Wallace had financial difficulties throughout much of his life. Since its publication in 1869, it has never been out of print. He was also a prolific author who wrote on both scientific and social issues his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, The Malay Archipelago, was both popular and highly regarded. His interest in natural history resulted in his being one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity. His advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with some members of the scientific establishment.Īside from scientific work, he was a social activist who was critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system capitalism in 19th-century Britain. Wallace was strongly attracted to unconventional ideas such as evolution. He was also one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of the subject of whether there was life on Mars. Wallace's 1904 book Man's Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets. These included the concepts of warning colouration in animals, and reinforcement sometimes known as the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation. Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made many other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography". Like Darwin, Wallace did extensive fieldwork first in the Amazon River basin, and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. This prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly.Īlfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.
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