Posted: May 01, 2012 8:58 am
... there is a considerable debate as to whether Darwin "ripped off" Wallace's ideas ...
I don't see how that would have been possible, given that Wallace's ideas were based on "intelligent evolution". The website below is a typical pro-Wallace site:
http://www.erasmuspress.net/Publications_3.html
Though based upon very different formulations of natural selection, the Wallace/Darwin dispute as presented by Flannery shows a metaphysical clash of worldviews coextensive with modern evolutionary theory itself – design and purpose versus randomness and chance.
So, it's hardly likely that Darwin "ripped off" Wallace's ideas. Also, Wallace's ideas were NOT equivalent to Darwinian natural selection at all.