You can't make this stuff up. Darwin and Wallace never knew each other until collegues realized their theories were stemming from the same 'natural' phenomena.
As a matter of fact, Charles Darwin was so worried about his theory that he told his wife to never publish his book until after his death. He was very concerned social injustice would result from his discoveries. He found the 'will' to proceed after it was pointed out to him that Wallace had converging theories from places Darwin never visited.
What does that tell you about social justice and the oppression of FACT?
Darwin and Wallace develop similar theory (click here)
Darwin began formulating his theory of natural selection in the late 1830s but he went on working quietly on it for twenty years. He wanted to amass a wealth of evidence before publicly presenting his idea. During those years he corresponded briefly with Wallace (right), who was exploring the wildlife of South America and Asia. Wallace supplied Darwin with birds for his studies and decided to seek Darwin's help in publishing his own ideas on evolution. He sent Darwin his theory in 1858, which, to Darwin's shock, nearly replicated Darwin's own.
Charles Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker arranged for both Darwin's and Wallace's theories to be presented to a meeting of the Linnaean Society in 1858. Darwin had been working on a major book on evolution and used that to develop On the Origins of Species, which was published in 1859. Wallace, on the other hand, continued his travels and focused his study on the importance of biogeography.....
The Next Page: A Digital Conversation with Darwin (click here)
Sunday, February 08, 2009
By John A. Pollock
Stacy Innerst/Post-Gazette
Given an opportunity to ask one question, what would you ask Charles Darwin?
My colleague Dave Lampe, also of Duquesne University, and I were particularly interested to find out. So in 2008, my team, with funding from a Science Education Partnership Award granted by National Center for Research Resources (NIH), polled more than 1,000 Pittsburghers from every age group.
Ultimately, we chose 199 of the most popular questions, from "did humans evolve?" to "did you have a pet?" and everything in between -- touching on Darwin's life, work, and the principles of science he discovered....
