04.30.07
Wallace and Darwin
Wallace came up with two great and related ideas from his observation of the distribution of species on the different islands. One is the origin of species by natural selection; the second is that the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Java and Bali were once connected to India, and Lombok and those to the east were connected to Australia. The straits between Lombok and Bali are narrow, but many Australian species, even birds such as cockatoos, are only found to the east of this line, and Indian species are exclusive to the west of the line – and none cross the line
So why is Darwin, not Wallace, credited with the theory of natural selection? The great scientist Darwin had been writing his own ideas in private papers dating from the 1840s onwards, when in 1958 the scientific amateur Wallace sent him a bombshell.
In Ternate (in the Moluccas), Wallace had written an elegant paper expounding the theory of natural selection, which he sent to Darwin for his views. The scientific establishment closed around Darwin, and Wallace’s paper was presented to the Linnean Society (hugely influential biology society, still extant), without Wallace’s knowledge and in Darwin’s absence at his son’s funeral. But it was cleverly preceded by Darwin’s own unpublished essay. Darwin then produced his book, On the Origin of Species, in a much shorter version than he had first planned.
Darwin was an honourable man; he was not sure he was doing the right thing in gazumping Wallace, but his friends did it for him. Wallace, amazingly, bore no resentment and dedicated The Malay Archipelago to Darwin!