Around Indonesia (no surprise!) there is more appreciation for Wallace than around here. More of us should learn about him and read his books.
> I strongly second this opinion. As someone who recently read "The > Malay Archipelago" and is now making herself read "Origins" as kind > of a bicentennial pilgrimage (akin to wearing a hair shirt or > self-flagellation?), regardless of who first "discovered" evolution, > Wallace is by far the better writer. Malay Archipelago is also great > travel literature, with many of his > liberal-at-the-time-but-maybe-not-pc-now observations on colonialism > and the cultures of various tribes that he stayed with. He was > viewing human variation much as he did variation in the rest of the > fauna he encountered. In addition to labeling where his specimens > were captured (unlike Darwin), actually being able to identify what > he collected with no formal training (unlike Darwin), and his > knowledge of fossils and geologic processes, he paid attention to > indigenous knowledge of animals and actually documented the numerous > languages spoken among the Indonesian islands as another line of > evidence for tracking historical migrations of animal species. > > At 11:25 AM 2/19/2009, Thomas Shannon wrote: >>Oh, what the heck... might as well chime in on this thread as well :) >> >>One of my personal favorites, partially due to my childhood spent in >>Sulawesi, is a seldom read book written by "that other evolution guy". >> Where >>natural science meets high adventure in a tale far less "stuffy" than >>'Voyage of the Beagle'... 'The Malay Archipelago' by Alfred Russel >> Wallace. >> >>-- >>Tom Shannon, Ph.D. >> >>Web: http://macropyga.googlepages.com >>Phone: 706-613-7443 > > Yetta Jager > Environmental Sciences Division > Oak Ridge National Laboratory > P.O. Box 2008, MS 6036 > Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6036 USA > > For packages, please replace "P.O. Box 2008" with "Bethel Valley Road". > > OFFICE: 865/574-8143 FAX: 865/576-3989 > Work email: [email protected] Home email: [email protected] > My webpage: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/~zij/ > Fish and Wildlife Modelling: > http://www.esd.ornl.gov/research/ecol_management/fish_wildlife_modeling >
