Sunday, 22 April 2007
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 – 1912) – the one with a similar theory as Charles Darwin
There is another scientist of Darwin’s
era who thought of almost the same idea of evolution as Darwin! He is none other than, Alfred Russel Wallace (January 8, 1823 – November 7, 1913). Wallace worked as a professional animal collector in Malay Archipelago. Both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace worked independently and obtained the same conclusion about the theory of evolution by Natural Selection, “the survival of the fittest”. They both had their own observations, inferences and evidences to support this theory. Wallace informed Darwin of his discovery and to Darwin’s surprise, they had the same evolutionary idea of Natural Selection! They both concluded that all species evolved from some common ancestors through natural selection whereby the environment selects the variations among the species that had resulted simply by chance. Basically, this means that all present-day organisms are the modified descendents of former existing organisms. Wallace managed to come to this evolutionary theory while reading Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Influenced by Malthus’ ideas, Wallace observed the nature in the Malay Archipelago and discovered that both selection and evolution occur simultaneously. He was very young then when he had come up with this rough idea of natural selection.Darwin wanted to allow Wallace to publish the evolutionary idea first, but under Lyell’s advice, they both came forward to propose their ideas to the Linnaean Society of London in 1858. Then, he first published his completed theory of evolution, “The Origin of Species”. Since Darwin had published his idea publicly first and had won over interests of a large number of readers, Darwin became much more well-known than Wallace. Darwin’s book was also much more detailed and supported with more evidence than Wallace’s essay. However, one must remember that Darwin wasn’t the only one who had come up with the theory of evolution by Natural Selection, and that his main idea was also discovered by a young naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace.
Sources of pictures
http://www.thesecondevolution.com/wallace&darwin.jpg
Wikipedia
