Did Darwin really steal material from Wallace to complete his theory of natural selection?
Maybe, though the evidence is something short of compelling. It has been suggested by Brackman (1980) and Brooks (1984) that Darwin might have received Wallace’s communication in May or early June of 1858 rather than in the middle of June of that same year, and that Darwin may have spent the extra month using Wallace’s model of species divergence to complete his own ideas on the subject before soliciting the opinions of his friends Hooker and Lyell on how to deal with the priority issue. Possibly so, but despite the best efforts of Brooks (1984) in particular, most observers remain unconvinced. A recent book by Davies (2008) presents new evidence suggesting Darwin really did receive Wallace’s communication in 1858 earlier than has been thought (Davies also presents some other arguments), but the situation is still circumstantial. See additional analysis by Beddall (1988) and Berry (2002).
