Forgotten Alfred Wallace - Evolutionist

Thanks to Dr. Olivia Judson for pointing out the birthday of an important scientist - Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) who was a naturalist, evolutionist and contemporary of Charles Darwin. Dr. Judson has an informative article about Wallace in the NY Times. It can be argued that it was Wallace who pressured Darwin into publishing the "Origin of Species" because Wallace was close to coming up with the idea of natural selection himself. However, information on the Alfred Russel Wallace page answers this question as follows:

Question: Did Wallace really, as some claim, "scoop" Darwin on the theory of natural selection?
Answer: No. While Wallace had been thinking in evolutionary terms for many years--in fact, one might reasonably argue (because of his very early interest in social evolution), for as long as Darwin had--the natural selection concept in particular did not occur to him until 1858, by which time Darwin had been studying the idea for some twenty years. Wallace's 1855 paper 'On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species' (S20), which hinted strongly at an evolutionary position, nevertheless contains not even a trace of natural selection-like thinking. Moreover . . . True, Darwin had published nothing concerning natural selection by the time he received Wallace's essay 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type' (S43) in mid-1858--and true, Darwin's contribution to the 1 July 1858 introduction of natural selection to the Linnean Society consisted only of two unpublished writings--but it must be remembered that Wallace's essay itself was also an "unpublished writing," and that he had not asked Darwin to submit it for publication. Thus, the overall presentation consisted of three unpublished, unintended-for-publication writings, and it cannot be claimed even technically that "Wallace got into print with a finished work" on natural selection before Darwin did. In fact, Wallace's first natural selection-related analysis (that he did intend for publication, that is!) did not appear until late 1863, a whole four years after On the Origin of Species was published.

In fact, Wallace gave credit to Darwin by refering to natural selection as Darwinism. Wallace was an interesting guy however and it's well worth reading the article about him on Wikipedia.