1. Alfred Russel Wallace
2. Alfred Russel Wallace was influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, but he was also influenced by Herbert Spencer, his thoughts on Spencer were strong and it brought him to the thought that there was more to it than just natural selection. He wrote two papers that focused on the theory. The second discussed animal evolution. He was convinced that natural selection was, but he thought it could do no more than just provide a label for organic diversification. He despised the attempts to apply Darwinism to social analysis by analogy. Spiritualist philosophy helped him recognize that "such progress could not be contextualized within simplistic material "one cause-one effect" frameworks: the more "human" the problem, the more its just solution lay in terms of evolutionarily-consistent goals, as opposed to reactions arising from the consumptive inertia of tradition or habit.-Wallace's Theory of Evolution.'' -The Completion of Wallace's "Theory of Evolution"
3. If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. That humans change the environment they're in. That the more we change the more the environment could in the end change or harm us.
4. Yeah he could and and he pretty much did. Wallace just assisted him in the development of his theory.
5. The church had a negative attitude toward the book because it challenged what they believed. They were alright with it as a scholastic book though.
2 comments:
Your source was quite "deep" in it's explanations of Wallace's work. It was interesting to pull in Spencer's work, but I would have preferred limiting your discussion to the biological issues and not the social ones. A better source for you to review might be this one:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_14
I actually wonder if Darwin could have published without Wallace. Darwin had put off publishing his work for years. It was only after Wallace had sent his manuscript to Darwin that Darwin was convinced he needed to publish. So while I agree with you that he came up with his theory independently of Wallace, would his idea ever have gotten out there in the public without Wallace?
You discuss the attitude of the church but not it's influence on Darwin. How affect did the influence of the church have on Darwin and his process of publishing his work?
I agree with you, I also thought that Wallace influenced Darwin’s theory of evolution. I also believe that Darwin could have come up with the theory, and that Wallace just assisted with his development. Wallace was a big help to Darwin. I believe in coming up with his theory faster then what he could have by himself.
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