We all know about Paul Revere, but William Dawes, who also rode around in the middle of the night warning American colonists about the approaching British, has been nearly forgotten. In a similar manner, in the field of biology, Darwin has become famous for ideas about natural selection, while Wallace is seldom mentioned. In this activity, you will compare Darwin's and Wallace's ideas about evolution. Print excerpts of Darwin's Origin of Species and Wallace's On the Tendencies of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type. Read each excerpt and list ways in which Wallace's and Darwin's ideas are similar and ways in which they are different. Why is Darwin better known than Wallace? Visit the Alfred Russel Wallace page for more information. You also might want to look for Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line by Penny Van Oosterzee [Cornell University Press, 1997]. |
