![]() These new sources have shown us that every substantive claim in the popular narrative about Wallace turns out to be incorrect. There has not been enough progress with our understanding of Wallace because some of the important research projects that have unveiled a treasure trove of new findings about Darwin had never been done for Wallace: his complete works had not been assembled on one scholarly website, his Malay archipelago expedition correspondence had not been collected and edited and his notebooks and journals had not been edited and their contents made intelligible.Īll of these have recently been done, the latter two not yet published. But while some very able scholars have studied Wallace, he by contrast has remained mostly the preserve of amateurs and enthusiasts. ![]() ![]() (Not to mention the back of the £10 note, although Jane Austen is about to boot him off that pedestal).ĭarwin's life and works have been meticulously studied by many scholars for over a century. Why? Because the wealthy and privileged Darwin basks in all the glory of revolutionising our understanding of life on Earth. He is now "forgotten" because he has been unfairly swept under the carpet of history. The new shelf of sympathetically written books about Wallace tells a pretty consistent story. Papers by both men were read at a scientific meeting in 1858, but Darwin is remembered as the discoverer of the theory because his contribution was placed first. Rather than having Wallace's paper published immediately on its own, which was normal practice at the time, Darwin's friends cooked up a scheme to rob the working-class Wallace of his priority and instead put their friend Darwin first. During this time, according to some, Darwin stole some ideas to use in his own otherwise identical theory. He immediately wrote up his theory and posted it to Darwin on the next mail steamer.ĭarwin, however, withheld the paper for perhaps two weeks before he let it become known. Then, while on the island of Gilolo and prompted by thoughts about the local races, Wallace hit on the idea of the struggle for existence and natural selection. Not afraid to announce unorthodox views, Wallace published a radically innovative theory of evolution (minus only natural selection) in an 1855 paper. While Charles Darwin sat on his revolutionary theory for 20 years, terrified of his conservative contemporaries, Wallace boldly set out to solve the great problem of the origin of species. For example, the giant tortoises on one island had saddle-shaped shells, whereas those on another island had dome-shaped shells, as you can see in the photos below.Since the 1970s, the story of Wallace has become something like this: Darwin noticed that the plants and animals on the different islands also differed. Some are rocky and dry others have better soil and more rainfall. Individual Galápagos islands differ from one another in important ways. The Galápagos Islands are a group of 16 small volcanic islands that are 966 kilometers (600 miles) off the west coast of South America. From left: Giant Marine Iguana, Blue-Footed Boobies, and Fossil Skeleton of a Giant Ground Sloth in a museum.ĭarwin’s most important observations were made on the Galápagos Islands (shown on the map above of the Beagle voyage). He also dug up the fossil skeleton of a giant ground sloth-like the one shown here. \): On his voyage, Darwin saw giant marine iguanas and blue-footed boobies.
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