society is quietly in approval of an unannounced exception to the rule of priority in the case of Patrick Matthew would it be so good as to explain why? And if so, could the Royal Society please go further than remaining publicly silent on this important issue of contested priority by making an official statement regarding whether or not they have adopted a unique and biased Darwinist ‘made for Matthew’ rule?

Yours sincerely

Dr Mike Sutton (Reader in Criminology and Sociology)
School of Social Sciences
Nottingham Trent University

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Dr. Sutton escreveu o livro Nullius in Verba - Darwin's Greatest Secret onde ele denuncia a fraude de Darwin quanto ao termo e princípio da seleção natural descobertos por Patrick Matthew.


terça-feira, 13 de janeiro de 2015

Finalmente online a correspondência entre Darwin e Mivart seu mais ferrenho oponente científico

A ‘scurrilous libel’


Letters revealing a unprecedented episode of incandescent anger on Darwin’s part will be published for the first time in the next volume of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, out next month. The volume contains more than 600 letters from 1874. The target of Darwin’s fury was the Catholic zoologist St George Jackson Mivart who had accused Darwin’s son, George, of supporting prostitution as a legitimate means of population control, and by implication had branded Darwin’s own theories as immoral. Darwin had previously tried to break off communication with Mivart, who had written a series of hostile reviews of Descent of Man while privately professing friendship. Increasingly acrimonious letters exchanged by the two men in 1871 and 1872, are being made available for the first time online by the Darwin Correspondence Project and Cambridge University Press ahead of schedule (see the links below). They are also published in volumes 19 and 20 of the Correspondence.

During the row over George’s views, and following advice from friends, Darwin did not write directly to Mivart, who he described as a ‘lying scoundrel’, but in January 1875 he drafted a letter condemning Mivart’s actions and icily cutting all further communication. He could not, he told Joseph Hooker, forgive a man for malicious lying ‘merely because he says he is sorry’. Assuming this was sent, it is the last known contact between them. The draft letter, which will be published in volume 23 of theCorrespondence, due out next year, is reproduced in full below.

If you want to know more, check back. As soon as volume 22 is published, we’ll make a full account of the row and its causes available here when we put up the introduction and the Darwin–Mivart appendix.  In the meantime, you can read about their earlier row in the introductions to volumes 19 and 20.

Mivart continued to profess friendship for Darwin and to excuse his actions but a number of Darwin’s supporters shunned him. Although critical of the theory of natural selection, especially as applied to humans, Mivart did support broadly evolutionary views and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church shortly before his death in 1900.

To St G. J. Mivart  12 January 1875
Jan 12th 1875
Sir
Your article in the Q. R. for July 1874 contains a wholly false & malicious accusation against my son, Mr G. Darwin. You had a fair opportunity in the following number of retracting your infamous & explicit accusation, & you did not make even this small reparation.— Your article also includes deliberate misrepresentations of what I have published.
Therefore I refuse to hold for the future any communication with
Sir | Your obedt. servt. | Ch. Darwin
To | St. G. Mivart Esq

Cambridge University Library (DAR 97: C36).
Published by permission of the Darwin family and the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.


You can now read the letters between Darwin and Mivart from 1871 and 1872 online here, made available ahead of schedule with the permission of our colleagues at Cambridge University Press:

segunda-feira, 7 de maio de 2012

Did Darwin read Mendel?

David Galton

    The Mendel-Darwin Connection - Michael Ruse

    Read no further if you want a definite answer to this question. It is a sort of detective story with clues scattered around. The circumstances surrounding the question however are so interesting since they involve two of the most important scientific publications of the 19th century.

    The truly ground-breaking studies of Gregor Mendel were read before the Society for the Study of Natural Science of Brunn in 1865 entitled Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden (Experiments in Plant Hybridization). Mendel ordered 40 reprints of his paper to send to famous European scientists; Darwin by then was certainly one of the most famous. Darwin's book on Origin of Species had been out for 6 years and was already in its 3rd edition. It had been translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Polish and Russian.

    Mendel had of course read and studied the Origin of Species in the German translation, Uber die Entstehung der Arten as soon as the second edition appeared in 1863. In his personal copy, he made many notes in the margin with his small and careful handwriting with double underlines of some of the text and even interspersed with the occasional exclamation mark. He bought most of Darwin's other works and studied them carefully making frequent annotations. So it would be natural for him to send Darwin, as an eminent English naturalist, one of his 40 reprints.

