Posted: May 01, 2012 11:35 pm
Right, I mentioned earlier i would discuss the debate on whether Darwin "ripped off" Wallaces ideas... I also noted I don't think he did, but really the jury is out on this one. I would defer to Smith and Andrew Berry the great authorities on Wallace here - you can check out Andrew Berry here -- http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?ke ... page264537
Smith summarizes the issue really well in the ARW site FAQ so let's start by quoting that
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/index1.htm
Ah but that still does not really explain why this is an issue - so let me quote from from Science Daily --
Now if anyone is interested, have a look at this rather lovely collection of some of their letters during the period in question -- http://rjohara.net/teaching/uncg/freshm ... -1-letters
Contrary to the impression David seems to have acquired, few historians of Science doubt Wallace and Darwin were very much on the same page, and we know that they made an agreement. However the exact sequence of events is as you can see from the FAQ entry I cited above, hotly disputed. It even makes the broadsheets every few years.
Still the Natural History Museum London are in agreement with me as is Sir David Attenborough that Wallace is vitally important to the story of Natural Selection
Still let's cite a bit more from the Natural History Museum site
It is not really odd if as numerous scholars appear to believe Darwin was at pains to take the credit and had used Wallace's essay to finish his book. It makes no difference to our understanding of Evolution today, but it makes a big difference in other ways: Wallace may have been the victim of a shameful breach of scientific ethics. The fact remains that while Wallace, a bona fide [g/i]enius, came up independently with Natural Selection before the publication of [i]On the Origin, Darwin had certainly been working on the idea for decades. And in fact one can trace the idea of Natural Selection back through the Medieval Theologians and right back to Ancient Greece anyway, just as Evolutionary ideas have a very long pedigree. In fact I might do that for both is anyone really cares, but the important things i Wallace and Darwin independently developed the empirical case for them by research, and whatever you think of his wacky spiritualist ideas, his radical politics, or his working class background, ARW remains an outstanding indeed awesome fellow.
However, as you may well know, a new research initiative claims to have shown that Wallace's letter was recieved by Darwin on the day he said it was: note however that previous researchers have argued exactly the opposite. It has been shown that a steamer from Singapore could have made the trip and delivered the crucial letter on the 18th June, and you can read the paper van Whye, J Rookmaaker, K (2012) A new theory to explain the receipt of Wallace's Ternate Essay by Darwin in 1858, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. The Abstract follows, because I am nothing but dull...
Anyhow, I think I trust van Whyes judgement on Darwin's correspondence way more than I trust any other scholar alive todays, so it may well be a non-issue - but I thought I'd discuss it a bit, just to point out that ARW was every bit as important as I said.
The Truth of the Theory of evolution and Natural Selection is a scientific matter: the philosophical and religious positions held by Darwin, Huxley and Wallace have no bearing upon the vast body of evidence on evolution. Yet time and time again poor old Darwin and Huxley are dragged out to "support" Atheism as if they had something to say on the matter -- and the Atheism/Theism debate is a theological and philosophical one, on which Science, bounded as it is by metaphysical naturalism as a foundational axiom, has nothing to say. That bothers me little, and nor do the myths in circulation from all sides in the religious and atheist debates, but bad history will always irritate me, from YEC loonies, or from advocates of the other side.
Hope mildly amusing.
j x
Smith summarizes the issue really well in the ARW site FAQ so let's start by quoting that
Question: Did Darwin really steal material from Wallace to complete his theory of natural selection?
Answer: Maybe, though the evidence is something short of compelling. It has been suggested by Brackman (1980) and Brooks (1984) that Darwin might have received Wallace's communication in May or early June of 1858 rather than in the middle of June of that same year, and that Darwin may have spent the extra month using Wallace's model of species divergence to complete his own ideas on the subject before soliciting the opinions of his friends Hooker and Lyell on how to deal with the priority issue. Possibly so, but despite the best efforts of Brooks (1984) in particular, most observers remain unconvinced. A book by Davies (2008) presents new evidence supporting the suspicion that Darwin really did receive Wallace's communication in 1858 earlier than has been thought (Davies also presents some other arguments), but more recent work by John van Wyhe and Kees Rookmaaker seems to demonstrate that Wallace's communication in fact did arrive at the later date. Nevertheless, the situation is still somewhat up in the air, as it is difficult to assess just how much Darwin's thoughts might have been influenced over the seventeenth month period between his reception of Wallace's materials and his own writing up and release of On the Origin of Species in November 1859. See additional analysis by Beddall (1988) and Berry (2002).
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/index1.htm
Ah but that still does not really explain why this is an issue - so let me quote from from Science Daily --
The article is good -- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 062545.htm
In 1972 a researcher found another letter from Wallace to a friend named Bates that was sent on the March 1858 steamer from the island of Ternate in modern Indonesia. The letter still bore postmarks from Singapore and London which showed that it arrived in London on 3 June 1858 -- two weeks before Darwin said he received the essay from Wallace. Thus began the mystery -- how could two letters from Wallace leave Ternate on the same steamer and travel along the same mail route back to London but Darwin received his two weeks later than Bates did? This mystery has led to numerous conspiracy theories. For example, several writers have claimed that Darwin stole ideas from Wallace's essay during the time he kept the letter secret. But most other evidence suggests that Darwin received the letter when he said he did.
