The forgotten man

We are celebrating this year the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of "Origin of Species". What is frequently forgotten - even by professional biologists - is that there was a second man who came up with almost identical ideas as Darwin - at almost exactly the same time.

Alfred Wallace had worked in in the Malay archipelago especially Borneo, and had come to similar conclusion to Darwin; in fact he had been corresponding with Darwin and was fully aware that Darwin was writing a book on the subject. In 1858 Wallace wrote a paper called "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" which he sent to Charles Lyell (often called "The Father of Geology") who then forwarded it to Darwin.

Darwin - not surprisingly was stunned, saying that if Wallace had seen Darwin's short manuscript of 1846 which laid out his basic ideas, then "he could not have made a better short abstract!"
To Darwin's eternal credit, he credited Wallace and agreed with Lyell (as well as Joseph Hooker a distinguished Botanist who was a close friend of Darwin) that papers from both naturalists would be read to the Linnean Society.

Sadly Darwin himself was unable to attend due to the death of his son from scarlet fever (Wallace was still in Borneo) so the two papers were read in their absence.

Afterwards, Wallace become a staunch defender of Darwin, and in 1889 published a book called "Darwinism" (note the title: Darwin's scientific and social influence was much higher as well as the fact that by publishing the "Origin of the species" Darwin was far far higher in the public view than Wallace ever was).

Wallace is almost forgotten now, although it is nice to note that he was awarded the OM in 1908.