    Of the 40 reprints of Mendel's article records exist that one was sent to each of the following scientists: von Marilaun, Kerner, Beijerinck, Boveri, Schleiden, and the Swiss botanist Karl Wilhelm von Nageli, now working in Munich. The last exchanged letters with Mendel over 7 years on the topic. More copies of the reprint were to be found in learned societies around Europe including the Royal Society, the Linnaean Society and the Greenwich Observatory in Britain.

    Where were the other remaining reprints sent (about 29)? At the time Darwin's house in Kent was a sort of communication hub for European naturalists. Darwin was writing (and receiving) letters on a daily basis about issues and problems of natural history. If Darwin had received and read Mendel's article, he would have found a detailed analysis of the frequencies observed for different inherited traits from generation to generation of the edible pea. But these results were given in a mathematical form that might have put Darwin off from reading any more of the article. Darwin said that: ‘Mathematics in biology was like a scalpel in a carpenter's shop – there was no use for it.’ The concluding remarks of the paper made quite far reaching claims that the author had discovered laws that could predict the appearance of the different hybrid characters in successive generations of the edible pea, and that this would probably apply to other plant species. Of course it needed confirmation by further experimentation, but in view of the unity in the developmental plan of all organic life one may assume it to be correct. The final two paragraphs argued that the transference of characteristics amongst cultivated plants, such as the edible pea, can be accomplished and seems to occur by discrete integral steps which if accumulating in one species of plant could ‘transform’ it into a different species. Mendel's conclusions left no room for blending inheritance that Darwin believed to occur.
    ...

    domingo, 19 de fevereiro de 2012

    Finalmente online algumas cartas da correspondência entre Mivart e Darwin

    O Darwin Correspondence Project finalmente publicou online algumas cartas da correspondência entre St. George Jackson Mivart e Darwin.

    Mivart (Fellow of the Royal Society, 1869, com Darwin recomendando sua aceitação) foi um anatomista comparativo, aluno e ex-protegé de Thomas Huxley, que aceitava a evolução, mas não a capacidade criativa da seleção natural em relação à mente humana. 

    St. George Jackson Mivart foi um dos críticos científicos mais vigorosos que Darwin conheceu na Inglaterra que saiu da intimidade do seu círculo de Down.

    Algumas cartas disponíveis de Mivart e Darwin podem ser lidas aqui. Este blogger lamenta a disponibilidade dessa correspondência tão somente agora, pois queria ter acesso a ela em 2006 quando elaborava sua dissertação de mestrado em História da Ciênca - Pontifícia Universidade Católica - São Paulo. 

    Por outro lado, fica muito feliz pois alguma luz pode ser lançada sobre a controvérsia entre Mivart e Darwin sobre a ação da seleção natural na origem das espécies. 

    terça-feira, 20 de dezembro de 2011

    Uma nova teoria para explicar a recepção do ensaio de Wallace, de Ternate, recebido por Darwin em 1858

    A new theory to explain the receipt of Wallace's Ternate Essay by Darwin in 1858

    JOHN VAN WYHE, KEES ROOKMAAKER

    Article first published online: 7 DEC 2011

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2011.01808.x

    © 2011 The Linnean Society of London

    Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

    Volume 105, Issue 1, pages 249–252, January 2012

    Keywords: evolution; Linnean Society; Malay Archipelago; postal service

    Abstract

    In early 1858, when he was in the Moluccas, Wallace drafted an essay to explain evolution by natural selection and posted it to Darwin. For many years it was believed that the Ternate essay left the island in March on the monthly mail steamer, and arrived at Down House on 18 June 1858. Darwin immediately wrote to Lyell, as requested by Wallace, forwarding the essay. This sequence was cast in doubt after the discovery of a letter written by Wallace to Bates leaving on the same steamer with postmarks showing its arrival in Leicester on 3 June 1858. Darwin has been accused of keeping the essay secret for a fortnight, thereby enabling him to revise elements of his theory of evolution. We intend to show that Wallace in fact sent the Ternate essay on the mail steamer of April 1858, for which the postal connections actually indicate the letter to have arrived precisely on 18 June. Darwin is thus vindicated from accusations of deceit. Wallace's Ternate essay and extracts from Darwin's theoretical manuscripts were read at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, which is now recognized as a milestone in the history of science.

    © 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, 105, 249–252.

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    From Jerry Coyne's post Did Darwin plagiarize Wallace?:

    I once had dinner with Janet Browne, author of what I think is the best biography of Darwin (it’s in two volumes; do read it!), and took the opportunity to ask her a question. ”If you had Darwin here at the table,” I said, “and could ask him one question, what would it be?” Janet didn’t hesitate in her answer: “I’d like to know about the missing letter from Wallace.”

