In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History
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Virtually unknown today, Alfred Russel Wallace was the co-discoverer of natural selection with Charles Darwin and an eminent scientist who stood out among his Victorian peers as a man of formidable mind and equally outsized personality. Now Michael Shermer rescues Wallace from the shadow of Darwin in this landmark biography. Here we see Wallace as perhaps the greatest naturalist of his age—spending years in remote jungles, collecting astounding quantities of specimens, writing thoughtfully and with bemused detachment at his reception in places where no white man had ever gone. Here, too, is his supple and forceful intelligence at work, grappling with such arcane problems as the bright coloration of caterpillars, or shaping his 1858 paper on natural selection that prompted Darwin to publish (with Wallace) the first paper outlining the theory of evolution. Shermer also shows that Wallace's self-trained intellect, while powerful, also embraced surprisingly naive ideas, such as his deep interest in the study of spiritual manifestations and seances. Shermer shows that the same iconoclastic outlook that led him to overturn scientific orthodoxy as he worked in relative isolation also led him to embrace irrational beliefs, and thus tarnish his reputation. As author of Why People Believe Weird Things and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, Shermer is an authority on why people embrace the irrational. Now he turns his keen judgment and incisive analysis to Wallace's life and his contradictory beliefs, restoring a leading figure in the rise of modern science to his rightful place. Washington Post Why, then, are science and religion at loggerheads? The answer can be found in an excellent new book on the man who also discovered natural selection (and who pushed Darwin into publication). In Darwin's Shadow, a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace by Michael Shermer, the founder and editor of Skeptic magazine, tells us about someone who was both a great scientist and also much given to religious speculation and commitment. After making his great discovery, Wallace became enthused with spiritualism, believing that everything -- including the course of evolution up to humans -- is guided by unseen forces, and that a full account of life and its purposes must make reference to the unknown and unfathomable. Horrified, the regular scientists around Darwin pushed Wallace out of the scientific community. They were happy to get him a state pension, but they were damned if they were going to let him belong to the club. He was refused job after job, and had to make his living marking exam papers and writing popular books.
List of IllustrationsPreface: Genesis and RevelationPrologue: The Psychology of Biography31Uncertain Beginnings332The Evolution of a Naturalist563Breaching the Walls of the Species Citadel774The Mystery of Mysteries Solved1085A Gentlemanly Arrangement1286Scientific Heresy and Ideological Murder1517A Scientist Among the Spiritualists1758Heretical Thoughts2029Heretical Culture22510Heretic Personality25011The Last Great Victorian27112The Life of Wallace and the Nature of History298Epilogue. Psychobiography and the Science of History311Notes329App. IWallace Archival Sources343App. IIWallace's Published Works351Bibliography391Index403
