As of late, I have been wondering: what ever happened to Alfred Russel Wallace?
2009 AD saw the celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200 birthday with the impartation of various doxologies and even the Kyle Butt vs. Dan Barker debate.
But what about good ol’ Alfred Russel Wallace?
Is it that he was born in 1823 AD (January 8th) and his 200th will not come up until 2023 AD?
Was his 100th celebrated? Was his 150th celebrated? I do not seem to remember.
Why has he been all but forgotten? Charles Darwin this and Charles Darwin that but what about Alfred Russel Wallace?
If you are asking yourself who Alfred Russel Wallace is and what he has to do with Charles Darwin you have comprehended the point of my flummox.
I will not provide a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace but succinctly note that he is generally referred to as having co-conceived, along with Charles Darwin, theory of evolution via natural selection.
So why the lack of hoopla over Alfred Russel Wallace? After all, both he and Charles Darwin have mighty beards (my kind of guys!).
You may want to go out and rent the movie The Fall (various clips found here) which is an interesting and visually stunning film starring a precious little French girl.
In the movie Charles Darwin is played as per this image:
And Alfred Russel Wallace is played by a little monkey whom Charles Darwin carries around in a bag. Reflecting the reality of Charles Darwin’s propensity towards hording credit for the theory of evolution the movie depicts Charles Darwin as getting his ideas from the monkey/Wallace whilst pretending that they were his own.
I am beginning to think that Alfred Russel Wallace is all but forgotten, particularly in lieu of Charles Darwin, because Charles Darwin is hailed as so much more than a scientist. As an icon of atheism he is lauded as the killer of gods. Some atheists actually think that describing how bio-organism’s change and speculating about quaint Victorian Era ideas of abiogenesis have something to do with God’s existence or lack thereof.
Alfred Russel Wallace’s sentiments were not as those who attempt to co-opt science as a tool with which to erect a facade of scientific respectability around atheist propaganda:
“I fully accept Mr. Darwin’s conclusion as to the essential identity of man’s bodily structure with that of the higher mammalian, and his descent from some ancestral form common to man and the anthropoid apes,”1 he conceded.
However, man’s intellectual powers and moral sense, among other things, he said, “could not have been developed by variation and natural selection alone, and_ , therefore, some other influence, law, or agency is required to account for them.”2
Darwin was naturally upset by what Wallace called “my little heresy,” and he wrote to Wallace in 1869 lamenting, “I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.”3
What good is a brilliant scientists; a naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist such as Alfred Russel Wallace if he is not also an activist atheist?
Lastly, I wanted to mention a book by Benjamin Wiker, A Meaningful World How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature
Benjamin Wiker makes the following point:
One of Charles Darwin’s very few character flaws was this: he was oddly possessive about his theory, so much so that he failed to acknowledge his predecessors, including his own grandfather [Erasmus Darwin], until his detractors pointed out the glaring omissions. He wanted the theory of evolution to be his discovery, his creation, his baby.4
Benjamin Wiker’s The Darwin Myth The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin also discusses:
* Why Darwin didn’t “discover” evolution* How Darwin set out to create a godless version of evolution* Why many of his best friends and allies criticized Darwin’s theory, and how he never refuted their objections* How “social Darwinism” is not a misapplication of Darwinism, but is Darwinism* Why Darwin’s theory supported natural slavery, an institution he abhorred* How much of what we know about Darwin comes from his Autobiography–which at key points is downright misleading
* How Darwin helped make ideological atheism the battle cry of science
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