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Kasz216 on 15 September 2009
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highwaystar101 said:
Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

Well, I guess my memory was mistaken.  But ... Darwin might not ever have published?  Really? 

Either never or posthumorsly... I think it was due to the aforementioned religious troubles.  He was afterall going to be a priest at first... that beign his goal in college.

Wallace actually sent him his thesis because they were friends and that's why Darwin did publish.

Darwin took 20 years to publish after the trip that supposidly inspired him.

20 years after 5 weeks of research... he had plenty of info... but was unwilling to go foward with it for whatever reason.

It's why he and Wallace presented jointly in the same year.

It should also be noted by the way that Darwin and Wallace weren't actually the first peope to write about Natural selection. 

A few papers before them existed... they just weren't as widely talked about.

The thing about just about every "great" scientist is... they're usually not supremely smarter then everybody else.  Just slightly smarter then 3-4 people who are on the same trail.

Darwin acknowledges a lot of people that did fieldwork in the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, he also states that he had to rush his abstract so it could be released before other competing theories of evolution were released. So yes if Darwin hadn't developed the theory of evolution someone else would have, Wallace being one of the forerunners. But most scientists work in this way, a lot of them "stand on the shoulders of giants" as it were. It's an ugly business really, when you think about it like that.

While I acknowledge that Darwin by no means the only person working on a theory of evolution and if I he hadn't existed someone else would have taken his place. I also certainly wouldn't begrudge him of the accolade, because then we must start saying people like Einstein, Newton, Bohr, Curie, Faraday, Bacon, etc. weren't important because people would have taken their place had they not existed.

I actually would say that.

Not rob them from their greatness.... but understand what their greatness was.  That they just beat out people slightly.

For example Rath treated it as if there wasn't Darwin evolution wouldn't of been a theory.

In my book when you go with the arguemtn of "who was more improtant" scientists lose out because of replaceability.