Two of the largest and heaviest fruits known, however, the Brazil-nut fruit (Bertholletia) and durion, grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often wound or kill the native inhabitants. " Poets and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought that small fruits always grew on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to man, while the large ones trailed on the ground. * For all the latest Wallace news see the Wallace Facebook page* Please explore the site by clicking on the links on the menu to the left.
#Alfred russel wallace archive#
This website is intended to be an island of accurate information in the sea of misinformation about Wallace. It contains information about Wallace's life and work, a unique archive of Wallace-related images, FAQ's debunking some of the many myths surrounding Wallace and Darwin, plus information about the A. This is obviously not for his benefit (since he is dead!), but to ensure that the historical record is accurate. This ‘industry’ has led to a highly “Darwinocentric” view of the history of modern biology, and as a result many of the important contributions made by Darwin’s contemporaries, like Wallace, are currently underestimated and undervalued. The Wallace Memorial Fund's mission is to ensure that Wallace is given due credit for his many groundbreaking contributions to science. For a brief biography see By the time of his death he was probably the world’s most famous scientist, but since then his intellectual legacy has been overshadowed by Darwin’s, largely thanks to the “ Darwin Industry” of recent decades. Wallace did not come from a privileged background and was largely self-taught. A materialist until his 40s, he gradually developed a belief in naturalistic, evolutionary spiritualism. He strongly believed in the rights of the ordinary person, was a socialist, a proponent of land nationalisation, and an anti-vaccinationist (for rational reasons). He was anti-slavery, anti-eugenics, anti-vivisection, anti-militarism, anti-Imperialism, a conservationist and an advocate of woman's rights. Wallace was a man with an extraordinary breadth of interests who was actively engaged with many of the big questions and important issues of his day. Beyond this, Wallace is regarded as the pre-eminent collector and field biologist of tropical regions of the 19th century, and his book The Malay Archipelago (which was Joseph Conrad’s favourite bedside reading) is one of the most celebrated travel writings of that century and has never been out of print.
His pioneering work on what would become evolutionary biogeography (the science that seeks to explain the geographical distribution of organisms) led to him becoming recognised as that subject’s ‘father’.
Wallace made enduring scholarly contributions to subjects as diverse as glaciology, land reform, anthropology, ethnography, epidemiology, and astrobiology. Together Wallace and Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, and their prolific subsequent work laid the foundations of modern evolutionary biology - and much more besides. His seminal contributions to biology rival those of his friend and colleague Charles Darwin, though he is far less well known. This site is dedicated to the life and work of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913), one of the greatest scientists of all time. Though in one sense rivals." Darwin to Wallace, 1870 "Great is the power of steady misrepresentation but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure." Charles Darwin, Origin of SpeciesĪbout the Wallace Website - the official website of the Wallace Memorial Fund That we have never felt any jealousy towards each other, ".very few things in my life have been more satisfactory to me. "It is curious how we hit on the same ideas." Charles Darwin to Wallace, 1867 ".there is no more admirable character in the history of science." Sir David Attenborough
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