The Dysology Hypothesis

Letting scholars get away with publishing fallacies and myths signals to others the existence of topics where guardians of good scholarship might be less capable than elsewhere. Such dysology then serves as an allurement to poor scholars to disseminate existing myths and fallacies and to create and publish their own in these topic areas, which leads to a downward spiral of diminishing veracity on particular topics.

Saturday 29 March 2014

Science Fraud: The Patrick Matthew Supermyth is Bust

Abstract
Darwin and Alfred Wallace claimed to have discovered natural selection independently of Patrick Matthew. Matthew's discovery of the 'natural process of selection' was published 27 years before Darwin's and Wallace's papers were read before the Linnean Society in 1858. In 1861, in the third edition of the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote: 'In 1831 Mr Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal,' and as that enlarged on in the present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr Matthew very briefly in scattered passages in an Appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr Matthew himself drew attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' on April 7th, 1860.' To date, there has been no hard evidence suggesting that Darwin’s or Wallace’s work was influenced by Matthew. However, newly discovered literature reveals seven naturalists cited Matthew's book before 1858. Three played key pre-1858 roles facilitating and influencing Darwin’s and Wallace’s published ideas on natural selection. They are: Loudon – who edited and published Blyth’s acknowledged influential articles on evolution; Chambers, author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' – which both Darwin and Wallace also acknowledged influenced their work; and Selby – who, in 1855, edited and published Wallace's Sarawak paper. These new discoveries mean that Matthew now has full scientific priority for the theory natural selection.

To read the full story - click here: http://www.bestthinking.com/articles/science/biology_and_nature/genetics_and_molecular_biology/internet-dating-with-darwin-new-discovery-that-darwin-and-wallace-were-influenced-by-matthew-s-prior-discovery

The latest peer-reviewed science journal article busting of the Patrick Matthew Supermyth is here.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Darwin's Finches are Another Supermyth

The long-busted, yet pervasive, myth that Charles Darwin's Eureka! Moment realisation of the ability of natural selection to explain the problem of species, came by way of his observation of variation in the beaks of Galapagos Islands finches is a supermyth. Darwin did no such thing. He failed to understand the significance of the variation in those finch beaks, he never collected the finches, he misclassified 7 of the 13 finches collected. He never even collected them, they were collected by another crew member. The real natural selection significance of adaptation of Galapagos Islands finches was a 20th century discovery. The myth is a supermyth because it is deployed to this day by Darwinists arguing against the myth of divine creation of new species. It is used by the uninformed, including some Darwinists, in an attempt to disprove the overwhelming evidence that Darwin’s real Eureka! Moment came around 1837 within the pages of Patrick Matthew’s (1831) full and prominently published and reviewed articulation of the theory of the ‘natural process of selection.’ Darwin claimed never to have read the book despite the newly discovered fact that other famous naturalists read and cited it - including three of Darwin's scientific associates.