Natural justice for Darwin's friend and rival: Wallace

Hannah Devlin, The Times Online 26 Sep 09;

He shared his ideas on natural selection with Charles Darwin and studied birds of paradise in the Malay archipelago to prove his case. Alfred Russel Wallace, however, always lived in the shadow of Darwin.

This week Sir David Attenborough, Britain’s foremost naturalist broadcaster, attempted to address the injustice. He described Wallace as one of the greatest naturalists to have lived.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, Sir David outlined Wallace’s contribution to the evolution of the natural selection theory.

Over 150 years ago, while Darwin was ensconced in his country manor breeding pigeons, Wallace, wracked with malaria, was living in a primitive hut in Borneo.

He had set off in 1854 for the Malay Archipelago in pursuit of the most sought-after creature of the day: the bird of paradise.

Although skins and feathers of the elaborately plumed birds were available to buy in Europe, nobody had ever brought back a live bird. Wallace told his dealer that the first live specimen would be worth £100, several thousand pounds in today’s money.

Wallace also had an academic interest in the natural world. As he travelled from one island to the next he meticulously noted variations in the colourful birds and features that made them uniquely suited to their own particular conditions. After eight years living in huts and paddling up rivers, he had collected five species from the bird of paradise family and come to a striking conclusion about how the different varieties had emerged.

He suggested that when two populations of a species became geographically isolated, each adapted to its own environment. Eventually when the two species diverged beyond a certain point, natural selection would tend to eliminate hybrids should the two species come back into contact because hybrid offspring would be less well adapted than either parent variety. The result would be two distinct species.

He wrote to his friend, Darwin, laying out his theory of evolution. Wallace’s theory mirrored Darwin’s thinking so exactly that when Darwin received his letter he declared: “If Wallace had my manuscript, he could not have made a better short abstract!”

Darwin then fast-tracked the publication of his own book, On the Origin of Species, cementing Wallace’s obscurity. Sir David said that the lack of credit granted to Wallace was unfair.

“The two men could scarcely have been more different. Darwin was a scholar and a nobleman, Wallace left school at 14, was largely self-educated and worked under extremely hard conditions, but both were devoted collectors and exceptional scientists,” he said.

Despite being academic competitors, the scientists’ correspondence reveals mutual admiration rather than animosity.

“Both great naturalists behaved with such courtesy to each other that it’s a delight to read,” said Sir David.