Now if anyone is interested, have a look at this rather lovely collection of some of their letters during the period in question -- http://rjohara.net/teaching/uncg/freshm ... -1-letters
Contrary to the impression David seems to have acquired, few historians of Science doubt Wallace and Darwin were very much on the same page, and we know that they made an agreement. However the exact sequence of events is as you can see from the FAQ entry I cited above, hotly disputed. It even makes the broadsheets every few years.
Still the Natural History Museum London are in agreement with me as is Sir David Attenborough that Wallace is vitally important to the story of Natural Selectionfrom http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2011 ... 02142.html - a major initiative, please support the hunt for Wallace's missing letters.The Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project (WPC) is based at the Natural History Museum and its Patron is Sir David Attenborough. The WCP is digitising all known letters to and from Wallace, the brilliant naturalist whose contributions to the development of evolutionary theory were as important as Darwin’s, but who was quickly forgotten after his death, perhaps because later generations thought that the theory of natural selection was first proposed by Darwin in his book 'On the Origin of Species'.
Still let's cite a bit more from the Natural History Museum site
Missing letters
But, there are 2 intriguing missing letters, written in 1858. One letter is from Wallace to Darwin and includes Wallace’s essay on natural selection, the process by which the fittest individuals of a species are more likely to survive, reproduce and pass their advantageous characteristic to their offspring. The other letter is Darwin’s reply to this.
Wallace's note about the loss of his original essay on evolution by natural selection, ar 1902
Note from Wallace on an envelope dated to around 1902, about the loss of his original letter and essay on evolution by natural selection. Darwin's reply to this historically important letter is missing and was the 3rd and most important in this envelope of 8 letters that Wallace kept. The Wallace Correspondence Project would very much like to find it.
‘These are some of the most important letters in the entire history of biology,’ says George Beccaloni, Director of WPC and scientist at the Museum. ‘It is very odd that they were lost in the first place.'
The letters show how Wallace independently came up with the same theory as Darwin, the theory that changed forever how we understand the world around us.
It is not really odd if as numerous scholars appear to believe Darwin was at pains to take the credit and had used Wallace's essay to finish his book. It makes no difference to our understanding of Evolution today, but it makes a big difference in other ways: Wallace may have been the victim of a shameful breach of scientific ethics. The fact remains that while Wallace, a bona fide [g/i]enius, came up independently with Natural Selection before the publication of [i]On the Origin, Darwin had certainly been working on the idea for decades. And in fact one can trace the idea of Natural Selection back through the Medieval Theologians and right back to Ancient Greece anyway, just as Evolutionary ideas have a very long pedigree. In fact I might do that for both is anyone really cares, but the important things i Wallace and Darwin independently developed the empirical case for them by research, and whatever you think of his wacky spiritualist ideas, his radical politics, or his working class background, ARW remains an outstanding indeed awesome fellow.
However, as you may well know, a new research initiative claims to have shown that Wallace's letter was recieved by Darwin on the day he said it was: note however that previous researchers have argued exactly the opposite. It has been shown that a steamer from Singapore could have made the trip and delivered the crucial letter on the 18th June, and you can read the paper van Whye, J Rookmaaker, K (2012) A new theory to explain the receipt of Wallace's Ternate Essay by Darwin in 1858, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. The Abstract follows, because I am nothing but dull...
Abstract
In early 1858, when he was in the Moluccas, Wallace drafted an essay to explain evolution by natural selection and posted it to Darwin. For many years it was believed that the Ternate essay left the island in March on the monthly mail steamer, and arrived at Down House on 18 June 1858. Darwin immediately wrote to Lyell, as requested by Wallace, forwarding the essay. This sequence was cast in doubt after the discovery of a letter written by Wallace to Bates leaving on the same steamer with postmarks showing its arrival in Leicester on 3 June 1858. Darwin has been accused of keeping the essay secret for a fortnight, thereby enabling him to revise elements of his theory of evolution. We intend to show that Wallace in fact sent the Ternate essay on the mail steamer of April 1858, for which the postal connections actually indicate the letter to have arrived precisely on 18 June. Darwin is thus vindicated from accusations of deceit. Wallace’s Ternate essay and extracts from Darwin’s theoretical manuscripts were read at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, which is now recognized as a milestone in the history of science.
Anyhow, I think I trust van Whyes judgement on Darwin's correspondence way more than I trust any other scholar alive todays, so it may well be a non-issue - but I thought I'd discuss it a bit, just to point out that ARW was every bit as important as I said.
The Truth of the Theory of evolution and Natural Selection is a scientific matter: the philosophical and religious positions held by Darwin, Huxley and Wallace have no bearing upon the vast body of evidence on evolution. Yet time and time again poor old Darwin and Huxley are dragged out to "support" Atheism as if they had something to say on the matter -- and the Atheism/Theism debate is a theological and philosophical one, on which Science, bounded as it is by metaphysical naturalism as a foundational axiom, has nothing to say. That bothers me little, and nor do the myths in circulation from all sides in the religious and atheist debates, but bad history will always irritate me, from YEC loonies, or from advocates of the other side.
Hope mildly amusing.
j x