Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

Wallace, Alfred Russel
knew they would be controversial, and he wanted to amass
all available evidence into a huge book that would answer
every possible objection and settle the question. Therefore
Darwin delayed 20 years, while Wallace was ready to publish
right away.
Darwin was astounded that, after this long delay, another
scientist had come up with the same ideas, even using the
same term to describe the process. Darwin said, “I never saw
a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my manuscript
sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better
short abstract.” In consultation with the famous geologist Sir
Charles Lyell (see Lyell, Charles), Darwin decided that his
1842 summary of natural selection should be presented and
published jointly with Wallace’s article. Darwin was ill, so
Lyell presented the joint Darwin-Wallace paper to the Linnaean
Society in 1858. Strangely, the scientists in attendance
took little notice of the paper, nor did the president of the
Linnaean Society who summarized the events of 1858 as unremarkable.
Wallace, still in Indonesia, knew nothing of this.
While in Indonesia, Wallace noticed that the animals on
the island of Lombok differed strikingly from the animals of
Bali, and those of Borneo differed from those of Sulawesi.
The mammals of Lombok and Borneo included many marsupials
(see mammals, evolution of) and few large predators,
while the animals of Bali and Sulawesi were mostly placental
mammals and included large predators such as tigers.
He also noticed a difference in the birds. In some cases, the
islands with different animals were almost within sight of one
another. The line he drew on the map to separate the two
faunas is now known as Wallace’s Line. Wallace interpreted
this, correctly, as resulting from the separate evolution of the
two groups of animals. He could not have known that a deep
ocean trench separated the two groups, which were on different
continental plates (see continental drift) and which
had therefore had little contact throughout geological history.
Wallace’s line is considered one of the earliest major contributions
to the science of biogeography.
After returning to England in 1862, Wallace spent three
years organizing his specimens, presenting papers to scientific
meetings, and writing. He earned money from his famously
interesting public presentations; one speaking tour took him
as far as California. His striking appearance (he was tall, had
a long beard, and snow-white hair for the last 40 years of his
life) contributed to his public success. He married a woman
almost 20 years younger than he, but she shared his passion
for gardening and natural history. Later, they journeyed overseas
on botanizing expeditions. Although his collections and
writings proved profitable, his investments did not. He had to
take on small editing and speaking assignments for pay and
move his family progressively further from London to find
cheaper accommodations. Eventually, Darwin intervened to
convince the British government to give Wallace an annual
stipend in recognition of his services to science.
Wallace continued his studies of evolution and advanced
into other areas of science. His paper, “The Origin of Human
Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory
of Natural Selection,” presented in 1864, preceded Darwin’s
book The Descent of Man (see Descent of man [book]) by
seven years. Wallace published a paper in 1863 that gave an
evolutionary explanation for the hexagonal construction of
the cells in beehives, a topic Darwin incorporated into later
editions of the Origin of Species. Wallace also published a
theory of glaciation and evolutionary explanations of mimicry,
protective coloration, and color vision in animals, bird
migration, and the necessity of aging. He was one of the
first to present evidence that the Pleistocene extinction
may have been caused by overhunting by humans. His writings
were among the earliest that contrasted different kinds
of life history in animals (see life history, evolution of).
His ideas about the evolution of reproductive isolation (see
isolating mechanisms) have even been called the “Wallace
Effect.” He wrote in 1907 that the ice caps of Mars were carbon
dioxide (dry ice), not water.
Wallace also expanded his studies into many different
areas throughout the remainder of his life. He began to
give serious time and attention to social issues, in which he
defended the causes of the working man and the oppressed.
His views may be mainly attributed to his experiences with
Amazonian, Indonesian, and Papuan peoples, and to his
exposure to socialism when he worked as a surveyor. Among
the social issues he championed are:
• Land nationalization. Wallace called for the protection of
rural lands and historical monuments, the formation of
greenbelts and parks, for the preservation of nature but
also for the recreation of the lower and middle classes.
• Labor reform. Rather than calling for strikes, Wallace in
1899 called for workingmen to lay aside a portion of their
salaries into a fund that would allow them to buy stock in
the company and thereby partly or wholly control the company.
He also called for double overtime pay rates. Later in
life he fully converted to socialism.
• Opposition to vaccination. This issue puzzles many modern
scientists: Why would one of the most prominent scientists
in Europe oppose vaccination? Wallace had both scientific
and social reasons for it. Scientifically, he could demonstrate
with epidemiological data that the incidence of contagious
diseases began to decline before the introduction
of vaccination. Today scientists know that he was correct:
Advances in public hygiene have proved at least as important
as vaccination in improving public health. Socially,
Wallace saw vaccination as the government’s way of trying
to improve the lot of the poor without having to spend the
money necessary for public sanitation. It was much cheaper
and easier to jab poor people in the arm than to build sewers
and provide safe drinking water.
• Women’s suffrage. He was one of the earliest proponents of
voting rights for women in male intellectual society.
• Consumer safety. Wallace proposed in 1885 that all manufactured
items have labels that identify their component
materials, and that the government regulate standards for
these materials.
• Eugenics. Wallace criticized the attempt, then popular
among scientists, including Darwin’s cousin (see Galton,
Francis), to attribute social problems to the supposed