Some people don't realise that attacking Darwin's personal life over Evolution is nonsensical as he was not the only scientist with the theory at the time. Many scientists were debating the idea including Darwin's father and grandfather. Amongst the people throwing the theory around was a young poor Welshman with a love for biology and questions, his name was Alfred, yes everyone could calm down a Welsh :) man called Alfred Wallace was also on the case.....
Many don't know that he contributed much to the theory too. He and Darwin combined their work for the theory. My spine tingles with excitment and heart tugs with respect that these two men shared their decades of experiments, literally there life's work together, exchanging ego for truth.
Wallace became an evolutionist in 1845 whilst living in Neath in Wales, after being inspired by Robert Chambers' controversial book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. So interested in the subject did he become that in 1848 he suggested to his friend Henry Walter Bates that they go on an expedition to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to collect and study animals and plants and try to solve the great "mystery of mysteries" of how evolutionary change has taken place.
'I shd [should] like to take some one family, to study thoroughly - principally with a view to the theory of the origin of species. By that means I am strongly of [the] opinion that some definite results might be arrived at.'
Although Wallace made many important discoveries during his four years in the Amazon Basin he did not manage to find the elusive mechanism. That would have to wait until some time later. Twenty-six days into his return voyage from Brazil back to England, Wallace's ship catches fire. It sinks along with almost all the natural history specimens he had collected during the two last and most interesting years of his trip.
The survivors drift for 10 days in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean before being rescued by a passing cargo ship.
Wallace sets off on his next and most important expedition, this time to Southeast Asia. He arrives in Singapore in April 1854 and spends the next eight years travelling 14,000 miles around the archipelago, visiting every major island at least once. This is where Wallace will make his most famous discoveries.
Wallace writes about evolution for the first time from Sarawak in Borneo.His paper, On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species, is published later that year. It becomes known as his 'Sarawak Law' paper.
In it he states, 'Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species.'In his view this provides very strong evidence for evolution, but he still doesn't understand how it works.
In February 1855 whilst in Sarawak, Borneo, Wallace wrote what was probably the most important paper published on evolution up until that point. His "Sarawak Law" article made such an impression on the famous geologist Charles Lyell that in November 1855, soon after reading it, Lyell started writing a "species notebook" in which he began to contemplate the idea of evolutionary change. In April 1856 Lyell paid a visit to Darwin at Down House, and Darwin divulged his theory of natural selection to Lyell for the first time: an idea which Darwin had been working on, more or less in secret, for about 20 years. Soon afterwards Lyell sent a letter to Darwin urging him to publish the theory lest someone beat him to it (he probably had Wallace in mind!), so in May 1856 Darwin, heeding this advice, began to write a "sketch" of his ideas for publication. Finding the "sketch" unsatisfactory, Darwin abandoned it in about October 1856 and instead began to write an extensive book on the subject.
In February 1858 Wallace was suffering from an attack of fever on the remote Indonesian island of Gilolo (Halmahera) when suddenly the idea of natural selection occurred to him. As soon as he had sufficient strength he wrote an detailed essay explaining his theory and sent it together with a covering letter to Darwin, who he knew from correspondence was interested in the subject of species transmutation (as evolution was then called). He asked Darwin to pass the essay on to Lyell if Darwin thought it was sufficiently interesting - evidently hoping that Lyell would ensure that it was published in a good journal. Lyell (who Wallace had never been in contact with) was one of the most respected scientists of the time and Wallace must have thought that he would be interested to learn about his new theory because it explained the evolutionary "law" which Wallace had proposed in his 1855 paper. Darwin had mentioned in a letter to Wallace that Lyell had found his "Sarawak Law" paper noteworthy.
Unbeknownst to Wallace, Darwin had discovered natural selection many years earlier. He was therefore horrified when he received Wallace's letter and immediately appealed to his friends Lyell and Joseph Hooker for advice on what to do. They famously decided to present Wallace's essay (without first asking his permission!), along with two unpublished excerpts from Darwin's writings on the subject, to a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on July 1st 1858. These documents were published together in the Society's journal a month later as the paper "On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; And On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection". Darwin's contributions were placed before Wallace's essay, thus emphasising Darwin's priority to the idea.
Darwin was to beat Wallace to the post on evolution, as a true scientist Wallace respected the pursuit of truth more than anything, dedicating his later publication (The Malay Archipelago) to Darwin.
Cut to 2009 some 140 years later and a 26 year old snare arrives at University, denying Evolution as did the religious zealots of Darwin's and Wallace's time. I was to be taught medicine, but first about evolution here.....
The Alfred Wallace Lecture Theatre in Cardiff University, Wales.
I remember the first day I entered the theatre bemused at the name 'Alfred Wallace' as I passed his plaque by the entrance.
Alfred Wallace died 100 years ago, he was a fantastic scientist and a good man, his dedication and hard work played a part in changing my life, maybe your life, drastically... over a century later. My lecturor was kind enough to loan me a third edition of "On the Origin of Species" following a conversation about the definition of evolution, everything I had been told growing up was a lie. I started to realise that the theory is undeniable, the beliefs I had were evidently wrong and it was time to make some seriously difficult decisions.... it was a very exciting time and there began my route from myth to science.
Cheers Mr Wallace :) x
If you live in the UK maybe go visit his 100 year celebration!
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/wallace/
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Check out these pages for more info
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographies/wallace/
