#alfredrusselwallace — Public Fediverse posts

Darwin and Wallace's original papers to the Linnean Society (published 1858) are fascinating reads, showing how they each developed the concept of natural selection. The foreword by Lyell and Hooker makes clear that Darwin was very reluctant to publish!

Both mention artificial selection, but Wallace uses the tendency of domesticated animals to "return to type" in the wild - seen at the time as some sort of stabilising force against change - to bolster the idea of natural selection.

On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology. 3:45-62, 1858-9
https://archive.org/details/darwin-wallace-1858-journalofproceed-00linn/mode/1up?view=theater

#NaturalSelection #OriginOfSpecies #CharlesDarwin #AlfredRusselWallace #LinneanSociety #EvolutionaryBiology #TheoryOfEvolution

> ... how to course-correct our civilization, so that the rise of capitalism as a global economic system based on exploitation and extraction would not corral our species into its own misery and threaten the survival of all species on an irreplaceable planet that is a miracle and not a resource.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/12/11/the-wonderful-century-alfred-russel-wallace/
#AlfredRusselWallace #EvolutionGuy #CivilizationCourseCorrection
#CourseCorrectCivilization
#IndustrialCivilization
#MariaPopova
/HT @mariapopova