Natural Selection 1

An offspring of a plant or animal has characteristics that vary, often
in subtle ways, from those of its “parents.” Because of the
environment, genetics, and chance circumstances, some of these
offspring will reproduce more than others. So, a species with certain
characteristics will tend, on average, to have more “children.” In
this sense, nature “selects” genetic characteristics suited to an
environment—and, more importantly, eliminates unsuitable genetic
variations. Therefore, an organism’s gene pool is constantly
decreasing.  This is called natural selection (a).

a.	In 1835 and again in 1837, Edward Blyth, a creationist, published
an explanation of natural selection. Later, Charles Darwin adopted it
as the foundation for his theory, evolution by natural selection.
Darwin failed to credit Blyth for his important insight. [See
evolutionist Loren C. Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X (New
York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), pp. 45–80.]

Darwin also largely ignored Alfred Russel Wallace, who had
independently proposed the theory that is usually credited solely to
Darwin. In 1855, Wallace published the theory of evolution in a brief
note in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, a note that Darwin
read. Again, on 9 March 1858, Wallace explained the theory in a letter
to Darwin, 20 months before Darwin finally published his more detailed
theory of evolution.

Edward Blyth also showed why natural selection would limit an
organism’s characteristics to only slight deviations from those of all
its ancestors. Twenty-four years later, Darwin tried to refute Blyth’s
explanation in a chapter in The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection (24 November 1859).

Darwin felt that, with enough time, gradual changes could accumulate.
Charles Lyell’s writings (1830) had persuaded Darwin that the earth
was at least hundreds of thousands of years old. James Hutton’s
writings (1788) had convinced Lyell that the earth was extremely old.
Hutton felt that certain geological formations supported an old earth.
Those geological formations are explained, not by time, but by a
global flood.

“Darwin was confronted by a genuinely unusual problem. The mechanism,
natural selection, by which he hoped to prove the reality of
evolution, had been written about most intelligently by a
nonevolutionist [Edward Blyth]. Geology, the time world which it was
necessary to attach to natural selection in order to produce
[hopefully] the mechanism of organic change, had been beautifully
written upon by a man [Charles Lyell] who had publicly repudiated the
evolutionary position.”  Eiseley, p. 76.

Charles Darwin also plagiarized in other instances. [See Jerry
Bergman, “Did Darwin Plagiarize His Evolution Theory?” Technical
Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2002, pp. 58–63.]

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences8.html#wp1194028