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The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace

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Ross Slotten's new biography of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) continues where others have left off. There has now been at least one full-length biographical study of Wallace published each year since 2000, plus several anthologies and other works. Clearly, Wallace is starting to "get his due." But there is yet much to do, and this latest biography demonstrates this point well.

Slotten is an amateur investigator, and this work was obviously a labor of love. But he's put a good deal of effort into his study, along the way uncovering new archival sources that shed further light on Wallace's many contacts over his long life. So, the reader will find further new things here, even if he or she has already digested the recent excellent studies by Peter Raby, Michael Shermer, and Martin Fichman. Slotten writes well, provides enough historical context to keep things interesting, and only occasionally is factually inaccurate (for example, in some of the chronology he offers for the period of Wallace's adoption of spiritualism, circa 1865-1866).

On the other hand, his efforts sometimes cross over into ill-advised opinion and elaboration. One thing he plays a bit too much on is Wallace's status as an outsider to the intellectual community of his time: the "poor Wallace" line (in relation to his dealings with Darwin, and everyone else). Actually, though Wallace was in fact an outsider, the real story of his life is how little such matters seemed to affect his thought process: when it came to the world of ideas, he was just about as fearless a thinker as we have had. Slotten does a rather poor job of exposing this side--the really important one--of Wallace, and to this extent does just about nothing to expand our knowledge of his world view past the status quo.

But for someone as unusual as Wallace, one cannot ask for everything at once. We should be happy for a well-written, well-researched, and admirably detailed accounting of a very interesting man's life, and continue to hope that future treatments will reach more and more into just what made Wallace tic, and how we in our time can make use of that information.

This book was recommended by a friend. It's a great read, and would make a great action movie. I dimly remembered someone simultaneously developing a theory of evolution with Darwin. After reading this book, I don't know why Wallace isn't more famous than Darwin. He was certainly more interesting. He was self-made, from London's lower classes; trecked around the jungles of South America and the Pacific islands; was involved in a shipwreck; was recognized by England's most prestigious scientific societies; got involved in unpopular social causes and ended up going to seances and visiting mediums. This cost him him his hard-won scientific standing in Victorian London, but that didn't seem to phase him; he had moved on intellectually. He is a fascinating and colorful character. The author doesn't try to explain away the contradictions, but lets Wallace emerge as what he is -- a complexs and enigmatic, and ultimately very sympathetic figure. The book is also a fascinating study of Victorian England. It also contains a very lucid discussion of the thought process that led to the theory of evolution, which becomes almost a sub-plot, with its own heros and villains. This author writes in a clear, lucid prose, and lets his opinion occasionally show through, but generally plays it straight. The scholarship is impressive, but you aren't overwhelmed by it. The author keeps a critical distance from the character, so the portrayal feels ultimately balanced. If you are looking for a good biography, this is a book you should relish.

Ross Slotten, an American family doctor, has written a fine biography of Alfred Wallace, the 19th century's greatest explorer-naturalist and the co-discoverer of evolution.

Wallace's 1858 essay `On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type' outlined the theory of evolution and pushed Darwin into publishing his The origin of species by means of natural selection in 1859. They "had discovered a true natural system, one without a predetermined balance, teleology, or divine plan." Natural selection made a creator unnecessary: developments were not due to some prior purpose or design. Mind had evolved from matter, not matter from a Mind.

Darwin and Wallace united two ideas - the survival of the fittest, and the common origin and divergence of species. Natural selection was like the human practice of selecting among domestic animals and plants.

Wallace spent 12 years in the western and eastern tropics collecting and studying insects, birds, fish, plants and mammals. He wrote up his experiences in A narrative of travels on the Amazon (1853) and The Malay Archipelago (1869). He pioneered the study of biogeography, writing the classics The geographical distribution of animals (1876) and Island life (1880).

He later turned to spiritualism because of the death of his first-born son. As Slotten writes, "Wallace tried to do the impossible in attempting to reconcile religion and science."

Wallace also wrote, Bad times: an essay on the present depression of trade, tracing it to its sources in enormous foreign loans, excessive war expenditure, the increase of speculation and of millionaires, and the depopulation of the rural districts, with suggested remedies (1885), which sounds quite up-to-date!

