Article about Alfred Russel Wallace

[joeactor]

Well, if you can ignore the word "Evolutionist" in the title, this is a pretty good article about another scientist respnsible for the theory of evolution:
http://pda.physorg.com/naturalselection ... 20926.html

Share the glory,
JoeActor

[thiolsulfate]

I have no problem with Wallace being considered another influence in the conceptualization of evolution, but I would not consider him on equal footing with Darwin.

If another scientist had independently discovered the fundamental laws of motion and gravity besides Newton, I would gladly hold them over Newton (who said that his laws could only work in a universe guided by god, that god occasionally corrected burps that did not fit with his model when applied to the cosmic scale, and who went so far as to use the Book of Revelation to date the apocalypse to the year 2060). For that reason, I am glad that Einstein discovered a model that worked better than Newton's (though I will admit that Newton's is still far more practical while not as accurate) and that even better models are being developed.

Like Newton, my problem with Wallace is his integration of the spiritual world into his model, his postulate that evolution was guided by spirits or ghosts. He proposed that natural selection could not explain the complexity of the human mind -- therefore ghosts or guiding spirits. He proposed something that would become the ladder-model of evolution with humans at the top, a totally unscientific claim.

For those reason I do not think Wallace should be given the same footing as Darwin with respect to Evolution. It would be as inappropriate as equating Darwin with a mild IDer.

What I learned about Wallace and his contribution to biology in my own biology courses was, as far as I am concerned, sufficient; that he, in a separate part of the world, totally detached from the HMS Beagle, realized that speciation was occurring. His postulate that the mechanism was spiritual is not worth consideration or study in a class based in science.