Abstract
Robert Merton (1968) coined the term “The Matthew Effect in Science” to explain by biblical analogy how famous scientists are sometimes credited more than those who are lesser known but more deserving. Leading Darwin scholars have admitted Patrick Matthew (1831) originated the theory he uniquely called the “natural process of selection”, which Charles Darwin (1859) re-named “process of natural selection”. The current consensus among many Darwin scholars is that Matthew cannot have priority for his theory because he failed to influence anyone. According to Darwin and all Darwin scholars thereafter, neither he nor anyone else read Matthew’s theory before 1859. However, new research has shown, contrary to what has been taught, that Matthew’s book in fact was read and cited by at least 30 scholars before Alfred Wallace’s and Darwin’s replications of 1858 and 1859. These included (i) Robert Chambers (Wallace’s admitted greatest influencer) who met and corresponded with Darwin pre-1858, (ii) John Loudon, an associate of Darwin’s associates, and (iii) Prideaux John Selby, Chief Editor of Wallace’s 1855 Sarawak paper on evolution of species. With a focus on the story of Matthew, Darwin, and Wallace, this chapter addresses the ethics of taking the step to reveal errors of fact in the publication record that have been used to misinform history.
Keywords
- Darwin
- Plagiarism
- Patrick Matthew
- Matthew effect
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
BBC (1978). Men of ideas. Some creators of contemporary philosophy. British Broadcasting Corporation.
Benal, J. D. (1969). Science in history: Volume 1. The emergence of science (3rd ed.). Penguin Books.
Biagioli, M. (2012). From ciphers to confidentiality: Secrecy, openness and priority in science. British Journal for the History of Science, 45, 213–233. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087412000088
Bowler, P. J. (2013). Darwin deleted: Imagining a world without Darwin. University of Chicago Press.
Buckingham, H. W. (2006). The Marc Dax (1770–1837) Paul Broca (1824–1880) controversy over priority in science: Left hemisphere specificity for seat of articulate language and for lesions that cause aphemia. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 20(7–8), 613–619. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200500266703
Chambers, R. (1844). Vestiges of the natural history of creation. Wiley and Putnum.
Chambers, R. (1859). Charles Darwin on the origin of species. Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature Science and Arts, 311, 388–391.
Chambers, R., & Chambers, W. (1832, March 24). William Orr: On the training of plank timber. Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, 63.
Cohen, S. (2001). States of denial. Polity.
Columbia University Libraries. (2022). Archival collection. Harriet Zuckerman papers, 1887–2014, bulk 1963–1992. https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_10825294 Archived: https://archive.ph/AMImk
Dagg, J. L. (2018). Comparing the respective transmutation mechanisms of Patrick Matthew, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 123(4), 864–878.
Darwin, C. (1849a, January 29). Darwin, C.R. Letter to Strickland, H.E., Darwin correspondence database: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1215 Accessed 7 May 2013. Archived: https://archive.ph/Z1dU1
Darwin, C. R. (1849b, February 4). Letter to Strickland, H.E., Darwin correspondence database: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1221 Accessed 17 May 2013. Archived: https://archive.ph/zKFTR
Darwin, C. R. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection: Or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray.
Darwin, C. R. (1861). On the origin of species by means of natural selection: Or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life (3rd ed.). John Murray.
Darwin, C. R. & Wallace, A. R. (1858). On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Zoologist, 16, 6293–6308. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F350&viewtype=text&pageseq=1. Accessed 2 Dec 2022. https://archive.ph/ABLYX
Dawkins, R. (2010). Darwin’s five bridges: The way to natural selection. In B. Bryson (Ed.), Seeing further: The story of science and the Royal Society. Harper Collins.
de Beer, G. (1962). The Wilkins lecture: The origins of Darwin’s ideas on evolution and natural selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, 155(960), 321–338. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1962.0002
Desmond, A., Moore, J., & Browne, J. (2007). Charles Darwin. Oxford University Press.
Farys, R., & Wolbring, T. (2021). Matthew effects in science and the serial diffusion of ideas: Testing old ideas with new methods. Quantitative Science Studies, 2(3), 505–526. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00129
Fletcher, C. (1984, March 22). Why one man became the world hero. Review of Macfarlane, G. (1984) Alexander Fleming: The man and myth. New Scientist, p. 30.
Ford, B. J. (2011). Darwin the microscopist who didn’t discover evolution. The Microscope, 59(3), 129–137.
Ford, B. J. (2020). Nonscience returns. Curtis Press.
Howard, J. (1982). Darwin. Oxford University Press.
