Originally Posted by
RampDog
"The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859,
Not true. The basic theory of survival of the fittest and evolutionary development was around much earlier. For instance Lamark published a proposed theory on "Transmutation of Species" in 1809, but it is understood that he was codifying and recording ideas that had been being widely discussed in the scientific community for some time, building on the work of people like Joseph Kölreuter and Erasmus Darwin (Charles' granfather). Robert Grant and Robert Knox started joining up the theories into a structure relating to a "single ancestor species" theory, and in 1844 Robert Chambers published work linking all of this to the fossil record.
Charles Darwin did a lot of useful work collating and assembling all of this into a coherent structure that he then published in a book, but he didn't invent the idea or even formulate it.
NALOPKT(&EFGAS),
PDR