Wallace Online (http://wallace-online.org/) has gone online today. Poor man playing second fiddle to Darwin, due apparently to Victorian self-effacement (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/27/recognition-alfred-russel-wallace-darwin?INTCMP=SRCH) (not sure I actually believe in this), like so many where the truism that the same idea will occur to two people or more at the same time, at opposite sides of the world, though actually in this case they weren't at such a geographic distance.
Anyway, jolly interesting. ;D
Cracking evolution, Gromit!
I think both Darwin and Wallace would shake their heads could they see what we have made of them. Both seem to have been in it not just for self-glorification and from what I know they highly respected each other. The same could not be said about the 'Darwinists' that deified him while he was still alive and could of course have no interest in acknowledging that there was another beside (let alone before) him.
Not sure when the term 'Darwinism' arose but I think Darwin himself had (or would have had) the same reaction as Marx ('I am not a Marxist').
Of course from a pure marketing POV Darwin had the clear advantage. Darwinism simply rolls off the tongue easier than Wallaceism. And who could beat Darwin's iconic head (after he grew the beard)? ;)
IIRC, there were two aspects that led to Darwin being remembered by all and Wallace being cast to the sidelines. One was that Wallace acknowledged that Darwin's ideas on natural selection were much more developed than Wallace's own. The other was that when Darwin and Wallace presented their papers to the scientific community of England, Darwin spoke first.
Thus, Darwin ended up being the first name in evolution and not Wallace. At least among the public. Biologists still remember Wallace, and so do some others that are fairly knowledgeable about the history of the theory of evolution.
Quote from: Swatopluk on October 15, 2012, 10:47:07 AM
And who could beat Darwin's iconic head (after he grew the beard)? ;)
Interesting point that. In much the same way Einstein had an iconic head. Could there be a new way of discovering genius?
Anyone calling?
(http://natasario.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/leonardo_da_vinci.jpg)
http://natasario.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/leonardo_da_vinci.jpg