Wallace, Alfred Russel

Wallace, Alfred Russel

Naturalist 1823-1913

Alfred Russel Wallace was born on January 8, 1823, in Usk, Great Britain (Wales). He died at the age of 90 on November 7, 1913. Wallace developed a theory of evolution by natural selection independently of Charles Darwin but at nearly the same time. He also founded the field of animal geography, the study of where animals occur on Earth.

As a boy Wallace had a great interest in plants and collected them. In 1844 he began teaching at a boy's school, the Collegiate School in Leicester, Leicestershire, England. There he met the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates, who got him interested in insects. In 1848 Wallace and Bates began a four-year expedition to the Amazon. Unfortunately, the ship sank on the return voyage, and most of Wallace's collected specimens were lost. In 1853 he published a book about the journey. In 1854 Wallace began an eight-year tour of the Malay Archipelago in the East Indies. He studied the culture of the native people and the geographical distribution of the animals. He collected and described thousands of new tropical species, and was the first European to see an orangutan in the wild. Wallace discovered that the animals of the Malay Archipelago are divided into two groups of species following an imaginary line, now known as "Wallace's Line." Species west of the line are more closely related to mammals of Asia. Those east of the line are more closely related to mammals of Australia.

While in Malaysia, Wallace thought of the concept of "survival of the fittest" as the key to evolution. In 1858 he wrote about his theory in a paper that he sent to Charles Darwin. Darwin realized that they both had the same revolutionary ideas. The men presented their ideas together in a joint paper to the Linnaean Society in 1858. Darwin is given most of the credit for the theory of evolution by natural selection because he developed the idea in much more detail than Wallace did. Also, Darwin was the person most responsible for its acceptance in the scientific community. Both Wallace and Darwin believed that man evolved to his present bodily form by natural selection. However, Wallace insisted that man's complex mental abilities must have been due to a different, nonbiological force. His activities in spiritual and psychic circles caused many of his fellow scientists to avoid him.

Wallace went on to write many influential books about evolution as well as tales of his journeys. He was an outspoken supporter of socialism, women's rights, and pacifism. He was awarded the Order of Merit by the British government in 1910.

Denise Prendergast

Bibliography

Muir, Hazel, ed. Larousse Dictionary of Scientists. New York: Larousse Kingfisher Chambers Inc., 1994.

Internet Resources

Alfred Russel Wallace. <http://www.wku.edu/%7Esmithch/index1.htm>.