Dispelling the Darkness: Voyage in the Malay Archipelago and the Discovery of Evolution by Wallace and Darwin

by John van Wyhe

"The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness."T H Huxley (1887)Darwin is one of the most famous scientists in history. But he was not alone. Comparatively forgotten, Wallace independently discovered evolution by natural selection in Southeast Asia. This book is based on the most thorough research ever conducted on Wallace's voyage. Closely connected, but worlds apart, Darwin and Wallace's stories hold many surprises. Did Darwin really keep his theory a secret for twenty years? Did he plagiarise Wallace? Were their theories really the same? How did Wallace hit on the solution, and on which island? This book reveals for the first time the true story of Darwin, Wallace and the discovery that would change our understanding of life on Earth forever.

Genres: Science, Evolution, History

436 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good work--telling the story of the interaction of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, credited as the co-authors of the theory of evolution. Of course, it is more complex than that, as this book outlines. Evolution was a notion "in the air," with a number of works adumbrating the concept. However, the "coming out" party was on July 1, 1858, at a meeting of the Linnean Society. Here, works by both Darwin and Wallace were presented, making public the two views.

The book itself describes the process by which Darwin and Wallace came to their views, the intertwining of their work, and the join presentation in 1858. While I was aware of this event, I never really explored Wallace's ideas; my attention was on Darwin's works. This book has several interesting elements to it: the interactions--from a distance, via mail--between Darwin and Wallace; the letter that Wallace sent to Darwin with his ideas on evolution; Darwin's realization that they were both on the same trail, although there surely are differences in their evolutionary perspectives; Darwin's decision to have his ideas presented along with the document sent to him by Wallace.

The back story is fascinating. Wallace determined to generate revenue; he did this by harvesting wildlife (from insects to birds of paradise and on) and selling the preserved remains in England. A delicate proposition, since it took a long time for the specimens to ship from Malaysia to England. It was in the Malay Archipelago that Wallace's thinking on evolution began to develop (he had been collecting elsewhere before). In the process of collecting, he began to wonder about patterns that he was seeing.

At one point, on the island of Ternate, he fell ill. While bed ridden, he had a Eureka moment when he pulled together his thoughts regarding evolution. He wrote an essay and, in a wondrous "irony" as the author puts it, he sent the essay to Charles Darwin, who had been thinking about and working on his species theory for decades. This led to the presentations at the Linnean Society.

The book does a wonderful job in detailing Wallace's collecting expeditions in the Archipelago, putting in temporal perspective his and Darwin's evolving views, and giving us a sense of both Darwin and Wallace as people. He also addresses pseudo-controversies, such as the extent to which Darwin might have worked against recognition of Wallace, such as criticisms that Darwin should not have worked to get Wallace's paper presented without his permission, and so on. For the most part, the author effectively quashes the bulk of such conspiracy theories.

All in all, a wonderful examination of the Darwin-Wallace work on evolution and its public presentation in 1858. It is also a nice biographical essay on the life of Wallace.

[Merilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what my problem was with this book: the subject matter was right up my alley, but I found the book's style to be just plodding and choppy. The badly formatted Kindle version didn't help, either.

[Novia · Rating 4 out of 5]

hmm a lot of work goes into these books


and the whole hunting down species of animals to be catalogued/ sent back home for profit is intriguing in a way, to see how circumstances shape our views.
van wyhe (dr john) once talked about how a species of giant tortoises (galapagos?) were driven to extinction in the name of science, how they were hunted down when the men thought they were at risk of losing the tortoises due to the already-dwindling numbers.
at the time, there was no thoughts of conservation, much less the NGOs we have now.
i guess the awareness was not as developed, the need not as pressing?

[Arnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an awesome insight to Wallace's life. Dr van Wyhe told us in his class two years ago he was writing this book and I am very happy to finally get to read it.

Overall it gives a clear picture of Wallace's work that is not biases and shows that a lot of theories out there about Darwin stealing Wallace's work is not true.

[George Beccaloni · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very poor 'revisionist' history of Wallace and his work in the 'Malay Archipelago'. It will be highly misleading to readers who haven't read van Wyhe's academic articles and the responses to them by leading Wallace scholars. For a brief overview of some of the many errors in van Wyhe's book see https://www.cell.com/current-biology/...

[Merahnaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Menunggu saatnya dibaca.