Did Charles Darwin steal from Alfred Wallace? How did Alfred Wallace influence Darwin?

Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.

Alfred Wallace is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection.

Alfred Wallace’s paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin’s writings in 1858.

Alfred Wallace’s theory of evolution bares striking similarities to that of Charles Darwin’s and it has led to speculations that Charles Darwin stole his well known theory of natural selection from Wallace.

Did Charles Darwin steal from Alfred Wallace?

In essence, Charles Darwin didn’t steal anything from Wallace.

However, their theories resembled each other very closely, but they weren’t quite identical.

The story behind the introduction of the idea of evolution takes us back to the very day that Charles Darwin’s papers on natural selection were presented.

According to American science, nature, and travel writer David Quammen, Charles Darwin first wrote about the theory of evolution 20 years prior to Wallace but delayed in publishing because he wanted to gather more evidence, amass a mountain of supporting data, polish his argument.

Again, Charles Darwin delayed because he was a little bit wary of how this drastic radical idea would be received.

How did Alfred Wallace influence Darwin?

After a variety of zoological discoveries, Alfred Wallace proposed a theory of evolution which matched the unpublished ideas Darwin had kept secret for nearly 20 years.

Alfred Russell Wallace, the contemporary of Darwin, as mentioned earlier also came up with the idea of natural selection and his work kind of lit a fire under Darwin.

This encouraged Darwin to collect his scientific ideas and collaborate with Wallace and they published their scientific ideas jointly in 1858.

David Quammen wrote about Wallace in the book, “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin.”