Loudon, J. C. (1832). Matthew Patrick on naval timber and arboriculture with critical notes on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Gardener’s Magazine, VIII, 703.
Macfarlane, G. (1984). Alexander Fleming: The man and the myth. Harvard University Press.
Maranda, P. (1972). Mythology. Penguin.
Matthew, P. (1831). On naval timber and arboriculture; with a critical note on authors who have recently treated the subject of planting. Adam Black.
Matthew, P. (1839). Emigration fields: North America, the cape, Australia, and New Zealand (describing these countries and giving a comparative view of the advantages they present to British settlers). Adam and Charles Black.
Matthew, P. (1860a, April 7). Letter to the gardeners’ chronicle: Nature’s law of selection. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette pp. 312–313.
Matthew, P. (1860b, May 12). Letter to the gardeners’ chronicle: Nature’s law of selection. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, p. 433.
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Harvard University Press.
Merton, R. K. (1957). Priorities in scientific discovery: A chapter in the sociology of science. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 635–659. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089193
Merton, R. K. (1968). The Matthew effect in science: The reward and communications systems of science are considered. Science, 159(3810), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.159.3810.56
Merton, R. K. (1973). The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. University of Chicago Press.
Merton, R. K. (1987). Three fragments from a sociologist’s notebooks: Establishing the phenomenon, specified ignorance, and strategic research materials. Annual Review Sociology, 13, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.13.080187.000245
Ockerbloom, J. M. (2022). The Online Books Page. Online Books by John Sinclair. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Sinclair%2C%20John%2C%20Sir%2C%201754%2D1835. Archived: https://archive.ph/ZS7o4
Power, M. (2014). Nullius in Verba – Darwin’s greatest secret. TLoNs Podcast #046. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2uBn-gUU4c
Rampino, M. R. (2011). Darwin’s error? Patrick Matthew and the catastrophic nature of the geologic record. Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology, 23(2/3), 227–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2010.523948
Schama, S. (2022). The romantics and us. Series 1. Episode 3. BBC https://www.bbc.co.UK/programmes/m000mv1h. Archived: https://archive.is/UdVgi
Secord, J. A. (2000). Victorian sensation: The extraordinary reception, and secret authorship of vestiges of the natural history of creation. University of Chicago Press.
Selby, P. J. (1842). A history of British forest-trees: Indigenous and introduced. Van Voorst.
Shermer, M. (2002). In Darwin’s shadow: The life and science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A biographical study on the psychology of history. Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. S. (1818). The code of agriculture: Including observations on gardens, orchards, woods and plantations. Hudson and and Cooke and Hale.
Sinclair, J. S. (1819). The code of agriculture: Including observations on gardens, orchards, woods and plantations. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones.
Strevens, M. (2003). The role of the priority rule in science. Journal of Philosophy, 100(2), 55–79.
Strevens, M. (2006). The role of the Matthew effect in science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 37(2), 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2005.07.009
Strevens, M. (2020). The knowledge machine: How an unreasonable idea created modern science. Allen Lane.
Strickland, H. E. (1849, January 31). Letter to Darwin. Darwin Correspondence Project. http://www.darwinproject.ac.UK/entry-1216. Archived: https://archive.ph/vomE7
Sutton, M. (2015). On knowledge contamination: New data challenges claims of Darwin’s and Wallace’s independent conceptions of Matthew’s prior-published hypothesis. Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy, 12, 167–205.
Sutton, M. (2022). Science fraud: Darwin’s plagiarism of Patrick Matthew’s theory. Curtis Press.
Sutton, M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018). Using date specific searches on Google Books to disconfirm prior origination knowledge claims for particular terms, words, and names. Social Sciences, 7(4), 66. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7040066
Wallace, A. R. (1845, December 28). Letter to Bates. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum. Unique WCP identifier 346: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/346/346/T/details.html
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.
Wallace, A. R. (1858). On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London. Zoology, 3, 45–62.
Wallace, A. R. (1879, May 9). Letter to Samuel Butler. Unique WCP identifier: WCP1586. Wallace Letters Online. Natural History Museum. Archived: https://archive.is/Ql3cc
Weale, M. E. (2015, August). Patrick Matthew’s law of natural selection. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 115(4), 785–791. https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12524
Wikipedia (2022). Patrick Matthew. Archived. https://archive.ph/2ZNKo
Zon, R. (1913). Darwinism in forestry. American Naturalist, 47, 541–546. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tbtebj2r/items?canvas=6
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sutton, M., Griffiths, M. (2023). The ‘Patrick Matthew Effect’ in Science. In: Curtis, G.J. (eds) Academic Integrity in the Social Sciences. Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43292-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43292-7_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-43291-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-43292-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)