    She was referring to a well known incident involving a famous letter. While Darwin was slowly preparing On the Origin of Species for publication, he received, supposedly on June 18, 1858, a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace. And that letter contained an essay (written in Frebruary of that year) outlining Wallace’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which of course was something Darwin had been ruminating about for years. Wallace’s piece, “On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type,” has become known as the ”Ternate” essay from the Indonesian island where it was supposedly penned, and you can find it here.
    ...

    In Coyne's blog Why Evolution is True

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    NOTA DESTE BLOGGER:

    Leiam estes dois livros e saibam um pouco mais da versão que a Nomenklatura  científica tenta responder satisfatoriamente  - que Darwin não plagiou a teoria da evolução da seleção natural de Wallace:

    1. 
    The Delicate Arrangement, de Arnold Brackman.

    2. 
    The Darwin Conspiracy: Origins of a Scientific Crime, de Roy Davies. [FREE PDF GRATIS DARWINIANA]

    Como historiador de ciência, esta tem sido a minha pergunta, além do fato que desde 1855 Darwin sabia das ideias de Wallace. Pesa ou não pesa uma forte suspeita de que Darwin plagiou as ideias evolucionárias de Wallace???

    quinta-feira, 20 de outubro de 2011

    Was Darwin a creationist?/Darwin era criacionista?

    Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
    Volume 48, Number 3, Summer 2005

    E-ISSN: 1529-8795 Print ISSN: 0031-5982

    DOI: 10.1353/pbm.2005.0071

    Cosans, Chris.
    Was Darwin a Creationist?
    Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - Volume 48, Number 3, Summer 2005, pp. 362-371

    The Johns Hopkins University Press

    Throughout the Origin of Species, Darwin contrasts his theory of natural selection with the theory that God independently created each species. This makes it seem as though the Origin offers a scientific alternative to a theological worldview. A few months after the Origin appeared, however, the eminent anatomist Richard Owen published a review that pointed out the theological assumptions of Darwin's theory. Owen worked in the tradition of rational morphology, within which one might suggest that evolution occurs by processes that are continuous with those by which life arises from matter; in contrast, Darwin rested his account of life's origins on the notion that God created one or a few life forms upon which natural selection could act. Owen argued that Darwin's reliance on God to explain the origins of life makes his version of evolution no less supernatural than the special creationist that Darwin criticizes: although Darwin limits God to one or a few acts of creation, he still relies upon God to explain life's existence.

    Source/Fonte: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

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    Professores, pesquisadores e alunos de universidades públicas e privadas com acesso ao site CAPES/Periódicos podem ler gratuitamente este artigo da Perspectives in Biology and Medicine e de mais 22.440 publicações científicas.

    quinta-feira, 30 de dezembro de 2010

    Darwin e o misterioso Mr. X: a origem verdadeira do Origem das Espécies

    Embora tenha falecido há 150 anos atrás, Charles Darwin, mais conhecido como o autor do Origem das espécies (1859), ele ainda é assunto regular de livros, programas de TV, artigos de revistas e, é claro, websites.

    Mas quais são as origens verdadeiras do Origem das espécies? Foi resultado exclusivo das pesquisas de Darwin, ou outras influências estavam em ação?

    Por que Charles Darwin levou mais de 20 anos para publicar suas ideias sobre a evolução? E o que realmente motivou Darwin a escrever finalmente sua magnum opus?

    Esta história não é apenas de um homem, mas de quatro:
















    Charles Darwin














    Edward Blyth














    Charles Lyell














    Alfred Wallace

    Cada um deles desempenhou um papel crucial no desenvolvimento, e na publicação eventual do Origem das espécies, mas talvez não aqueles papeis com os quais você está familiarizado.

    Saiba mais sobre o lado cinzento de Darwin e outros evolucionistas que a historiografia mainstream não quer que você saiba lendo:



















    Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X, de Loren C. Eiseley (1907-1977), um antropólogo evolucionista, e o site Charles Darwin - The Truth?, de Andrew Bradbury, professor aposentado de história.




    Faça download gratuito do livro The Darwin Conspiracy, de Roy Davies, sobre a acusação que pesa até hoje de que Darwin plagiou as ideias de Alfred Russel Wallace sobre a seleção natural, forçando-o a escrever o longo abstract que ficou conhecido como Origin of species.










    [Introdução levemente modificada do site de Andrew Bradbury]