How can you account for wallace's view that his putting forth the theory of evolution would have been seen as simply ingenious speculation rather than the revolutionary effect of darwins orgin of species.

Wallace thought that his evolutionary theory would be regarded as been mere ingenious speculation and would not have received the type of recognition Darwin had because he feels Darwin was older than him, and he had won more respect from his previous works and that he had been working on that idea long before him, which will make him have more information on the subject. So Wallace conceded to Darwin's theory, although his own work was supposed to be accorded the recognition it deserves too.

Question:

Both Darwin and Wallace developed the same theory to account for their interpretations of the data they had observed. How can you account for Wallace's view that his putting forth the theory of evolution would have been seen as simply an "ingenious speculation" rather than the revolutionary effect of Darwin's Origin of Species?

Answer:

When a thought or practice, or a process or a theory, or an event is been referred to as ingenious speculation, this means such thing is been characterized by cleverness or originality of invention and construction.

Wallace thought his theory of evolution would only be seen as ingenious speculation because as at that time Charles Darwin had not only written lots of books which earned him respect, he had been studied the thought longer, he had more readily available information from this past research than Alfred Wallace.

Because of this, Wallace courteously acknowledged Darwin as the originator of the idea even though he should have received credit for his work too.