Alfred Russel Wallace

A detailed Summary of Alfred Russel Wallace

Many important contributions have been made to science. One of the most important deals with the theory of evolution. Back in the 1800s, a man named Alfred Russel Wallace made his contributions to science and to the theory of evolution. His discoveries influenced the world of science in the years to come.

One of the forgotten fathers of modern science is a man named Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace was best known for his development of a theory of evolution based on natural selection. He was born in 1823 in the village of Usk in Monmouthshire, England. Wallace's father died while Alfred was still young. Alfred joined his brother, William, not long after his formal schooling had ended. They went on to survey English counties over the following four years. During this time, Alfred learned to make accurate observations and detailed recordings. These skills came to be a big part and were very important for Alfred later in life.

In Leicester, at the Collegiate School, he was named the drawing-master. Wallace met up with another teacher while he was in Leicester. The teacher was Henry Bates. He brought Alfred into the world of botany and influenced Wallace to make a collection of beetles. In 1848, Wallace and Bates went

The essay On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type by Wallace, established the rate in which animals multiply and their dependence on several kinds of food supplies for the average numbers and arrived at the conclusion that only the ones who are the strongest can survive and that the weakest will essentially die. Wallace then studied the forms of the archipelago, and in talking about mammals, split the land surface of the earth into six zoo geographical regions. He named the regions Palaearctic, Nearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian, and Neotropical. Between the islands of Bali and Lombok is the most remarkable of the many faunal contrasts found by Wallace. A deep straight separates the islands and is about 15 miles wide at its narrowest point. According to Wallace, the fauna of Bali and Lombok differ a lot from the birds and quadrupeds of England and Japan. The straight is known as "Wallace's Line" and is said to split up the peculiar Australian fauna from those of the other Pacific islands.

A year later, Wallace set out on another trip. This time he traveled to Malay Archipelago, where he would spend the next eight years. While he was in the area he visited most of the islands. At this point, Wallace would become convinced of the truth of evolution. He became interested in how species arose. In 1855, he published an article that argued that new species originate in space and time simultaneously with an already existing related species. The article was called: On the Law

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Approximate Word count = 1034
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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