[adamzwasserman]

You seem to discount the possibility that ideas are emergent and as they emerge, multiple people at once become aware of them.

I am asserting it is Charles Fort's "steam engine time". Far from a crank position. It is one that bears serious consideration.

[saghm]

No, I'm saying that simultaneous discovery and plagiarism are not philosophically incompatible, and treating them as equivalent is hard to take seriously.