He had abounding intellectual curiosity and tirelessly sought truth and justice. The Times wrote of his `restless, always creative, and original intelligence'.

Wallace said that Darwin's Origin of species was the greatest book since Isaac Newton's Principia, writing that Darwin's name "should, in my opinion, stand above that of every philosopher of ancient or modern times." Together, Darwin and Wallace had overthrown creationism and, as Slotten writes, "This was arguably the greatest intellectual revolution in modern Western history."

This is by far the best of several recent biographies of Wallace. As a biographer myself, it is hard for me to grasp how Dr. Totten, as a physician, ever found the time to do the meticulous research for this book. While it contains a wealth of end notes, the narrative does not make difficult reading. The author does not insert his own biases in his treatment of the portion of the book that deals in Wallace's spiritualiam.

The story of Darwin's voyage around the world in the Beagle is well known. He used his observations and the time (you have a lot of time on a sailing ship) to develop the basics of the theory of evolution. After his return to England, he wrote up his findings but did not publish them.

Wallace spent a long time making similar observations, but was haunted by ill fortune. For instance his collection of specimens laboriously collected was being shipped to England when the ship they were on caught fire, and the specimens were lost.

Wallace's thoughts though were running along similar lines with that of Darwin. When he was getting ready to publish people told Darwin that his theories were about to be published by Wallace. Darwin then rushed his theory into print and now the theory is Darwin's theory rather than Wallace's theory.

What isn't very well known is that Darwin and Wallace were able to then work together for many years to further develop the theory. Perhaps a better name would be the Darwin-Wallace theory.

This is a very well written addition to the literature and Dr. Slotten's obvious dedication comes through.

I agree completely with comments about the GREAT movie this book would make.It seems so wonderfully balanced, giving both W&D their due with of course the expected underdog admiration beautifully in place.The author's personality in between the lines and in more obvious places makes this book so delightful to read. I violently disagree with one reviewer's use of the term amateur regarding

Mr.Slotten. Nothing could be more professional in tone and spirit, in substance and style than what unfolds before us in these magnificently wrought pages. Pulitzer Prize material in both

conception and execution. What a read !! I cherish this masterpiece. (Both Wallace and Darwin would have shared the Nobel Prize had such prizes been available in their times.)

The place of Wallace in the rise of modern evolutionary theory and its confusions is always a contentious one, and the record shows the persistent, but let us hope, not permament distortion of the facts of the case. The record should show that Wallace produced the first version of what Darwin later got credit for. It's that simple, and any honest profession would move to correct the injustice. But not here, the stakes are too high, and the agenda too ambitious to allow that to happen.

The facts speak for themselves and all biographers tend to 'fumble' the ball here. No fumble at all, it is a fixed necessity of compromise with the Darwin propaganda machine. Let us grant the excesses of some claims that Darwin plagiarized Wallace. Even so the sleight of hand pulled off by Darwin and his gang as to the Ternate paper should be a minimum charge against the paradigm dogmatists here.

This useful and always interesting new biography of Wallace, in a recent slew of such, manages reasonably well to navigate the fudge that occurs here in all cases except those in the wake of Brackman's A Delicate Arrangement which attempted an expose of the great cover story here.

In many ways, this issue of Darwin's rigged priority apart, this is one of the best of the genre and fills in a lot of gaps, especially as to the later Wallace with his ventures into spiritualism. Current scientism finds spiritualism silly superstition. No doubt this is the case, but the false reductionism of Darwinism in action is no less silly and totally fails to grapple with the far greater complexity of man known for millennia. It dawned on Wallace that the methodology emerging couldn't possibly constitute a theory of man's evolution and the way it has totally amputated its subject matter in the regime of brainwashing that has taken over the subject. In a context where to even mention a Buddhist sutra is to be called an irrationalist the true 'evolutionary psychology' of man has become almost a taboo subject. These tactics will come to a bad end sooner or later, and at that point the dissent of Wallace on the evolutionary emergence of man will come into its own again against the false reputation of that iconic imposter, Charles Darwin frantic for his priority at the receipt of the Ternate letter.