One of the five individuals I chose was Alfred Russel Wallace because he had the most influence over Darwin's development of his theory of Natural Selection. Alfred Russel Wallace had a positive influence because he was a co-discoverer of the theory although Darwin has gotten most of the credit.
The contribution that Alfred made to the scientific community was that his important ideas about Natural Selection during on eight-year expedition. Alfred collected more than one hundred thousand insects, birds and animal species, which he gave to the British museums.
"If the environment changes, the traits, that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different." This point was directly affected by Alfred Russel Wallace's work. The Wallace effect noticing how certain species of plants and animals adapt to their environment and avoid hybrid mating, which means they would have a greater reproduction success rate.
Darwin couldn't have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence and ideas of Alfred Russel Wallace because they both conjoined their theories together in 1858. Both Darwin and Wallace theories created the theory of natural selection and without the work of Wallace being seen by Darwin he may have never been convinced enough to publish his own work.
The attitude of the church affected Darwin and the publication of his book because he knew the affect it would have on them and the anger and frustration about the theory of evolution. Back in these days, they believed in the bible and god's word and they didn't believed Darwin's theories and talked bad about them. Darwin was discouraged, but then he got confident with the work he did with Wallace and he pushed to get forward regardless of the outcome.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace
Hi Giselle, Wallace was most certainly a very important individual in helping Darwin have the confidence to publish his theory as well as helping him co-discover it. I agree that without Wallace Darwin wouldn't have been able to fully develop his theory and he may never have decided to go against the church and publish his book, and then it may have been a much longer time before people knew about evolution and natural selection. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI would have liked a little more information on Wallace in your opening section. He has a very interesting story and more of it should have been included here for your reader, particularly the parts that directly relate to his interaction with Darwin.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your choice of bullet points, but since both Wallace and Darwin developed the same mechanism, isn't it fair to say that ALL of the bullet points also apply to Wallace?
"...without the work of Wallace being seen by Darwin he may have never been convinced enough to publish his own work"
Is that why Darwin published? Because Wallace convinced him that the theory was right? This is where more background information might have helped.
By the time Wallace and Darwin began communicating, Darwin had been working on his idea for two decades, so Wallace's impact isn't with regard to shaping Darwin's work (though he certainly provided additional support through his specimens). Where Wallace's influence is important is as the driving factor that finally convinced Darwin to publish after delaying for more than 20 years. So while Darwin certainly developed his theory without Wallace, he may never have *published* without him.
In general, good discussion in the last section, though I would still push back on the idea that Wallace made Darwin "confident" about his theory, when what he did was cause Darwin to fear that he would lose credit for his idea. But can you explain a bit more why Darwin was concerned with the response of the church? And was he only worried about himself or was he also worried about how his family might be impacted by publishing? Remember that his wife was very devout. How might she have been impacted if the church responded negatively to Darwin? Remember that scientists don't work in a vacuum. They can be influenced not just by academics but also by social, cultural and personal issues.