The picture was commissioned, in light of new data (Sutton 2014) that proves naturalists well known the Darwin and Wallace read and then cited Matthew's book before going on to play roles at the very epicenter of influence on the pre-1858 work of Darwin and Wallace on natural selection. The Blessed Virgin St Mary's conception of Jesus of Nazareth, is a miracle because she became pregnant with the child of "God" whilst surrounded by men who were fertile to some unknown degree. The analogy is perfect because so too were Darwin and Wallace surrounded by man whose brains were fertile - to some unknown degree - with Matthew's unique ideas. Therefore, in the final analysis, if Darwin and Wallace did not conceive Matthew's unique discovery, name for it, examples of it in nature, and his artificial versus natural slection analogy of differences to explain it, by some kind of 'knowledge contamination,' then they must surely have each been mysteriously endowed with a miraculous and divine cognitive contraceptive device (MAD CCD).
Seriously, I don't think belief in miracles has any rational place in helping us to tell the veracious history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection The probability that Darwin and Wallace lied when they each claimed to have independently discovered natural selection seems more likely than not. The New Data and a wealth of further evidence about their lies and deceit suggests Darwin and Wallace committed the world's greatest science fraud by deliberately plagiarizing Matthew's book.
Background to Gabriel Wood's painting "Their Immaculate Conception"
Contrary to the Patrick Matthew Supermyth started by Darwin in 1860 in his own defense, other naturalists in fact did read Matthew's (1831) prior published theory of natural selection.
At least 25 people cited the book before 1858 and seven of those were naturalists.
The Newly Discovered Citing Seven, in date order of their citing of Matthew's book, are:
- John Loudon (1832) ,
- Robert Chambers (1832),
- Edmund Murphy (1834),
- Cuthbert Johnson (1842),
- Prideaux John Selby (1842),
- John Norton (1851)
- William Jameson (1853).
Three of these seven naturalists - Loudon, Selby and Chambers - played key roles at the epicenter of influence on both Darwin's and Wallace's pre-1858 work on the theory of natural selection.
Loudon - an associate of Darwin's friends William and Joseph Hooker - edited two of Edward Blyth's (1835, 1836) hugely influential papers on species. Blyth was Darwin's most useful and prolific informant.
Selby edited Wallace's (1855) famous Sarawak paper on natural selection.
Chambers (1844) wrote the best selling Vestiges of Creation - the book that most influenced Wallace, greatly influenced Darwin, and "put evolution in the air" in the first half of the 19th century.
Barring the occurrence of a dual supernatural miracle of immaculate conception by divine cognitive contraception, some kind of 'knowledge contamination' appears more likely than not.
