Wallace was a prolific author who wrote on both scientific and social issues his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Indonesia and Malaysia, The Malay Archipelago, was one of the most popular and influential journals of scientific exploration published during the 19th century. His interest in biogeography resulted in his being one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity. In addition to his scientific work, he was a social activist who was critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system in 19th-century Britain. 9.99 Ebook Free sample About this ebook arrowforward Alfred Russel Wallace (18231913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century’s most. General Overviews Because Wallace wrote on an extremely broad range of topics, any overview tends to deal with one or several themes only. This volume brings together the letters of the great Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) during his famous travels of 1854-62 in the Malay Archipelago (now Singapore, Malaysia. His advocacy of Spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with the scientific establishment, especially with other early proponents of evolution. Wallace was strongly attracted to unconventional ideas. These included the concept of warning colouration in animals, and the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridization. Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made a number of other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography". Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the Wallace Line that divides Indonesia into two distinct parts, one in which animals closely related to those of Australia are common, and one in which the species are largely of Asian origin. He is best known for independently proposing a theory of natural selection which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own theory. Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist.
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