Which pic is Darwin, and which is Wallace?
Although often hidden by Darwin‘s imminent shadow, Alfred Wallace deserves no passing glance, for the theory of natural selection is no easy task. Alfred Russel Wallace was born in 1823, 14 years after the almighty Charles Darwin. This native of Britain was an explorer, naturalist, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. His travels took him from the
Amazon River basin to the Malay Archipelago. Wallace was a prominent scientist of his era, contributing to the concept of warning coloration in animals, and even referred to as the “father of biogeography.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of any of these contributions. Alfred Wallace is best known for the fact that he wrote a journal on natural selection that was oh-so similar to Darwin’s, which gave Darwin the push to stop being lazy and publish his writings. Indeed, Darwin’s journals were far more comprehensive and thus he deserved more credit. However, Darwin also had the benefit of reading Wallace’s journals before fine-tuning his own.
If by some bizarre happenstance I could travel back to the 19th century, I would pay a trip to Alfred Wallace. After all, he seems like a pretty cool fellow. I might tell Wallace that he should perhaps be a bit more thorough in his journals. I would say, “Listen, Alfie, you did so much good for this world, because you were the driving force for Darwin’s final publications… but in the 21st century, you don’t get too much credit. Maybe if you gathered some more evidence and met up with a monk named Gregor Mendel, you could gain some more prominence for your work.”
“The problem then was not only how and why do species change, but how and why do they change into new and well defined species, distinguished from each other in so many ways; why and how they become so exactly adapted to distinct modes of life; and why do all the intermediate grades die out (as geology shows they have died out) and leave only clearly defined and well marked species, genera, and higher groups of animals?”
If only he knew..
Another under dog, much like Rosalind Franklin, although Darwin was more careful in giving Wallace his dues. I wonder why Darwin was so reluctant to publish. I’m certain it was not due to laziness as you suggest. I wonder if he was reluctant to take on the church over such a volatile issue. If Wallace had only published first, then he could have been the poster-boy target for the Fundamentalist groups.
Did you notice the similarity in the beards? Who do you think came up with that look first … Darwin or Wallace?