A scientist has claimed that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was not actually original.
Dr. Michael Weale stated that Patrick Matthew, a little-known antecedent of Charles Darwin, was under-appreciated even though he described the idea of large-scale evolution by natural selection decades before Darwin did.
However, some of his ideas were different from Darwin's but are equally valid.
Weale further added that Darwin used detailed, methodical force of argument to convince the world of evolution by natural selection, but Matthew's reasoning was brilliant in a different way, a concise piece of deduction that was well worth reading even today.
The study is published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.