January 8, 2023

Today's featured article:

Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British[1] naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.[2] He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. His 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic.[3][4] It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting, and quickly write an abstract of it, published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.

Alfred Russel Wallace

OM FRS

Alfred-Russel-Wallace-c1895.jpg

Wallace in 1895

Born

8 January 1823

Llanbadoc, Monmouthshire, Wales

Died

7 November 1913 (aged 90)

Broadstone, Dorset, England

Known for

Co-discovery of natural selection

Pioneering work on biogeography

Wallace Line

Wallace effect

Awards

Royal Medal (1868)

Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie (1870)

Darwin Medal (1890)

Founder's Medal (1892)

Linnean Medal (1892)

Copley Medal (1908)

Darwin–Wallace Medal (Gold, 1908)

Order of Merit (1908)

Scientific career

Fields

Exploration, evolutionary biology, zoology, biogeography, and social reform

Author abbrev. (botany)

Wallace

Wallace did extensive fieldwork, starting in the Amazon River basin. He then did fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species, and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography", or more specifically of zoogeography.[5]

Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century, working on warning coloration in animals and reinforcement (sometimes known as the Wallace effect), a way that natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation. Wallace's 1904 book Man's Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets. He was one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of whether there was life on Mars.[6]

Aside from scientific work, he was a social activist, critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system in 19th-century Britain. His advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with other scientists. He was one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity. He wrote prolifically on both scientific and social issues; his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Southeast Asia, The Malay Archipelago, was first published in 1869. It continues to be both popular and highly regarded.

Wallace and his signature on the frontispiece of Darwinism (1889)

As a result of his writing, Wallace became a well-known figure both as a scientist and as a social activist, and was often sought out for his views.[193] He became president of the anthropology section of the British Association in 1866,[194] and of the Entomological Society of London in 1870.[195] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1873.[196] The British Association elected him as head of its biology section in 1876.[197] He was elected to the Royal Society in 1893.[197] He was asked to chair the International Congress of Spiritualists meeting in London in 1898.[198] He received honorary doctorates and professional honours, such the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1868 and its Darwin Medal in 1890,[195] and the Order of Merit in 1908.[199]

Obscurity and rehabilitation

Wallace's fame faded quickly after his death. For a long time, he was treated as a relatively obscure figure in the history of science.[152] Reasons for this lack of attention may have included his modesty, his willingness to champion unpopular causes without regard for his own reputation, and the discomfort of much of the scientific community with some of his unconventional ideas.[200] The reason that the theory of evolution is popularly credited to Darwin is likely the impact of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.[200]

Recently, Wallace has become better known, with the publication of at least five book-length biographies and two anthologies of his writings published since 2000.[201] A web page dedicated to Wallace scholarship is maintained at Western Kentucky University.[202] In a 2010 book, the environmentalist Tim Flannery argued that Wallace was "the first modern scientist to comprehend how essential cooperation is to our survival", and suggested that Wallace's understanding of natural selection and his later work on the atmosphere should be seen as a forerunner to modern ecological thinking.[203] A collection of his medals, including the Order of Merit, were sold at auction for £273,000 in 2022.[204]

Centenary celebrations

Main article: Alfred Russel Wallace centenary

photograph of a statue of Wallace in London

Anthony Smith's statue of Wallace, looking up at a bronze model of a Wallace's golden birdwing butterfly. Natural History Museum, London, unveiled 7 November 2013.

The Natural History Museum, London, co-ordinated commemorative events for the Wallace centenary worldwide in the 'Wallace100' project in 2013.[205][206] On 24 January, his portrait was unveiled in the Main Hall of the museum by Bill Bailey, a fervent admirer.[207] Bailey further championed Wallace in his 2013 BBC Two series "Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero".[208] On 7 November 2013, the 100th anniversary of Wallace's death, Sir David Attenborough unveiled a statue of Wallace at the museum.[209] The statue, sculpted by Anthony Smith, was donated by the A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund.[210] It depicts Wallace as a young man, collecting in the jungle. November 2013 marked the debut of The Animated Life of A. R. Wallace, a paper-puppet animation film dedicated to Wallace's centennial.[211] In addition, Bailey unveiled a bust of Wallace, sculpted by Felicity Crawley, in Twyn Square in Usk, Monmouthshire in November 2021.[212]

Memorials

Mount Wallace in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range was named in his honour in 1895.[213] In 1928, a house at Richard Hale School (then called Hertford Grammar School, where he had been a pupil) was named after Wallace.[214][215] The Alfred Russel Wallace building is a prominent feature of the Glyntaff campus at the University of South Wales, by Pontypridd, with several teaching spaces and laboratories for science courses. Lecture theatres at Swansea and Cardiff universities are named after him,[215] as are impact craters on Mars and the Moon.[214] In 1986, the Royal Entomological Society mounted a year-long expedition to the Dumoga-Bone National Park in North Sulawesi named Project Wallace.[215] A group of Indonesian islands is known as the Wallacea biogeographical region in his honour, and Operation Wallacea, named after the region, awards "Alfred Russel Wallace Grants" to undergraduate ecology students.[216] Several hundred species of plants and animals, both living and fossil, have been named after Wallace,[217] such as the gecko Cyrtodactylus wallacei,[218] and the freshwater stingray Potamotrygon wallacei.[219]

Writings

Wallace was a prolific author. In 2002, a historian of science published a quantitative analysis of Wallace's publications. He found that Wallace had published 22 full-length books and at least 747 shorter pieces, 508 of which were scientific papers (191 of them published in Nature). He further broke down the 747 short pieces by their primary subjects: 29% were on biogeography and natural history, 27% were on evolutionary theory, 25% were social commentary, 12% were on anthropology, and 7% were on spiritualism and phrenology.[220] An online bibliography of Wallace's writings has more than 750 entries.[33]

The standard author abbreviation Wallace is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[221]

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On this day:

January 8

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Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

1198 – Lotario dei Conti was elected as Pope Innocent III; he later worked to restore papal power in Rome.

1889 – American statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electromechanical tabulating machine for punched-card data.

1936 – Reza Shah issued the Kashf-e hijab decree, ordering Iranian police to remove hijabs from any women in public.

1991 – Jeremy Wade Delle killed himself in his high-school class in Richardson, Texas, an event that inspired the Pearl Jam song "Jeremy".

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