Within a year of returning home Wallace had planned his next, and He collected thousands ofĮxamples of (mostly) birds, beetles and butterflies. Habits of the native tribes he encountered. Unexplored routes along the river, Wallace studied languages and ![]() ![]() Mapping, collecting and recording specimens. Wallace spent another four years travelling along the river, Samples of living organisms, the pair parted ways to cover more Wallace to new aspects of biology and four years later they set off With a like-minded naturalist – Henry Walter Bates. He was hired as a teacher in 1844 and then became friends Nevertheless, his love for natural history was ever Wallace is also seen as the ‘Father of bio-geography’ – the study of how and why animals and plants live where they do – because of his extensive research abroad studying the wildlife of South America and Oceania.Īfter leaving school, Wallace worked as a surveyor for his brother’sĬompany. However, little is attention is payed to the co-discoverer: Alfred Russel Wallace. When people think of the Theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin is widely accredited as the sole creator of it, especially as the theory is often known as Darwinism. Ross A.By Mirela Smolenska, Year 11, Benenden School, Kent The authors rightly argue that his concerns for social justice, the degradation of the planet, and humans’ place in the universe make him relevant today, even if some of his ideas, based on the best data available to him at the time, may be outdated.” Even at his least convincing, his embrace of Spiritualism and anti-vaccinationism, Wallace the revolutionary is evident. Anyone interested in the history of science, and in particular evolutionary theory and the foundations of biogeography, will find this collection of essays enlightening and thought-provoking. This book is so thorough in its analysis of a protean mind that it is difficult to imagine that it will or can be surpassed. “ An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion is a truly comprehensive examination of the ruminations and writings of one of the most remarkable men of the Victorian era, the co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection with Charles Darwin. Read More about An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion Read Less about An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion provides something of a necessary reexamination of the full breadth of Wallace’s thought-an attempt to describe not only the history and present state of our understanding of his work, but also its implications for the future. When Wallace returned to Britain in 1862, he commenced a career of writing on a huge range of subjects extending from evolutionary studies and biogeography to spiritualism and socialism. It was on this voyage that he constructed a theory of natural selection similar to the one Charles Darwin was developing, and the two copublished papers on the subject in 1858, some sixteen months before the release of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.īut as the contributors to the Companion show, this much-discussed parallel evolution in thought was only one epoch in an extraordinary intellectual life. Then, in 1854, he departed for the Malay Archipelago. After years as a surveyor and builder, in 1848 he left Britain to become a professional natural history collector in the Amazon, where he spent four years. Wallace left school at the age of fourteen and was largely self-taught, a voracious curiosity and appetite for learning sustaining him throughout his long life. As 2019 marks one hundred and fifty years since the publication of The Malay Archipelago, Wallace’s canonical work chronicling his epic voyage, this collaborative book gathers an interdisciplinary array of writers to celebrate Wallace’s remarkable life and diverse scholarly accomplishments. Wallace declared his eight years of exploration in southeast Asia to be “the central and controlling incident” of his life. Research into the life of this brilliant naturalist and social critic continues to produce new insights into his significance to history and his role in helping to shape modern thought. ![]() But this diminution could hardly be less justified. Although Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was one of the most famous scientists in the world at the time of his death at the age of ninety, today he is known to many as a kind of “almost-Darwin,” a secondary figure relegated to the footnotes of Darwin’s prodigious insights.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |