spectral-alphabet asked: I read that Darwin didn't steal the research, but essentially hauled ass on publishing what he had done before a colleague of his finished with similar research. I would write more but I wasn't paying attention in class and only remember this. :P
I’m no expert on this, but I believe Darwin formed his theory and was in the process of writing his book but was taking a really long time to do so. While he was writing The Origin of Species a colleague of his did come out with a book dealing with the same thing. The issue there was that it wasn’t nearly as detailed as Darwin’s.