Nicole Joseph
Professor
Rodriguez
Anthropology 101
February 11,
2016
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
1. In my
opinion, Alfred Russel Wallace had the most positive affect over Darwin’s
development of his theory of Natural selection.
2. Alfred Russel
Wallace is best known for his theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace
left on a voyage to the Dutch East Indies to
observe wildlife and collect specimens, which took him eight years. Wallace
finally came to the conclusion that living things evolve and wrote down his
theory and sent that to Darwin. Even though Darwin had already come up with his
own theory of natural selection, Wallace sending his theory motivated Darwin to
finally act.
3. Darwin and Wallace believed in the same thing, natural selection. When both of them went on their voyages and did their research, they came up with significantly different theories to what they observed. From the bullet points, what they did not agree on was, if the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different, In order for traits to evolve and change, they MUST be heritable, individuals do not evolve. Populations do. Additionally, I found that they both agreed that nature is a battle, with the heaviest casualties often occurring among the young. However, they did disagree on a few things. Darwin emphasised competition between individuals of the same species to survive and reproduce, whereas Wallace emphasised environmental pressures on varieties and species forcing them to become adapted to their local conditions. And Wallace had envisioned natural selection as a kind of feedback mechanism keeping species adapted to their environment. Wallace believed science was simply the search for truth in the natural world and Darwin believed that science must invoke only natural processes functioning unbroken natural laws in nonteleological ways.
4. I do not think Darwin would have been able to take his theory of natural selection to the length that he was able to take it without Wallace. Wallace had long worked on a theory of natural selection. When he did, he wrote down what he came up with and sent that to Darwin, who was also working on his own theory. All we hear about today is Charles Darwin, we did not know who Alfred Wallace was because Darwin got all the credit. Also, there were times when Darwin wrote to Wallace asking questions that he did not understand about why animals do what they do. There were times when Wallace supplied Darwin with birds for him to conduct his experiment on, and Wallace was not mentioned.
5. Darwin knew he could get into trouble and ruin his career believing in his theory. What Darwin was concluding was unorthodox and not only went against the church, but because it went against all of the natural history in Great Britain. But Darwin knew what he believed and truly believed that his research should be out there for everyone to see. He published his book on November 24, 1859.
I think that you're right in the fact that without Wallace to give Darwin that push he may have never actually published his theory and we would have never heard of Darwin. The relationship between the two was obviously helpful to Darwin and not to Wallace unfortunately you're very right when no one hears of Wallace when learning about evolution.
ReplyDeleteGood opening discussion on Wallace's background and work in relation to how it relates to Darwin's work.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused in the next section that you identify some bullet points that you say Wallace did NOT acknowledge as being part of his mechanism of natural selection. The bullet points, as they are laid out, are in a logical progression, each building on the point that came before it. Take out one and the rest fall. All of the points apply equally to both Wallace and Darwin. I checked your source (a good one) and could find nothing in there that suggested that this was not the case.
Note: There is an excellent discussion in your source regarding "biogeography", is attributed as uniquely Wallace's idea. Worth reviewing.
Some clarification on your next section: Darwin had been working on his theory for over 20 years by the time Wallace sent his famous letter that provided Darwin with the kick in the rear he needed to finally publish. Yes, the two had corresponded over the years and Wallace had provided evidentury support for Darwin's work in the specimens he sent, but this doesn't change the fact that Darwin's idea was well-formed by the time he became aware of Wallace's matching theory. What many people don't realize is that the first paper to be published on natural selection was a joint paper between Darwin and Wallace. But where Darwin went onto continue publishing books on the idea, Wallace pursued other lines of inquiry (such as biogeography) and therefore was not as closely associated with the concept of natural selection after that initial paper.
"Darwin knew he could get into trouble and ruin his career believing in his theory. "
Cringing a little at the word "believing". Scientists don't "believe" in their theories. They try to falsify them and in that process either succeed in falsiying them or provide support for them. In this case, Darwin found that evidence seemed to support the mechanism of natural selection.
"But Darwin knew what he believed and truly believed that his research should be out there for everyone to see."
Putting aside the word "believe", Darwin was much more reluctant and unsure of the value of his idea, which was why he delayed publication for more than 20 years and only seemed to publish when he became aware that he risked losing claim to an idea he had spent 20 years developing. So it is worth asking what caused him to delay so long. We know the history of the church in dealing with scientists who proposed ideas contradictory to the teachings of the church (e.g., Galileo). Darwin lived in a time when he didn't have to fear imprisonment or death, but that doesn't mean publishing his work couldn't result in negative social or professional repercussions. What did he fear? And did he fear for himself or also for his family?
Hi Nicole, I too believe that Wallace was the strongest influence for Darwin. I think that Wallace was more of a catalyst for Darwin though. True, they did correspond but it wasn't until he sent Darwin thee "theory of evolution" that Darwin decided to act and publish the same theory.
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