2008-07-14 Wallaceism?

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's a well told story, and backed up by some intriguing detective work (especially the detailed postal shipping records!). Davies gradually builds up the case against Darwin with some skill, and it concludes with a damning verdict of Darwin's 'dark and desperate' state that led to manouevering himself to take the glory for the theory of evolution (much of which appeared to be Wallaces' insights).

However, it became clear to me that there are several areas of scientific theory that amount to 'evolution', and my only concern was that perhaps some of Darwin's considerable output and experiementation (so I have been told) in areas such as natural selection were not given as much credence as they could have been. Not being an expert in the area, I felt that Darwin's output could have been evaluated with a little more focus - surely he should be credited with something out of all of this? I felt myself becoming increasingly annoyed with Darwin's manouvres, but also wanted some reassurance that he had been given a fair trial in this book.

Overall, it does suggest that this whole area needs to be debated further in the scientific community. Perhaps Wallace should be re-positioned into the history books? Surely he deserves recognition for his brilliant insights?