@Saphire Systrine
This I agree. it’s all about who gets written in history. I mean, Darwin wasn’t the first guy who thought about the theory of evolution in the sense that there is a common ancestor among species.
It’s not that hard to come to that conclusion, really. You observe enough species with common traits and features and one day you’ll think to yourself: Hey, they might just be related somehow. I bet you yourselves have thought about it at one point before even being exposed to Darwin at school.
I mean, we get this quote from an oriental scholar back in the early
9th century:
“Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming them into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to their offspring.”
So…I think even if Newton was goofing around and failed to publish his math works, someone else would. Maybe our world would be slightly different since it wouldn’t be based on “Newtonian” physics, but we’re not gonna be stuck in the pre-scientific revolution age.