Comments on: It’s Darwin day, too

By: george.w

george.w — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:24:45 +0000

Update, DD 2008: I wish I’d have saved a copy of the Newsweek story, because the link has gone dead.

By: zilch

zilch — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:43:50 +0000

It’s hard to say what would have happened if Wallace had published without Darwin. It would have been much harder for Wallace to get an audience for his ideas, not because of his crazy notions about spiritualism (which mostly developed after the Origin was published) and his radical political views, but because he was a lower-middle-class nobody at the time. Not only that, but Wallace hadn’t documented his evolutionary theories to even a tenth of the extent that Darwin had.

The most important thing that Wallace did was to force Darwin to get off his butt and publish.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 07:05:34 +0000

Actually, the discovery would be about the same time. Alfred Russel Wallace discovered evolution at about the same time as Darwin did. Darwin just published the book, so we remember him.

Good for that, too. Wallace had a lot of crazy beliefs… would have taken it much longer for evolution to be accepted if he had published it.

By: zilch

zilch — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:48:05 +0000

Right on. Both men are personal heroes of mine.

By: george.w

george.w — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:11:18 +0000

Thanks!

By: negativechris

negativechris — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:34:43 +0000

that’s a pretty frakin sweet sketch.