While there were many historical and scientific changes and influences that led to the acceptance of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, the person I believe influenced him the most was Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace had similar ideas and passions as Darwin, they both had an unusual fascination with nature and where it came from, and were unable to accept the answers that had been given to them. Like Darwin, Wallace underwent an expedition, in hope of understanding nature further. His journey however was to the Amazon, not the Galapagos Islands he studied there and collected many specimens, unfortunately though all his work was lost when his ship caught fire in the Atlantic. This pushed him back severely but within two years he had published his finding. Later he traveled in the Far East, extending his studies. Throughout this time, he and Darwin withheld a friendship and a mutual understanding built through science. They both believed in Natural Selection before it was a known concept and they forged a bond through this. Wallace sent Darwin sample from his collecting in China and the Orient and they discussed ideas. Although they did not agree most of the time on many issues, this friendship was one that pushed each other to think, they both produced wonderful work, one was more popular than the other, but they were both great thinkers. Wallace influenced Darwin for the better, he encouraged his writing, questioned his theory and pushed Darwin to further himself and the science.
The aspect of evolution that Wallace most influenced Darwin on is probably the statement “If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. Organisms with those new adaptive traits will have greater reproductive success than others and those new beneficial traits will spread, producing a change in the population. This is the process of natural selection, essentially the process of the natural environment selecting the organisms that will be most successful” The idea of Natural Selection was one that was reached by both men in different ways but at almost the same time. To Wallace this idea was a simple one, more of a though, and though he wrote papers on it, it never truly became a theory under his work. His work did however push Darwin to publish his work and to develop his theory more clearly.
Darwin had already started to develop his theory by the time that he knew Wallace had a similar one, and would likely of continued to think on it and write about it, but I think that it was Wallace who pushed Darwin to further his work. The competition that comes from a peer working on a similar topic pushes you and challenges you to work harder and to do better. Also, the differences in their work would push Darwin to prove what he thought was right. I think that Wallace was critical to Darwin’s Theory’s development.
The Church at this time was used to being under attack, this was not the first theory that challenged what the church believed or thought. A theory like this was challenging the very basis of scripture. This deterred Darwin only a bit, he was more concerned about what his wife thought than the Church, when she passed so did his fear of the church. The Church only deterred Darwin a bit from publishing his work “The Origin of Species”.
source: aboutdarwin.com
Hi Sierra Anne,
ReplyDeleteI almost selected Wallace myself and reading your post makes a lot of sense. Like for example both of them sharing the same ideas. I agree with you that Wallace played an important part in Darwin's work, but ultimately felt Charles Lyell played a stronger role. With out Lyell's theory Darwin would of never been able to publish The Origin of Species. I really enjoyed reading your post.
I ended up choosing Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, however, in researching Wallace, I found them to both be very close in ideas. Both agree that the environment played nearly the entire role in the development of a species adaptations. However, Wallace takes that idea, and nearly develops natural selection on his own. I feel that if it were not for Lamarck, neither Wallace nor Darwin would have come up with their ideas.
ReplyDeleteHi Sierra,
ReplyDeleteI did not chose Wallace but instead I chose Thomas Malthus and after reading your piece both Malthus and Wallace could have both been a big influence on Darwin completeing his thory. I think that there were many at the same time who were working on ths same theory and they were all very close within their ideas. I realy enjoyed your blog and think that all of those who had maybe been an big influence on Darwin were all within the same idea and thought set of Darwin and that is why many of the scientist that we had a choice of sound similar. Great Post.
The first four parts of your post is very well done. Good description of Wallace's work. I agree with the bullet point you chose in part three but in truth you could have picked all of them since they both developed essentially the same body of work, just from different perspectives.
ReplyDeleteIn your last paragraph, I am puzzled by your contention that other than Darwin's concerns with his wife's reaction, the church had little impact on his work. He delayed more than 20 years before publishing his work, mostly because of concerns over how the work would be received and how it would affect his family socially (and how it would affect him professionally) given the nature of the church's influence at that time. I'd say that was more than a little bit!
Otherwise, very good.
I ended up choosing Wallace for my entry as well. I think that his expeditions and studies were fascinating. Charles Darwin got influence from Wallace when he disagreed with the samples. It encouraged him to challenge and question his theory. I thought it was interesting that they disagreed that if the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. That to me was the real reason why Wallace had the most influence on Darwin.
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with you! I believe that Wallace had the greatest impact on Darwin’s work. I found it interesting though that even though they were "co-founders" of the theory of natural selection Wallace tried to challenge it with a new theory!
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