![]() ![]() On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. South America called them: Explorations of the great naturalists: La Condamine, Humbolt, Darwin, spruce. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71(1), 10–19. Alfred Russel Wallace letters and reminiscences. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex (2nd ed.). The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. beagle around the world, under the command of Capt. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Evolution and human behaviour: Darwinian perspectives on human nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Ĭartwright, J. Berkeley: University of California Press.īrowne, J. "Future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations," he writes from the Malay archipelago in 1863.Bowler, P. He likens species to letters that make up the volumes of Earth's history, and their loss obliterating an invaluable record of the past. In other papers, Wallace laments the rate at which species are being forced to extinction, and makes one of the earliest calls for conservation. Having declared the taste almost impossible to describe, he offers "a rich butter-like custard, highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities". This was my own case when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian eater," he writes. "When brought into a house the smell is often so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. In a passage on the durian fruit, Wallace describes a large coconut-sized fruit with short, stout spines, liable to fall from trees and cause spectacular wounds to the unwary. "He couldn't have imagined plate tectonics, which is the real explanation, and that Australia started out in South America," said van Wyhe.Īmong Wallace's other writings are notes on local cuisine. Wallace proposed the animals came from two ancient, larger landmasses, a Super Asia and a Super Australia, which had long since sunk beneath the waves. The observation clashed with the thinking of the day, that species were created for their particular environment. He noticed that species on either side of an invisible line between Australia and Asia were substantially different, despite being close geographical neighbours. Wallace's thorough survey of wildlife led to another breakthrough in 1859, known today as the Wallace line. And Darwin, again the perfect gent, passes it to Lyell, and they decide to publish essays from them both," said van Wyhe. Wallace sends his essay to the one man in the world who has been working on this for 20 years. "It's one of the greatest ironies in history. He sent an essay from the island to Darwin, who passed it to the great geologist, Charles Lyell, who then proposed it to the Linnean Society alongside an essay from Darwin. In the midst of a malarial fever, on the island of Ternate in Indonesia, he had a moment of clarity, that many are born, lots die, and only a few survive. So Wallace, from the very beginning, referred to it as Darwin's theory, and he never relented to the end of his life," said van Wyhe.įrom 1855, Wallace published a series of articles that came ever closer to declaring the theory of evolution through natural selection. "The Victorians were falling over themselves to be more modest than everybody else. Victorian modesty played a part in Wallace's diminished place in history, and perhaps some deference to what he, a poor and unprivileged man, saw as the great figures of science. Though both men announced the theory at the same time, Darwin's publication, On the Origin of Species, the following year was the seed of revolution that made senior scientists take notice. ![]() In July 1858, the first papers on natural selection were read aloud at the Linnean Society in London, one from Darwin, the other from Wallace. ![]() The history of science is littered with names overlooked, but few so much as Wallace. He's far less well known than Darwin, and it's high time people had reliable material on his work," van Wyhe said. Van Wyhe, who directed a similar project for Darwin's works several years ago, said the Wallace collection was intended as a reliable source of information on the naturalist whose name was so eclipsed by Darwin's. The new bird of paradise that Wallace discovered, Wallace's standard-wing.
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