Charles Darwin in 1881WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, ELLIOTT & FRY
New evidence is casting doubt on the popular belief that Charles Darwin may have borrowed some ideas from naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace when developing his theory of evolution by natural selection. The story goes that in 1858 Wallace, studying the biogeography of the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia, wrote a letter to Darwin outlining his thoughts on how nature might select the most advantageous traits among living things in such a way that species could change forms and functions gradually over long periods of time. Darwin was to deliver Wallace's letter to renowned geologist Charles Lyell immediately, but instead lied about the date he received the correspondence, held onto it for two weeks, and cribbed from it to add to his own ideas on evolution.
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