Alfred Russel Wallace; letters and reminiscences

Wallace, Alfred Russel; Marchant, James

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.58523

Cited by 20 publications

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“…Such a book as Dewar & Finn's seems to me really disgraceful in its gross misstatements of fact, and absurd attempts at explanations which are mere words.' 87 Earlier that year Wallace delivered a lecture to the Royal Institution in which he again stressed the primary importance of small continuous heritable variation acted upon by natural selection to effect evolutionary change, presenting empirical frequency data (morphological traits of red-winged blackbirds and bobolinks) to underscore the point that variation is abundant, small-scale and continuously distributed in populations. He also took the opportunity to call out the inadequacy of mutationism and Mendelism, which he dismissed as 'remote from the actual facts and processes of Nature which are effective in originating new species'.…”

Section: Chap[ter] VIIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace

Costa

Beccaloni²

2023

Notes Rec.

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In honour of the two hundredth birthday of naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) we present a transcription and analysis of the plan for Wallace's unrealized final book. Recently come to light, Darwin and Wallace was to have been a volume of eight chapters published by the well-known London publishing house of John Murray in the spring of 1915, a project derailed by Wallace's death at the age of 90 in November 1913. Drawing on letters, manuscripts and contemporary published works, we show how the chapter outlines illuminate Wallace's late-life thinking about his and Darwin's working methods, the factors contributing to their independent discovery of natural selection and contemporary challenges to Darwin–Wallace evolutionary gradualism and natural selection by the neo-Lamarckian, mutationist and early Mendelian schools during the period dubbed the ‘eclipse of Darwinism’. Wallace's planned book provides insight into how the co-founder of modern evolutionary biology saw his legacy in relation to Darwin's, and his role as fierce and eloquent defender of his and Darwin's theory during a fascinating period in the history of evolutionary biology. In the emergence of neo-Darwinism in the ‘Modern Synthesis’ period, Wallace's contributions were largely omitted, an oversight that Darwin and Wallace may have prevented had it been realized.

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Section: Chap[ter] VIIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace

Costa

Beccaloni²

2023

Notes Rec.

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“…67 In the same letter, Wallace condoned the decision by an English manager of a local mine to hire Malays and Dayaks to violently break a strike organized by the mine's Chinese workforce who was protesting against dangerous and poor working conditions. 68 He also viewed urban Malays in a particularly unfavourable light, describing them as swindlers who preyed on local indigenous groups by forcing unequal market trades.…”

Section: Indigenous Guides and Local Helpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collection and Discovery: Indigenous Guides and Alfred Russel Wallace in Southeast Asia, 1854-1862

McCormack¹

2017

JIOWS

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This study uses the correspondence and published narratives of Alfred Russel Wallace's travels in Southeast Asia to reveal the significant contributions of indigenous Southeast Asians in the development and advancement of scientific knowledge in the region. This analysis problematizes the Eurocentric narrative of discovery as a primarily white, male endeavour, and instead argues that discovery could only occur with the assistance of a vast network of knowledge and exchange. Chinese immigrants, female travel writers, indigenous tribes, and European assistants made up a significant part of this network, but scientists such as Wallace often exclude these people from their public narratives of "discovery. "Between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, a significant shift in European attitudes towards the collection and diffusion of plants found in the extra-European world occurred. As Londa Schiebinger points out, bio-prospecting (the collection and diffusion of commodity plants such as drugs or food) became a highly profitable business during early European expansion in the Americas and Asia. European governments protected their colonial borders fiercely in order to prevent rival powers' access to commodity plants that they had found, although such monopolies were inevitably threatened by smugglers. 1 However, the nineteenth century represented a shift away from such mercantilist thought as it marked a growth in inter-European and inter-imperial collaboration that permitted naturalists to collect flora and fauna wherever they wished and gain access to foreign botanical gardens and natural museums. Consequently, "European" or "Western" (rather than, for example, French, British or German) science and notably botany -a field that Imperialism created hierarchies of power that were also reflected in interactions between European naturalists and local peoples. Indeed, conventional Eurocentric narratives of nineteenth-century botanic and other scientific explorations portray such expeditions as primarily white, male endeavors. Again, while most historians of colonial botany acknowledge that botanists and naturalists used local guides to collect specimens and indigenous information, they rarely accord these assistants more than cursory attention. Some historians of science and empire -a growing field of historical inquiry -focus on the development and hardening of colonial categories such as gender, race and class; others discuss the worldwide search for drugs and natural commodities that spurred European expansion in the Americas, Africa and Asia. 4 However, several historians neglect the diversity of people, notably those indigenous to the region concerned, engaged in the network of exchange of ideas and knowledge as well as in the collection of plant and animal specimens.This study focuses on the work of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823Wallace ( -1913, one of the most famous naturalist explorers and the subject of a considerable literature. For eight years, Wallace visited various Southeast Asian islands collecti...

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“…Admitting that 'Anthropologicals did not seem to appreciate it much', Wallace suggested to Darwin that the paper provided his 'settled opinion on these subjects, if nobody can show a fallacy in the argument'. 32 As the leadership of the ASL became more vocally anti-Darwinian, this issue would drive a wedge between Wallace and the ASL. Although Wallace continued to participate at meetings for a considerable while longer, his enthusiasm for the ASL as a vehicle for his public participation in the science of man was fading.…”

Section: Wallace Applies Natural Selection To Human Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The unmaking of an anthropologist: Wallace returns from the field, 1862–70

Vetter

2009

Notes Rec. R. Soc.

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This essay follows Alfred Russel Wallace back from the field in 1862, tracing how his views on human evolution developed after his field experiences in the East Indies and how he articulated them within the social structure of British science during the 1860s. It analyses his involvement in the metropolitan scientific institutions dedicated to the study of man, the Ethnological Society of London and its breakaway counterpart, the Anthropological Society of London, which offered differing visions for a science of man and its intersection with political commitments. Using evidence from his participation in society meetings, the reception of his own anthropological papers, and the responses to the views he expressed in his field travel narrative, The Malay Archipelago , I show that although Wallace's involvement was initially enthusiastic, over time his views came into conflict with both groups. His involvement in established human science institutions declined, and Wallace turned towards other social locations for cultivating his knowledge of and engagement with questions involving the study of humanity.

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Alfred Russel Wallace; letters and reminiscences

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace

Collection and Discovery: Indigenous Guides and Alfred Russel Wallace in Southeast Asia, 1854-1862

The unmaking of an anthropologist: Wallace returns from the field, 1862–70

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