The "Forgotten" Father of Evolution

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

While his colleague Charles Darwin is revered as one of the greatest British scientists to have lived, Alfred Russel Wallace never became a household name.

Many believe the 19th century scientist, who may have even coined the phrase 'origin of species' which became the title of Darwin's earth-shattering theory, could be regarded as the 'forgotten father' of evolution.

He also originated the concept of warning colouration in animals and the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how species evolved.

Wallace also did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the Wallace Line that divides the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts.

The work of Wallace will finally be celebrated 100 years after his death in a series of events at the Natural History Museum in London.

A portrait of the scientist will be unveiled in the museum's Central Hall close to the famous statue of Darwin by comedian and naturalist Bill Bailey and the museum will put an archive of Wallace's correspondence online, as well as displaying some of his most important specimens.

The Natural History Museum's Wallace 100 programme was organised to mark the centenary of his death in 1913 and put the biologist back in the spotlight.

Both Wallace and Darwin shared authorship of the scientific article that first proposed the theory of natural selection in 1858, a year before Darwin's book On the Origin of Species came out and secured a place in history.

Wallace independently originated with the idea of natural selection and founded the science of evolutionary biogeography - the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals.

He made a significant impact in fields as diverse as anthropology and epidemiology, and gathered thousands of previously unknown species in South America and Asia.

Overshadowed: Alfred Russel Wallace will finally escape the shadow of Charles Darwin

 

Celebration: London's Natural History Museum, pictured, is to celebrate the work of Alfred Russel Wallace 100 years after his death

 

ONE OF THE 19TH CENTURY'S MOST REMARKABLE INTELLECTUALS - ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

The 'Batocera Wallacei' part of a collection of Alfred Russel Wallace's specimens which has been on display at the Natural History Museum in London previously

 

Born in 1823, Alfred Russel Wallace was one of the 19th century's most remarkable intellectuals.

Not only did he co-discover the process of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858, he also made other significant contributions to subjects as diverse as glaciology, land reform, anthropology, ethnography, epidemiology, and astrobiology.

His pioneering work on evolutionary biogeography (the study of how plants and animals are distributed) led to his recognition as the subject’s ‘father’.
Wallace is regarded as the pre-eminent collector and field biologist of tropical regions of the 19th century and his book The Malay Archipelago is one of the most celebrated travel writings of that century and has never been out of print.
In February 1858 Wallace suffered an attack of fever in the village of Dodinga on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera and suddenly the idea of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary change occurred to him.
As soon as he had sufficient strength he wrote a detailed essay explaining his theory and sent it together with a covering letter to Charles Darwin, who he knew from correspondence was interested in the subject of evolution. He asked Darwin to pass the essay on to lawyer and foremost geologist Charles Lyell if Darwin viewedhis findings sufficiently interesting - likely in the hope that Lyell would help to ensure that it was published in a good journal.
Lyell (who Wallace had never corresponded with) was a respected scientist of the time and Wallace may have  anticipated his interest in reading the new theory as it explained the 'laws' which Wallace had proposed in his 'Sarawak Law' paper.
Darwin had mentioned in a letter to Wallace that Lyell had found Wallace's 1855 paper noteworthy. Unbeknown to Wallace, Darwin had discovered natural selection many years earlier. He was horrified when he received Wallace's letter and immediately appealed to his influential friends Lyell and Joseph Hooker for advice on what to do.
Lyell and Hooker decided to present Wallace's essay, along with two unpublished excerpts from Darwin's writings on the subject to a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858.
Source: http://wallacefund.info/