Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species

Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species

COSTA, James T.
London: Harvard, 2014.

Charles Darwin is often credited with disovering evolution through natural selection, but the idea was not his alone. The natruarlist Alfred Russel Wallace, working independently, saw the same prosess at work in the natural world and elaborated much the same theory. Their important scientific contributions made both men famous in their lifetimes, but Wallace slipped into obscurity after his death, while Darwin's renown grew. Dispelling the misperceptions that continue to paint Wallace as a secondary figure, james Costa reveals the two naturalists as true equals in advancing one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.

Analyzuing Wallace's "Species Notebook", Costa shows how Wallace's methods and thought processes paralleled Darwin's, yet inpired insights uniquely his own. Kept during his Southeast Asian expeditions of the 1850s, the notebook is a window into Wallace's early evolutionary ideas. It records his evidence-gathering, critiques of anti-evolutionary arguments, and plans for a book on "transmutation". Most improtant, it demonstrates conclusively that natural selection was not some idea Wallace stumpled upon, as is sometimes assumed, but was the culmination of a decade-long quest to solve thee mystery of the origin of species