Wallace on the evolutionary trail

stock exchange; he argued against globalised free trade; an anti-imperialist, he preached “the rights of every people to govern themselves” [12]. The contrast with Darwin is striking. After publication of The Origin, Darwin’s strategy was to consolidate and concretise the arguments laid out in his seminal work. His output remained resolutely scientific. One of the many reasons that Wallace has been so comprehensively eclipsed by Darwin in the standard telling of the evolution story may be that we prefer our scientists to stick to science. There is something laudably dedicated, almost puritanical, about Darwin’s single-minded devotion to his scientific cause, whereas Wallace’s scattershot embrace of every needy underdog under the sun smacks of dilettantism. We cringe at Wallace’s more unfortunate choices — his endorsement of phrenology as “the true science of mind” [13], for instance — and wish he had followed Darwin’s lead in staying true to science. But this may be the wrong reaction. Now, more than ever, we need scientists willing to become engaged in public ways with political and social issues. We need scientists willing to step outside the lab to talk about GMOs and about climate change; these topics are too important to be left in the hands of activists and politicians. Wallace was a brilliant scientist and, Fit for a Rajah: While in Sarawak, North Borneo, Wallace was the guest of Sir James Brooke, the English adventurer who governed Sarawak as his own personal fiefdom. Wallace named a newly discovered butterfly in Brooke’s honor, Ornithoptera Brookiana (currently Trogonoptera brookiana), noting in The Malay Archipelago that this is “one of the most elegant species known”. (Image courtesy of Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.)