Alfred Russel Wallace came with the idea of evolution by natural selection independantly of Darwin, and his communicating this to Darwin prompted the publication of 'On the Origin of Species' in 1859, in a relatively short, populist form. However, suppose Wallace was not around, having perhaps died in a ship fire in 1852, or of fever in Borneo in the late 1850s? Then what?
Without Wallace to prod him, perhaps Darwin's theory is only published posthumously, some 20 or more years later than in OTL (assuming he still dies in 1882), and also in a large and highly verbose volume, making it much harder for people to understand. This is likely to seriously hinder the adoption of evolutionary ideas in science and the world as a whole. In science this may be a bad thing, though perhaps less so in the wider world. Perhaps...
Without Wallace to prod him, perhaps Darwin's theory is only published posthumously, some 20 or more years later than in OTL (assuming he still dies in 1882), and also in a large and highly verbose volume, making it much harder for people to understand. This is likely to seriously hinder the adoption of evolutionary ideas in science and the world as a whole. In science this may be a bad thing, though perhaps less so in the wider world. Perhaps...