The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace

Rating:
Summary: More Wallace
Review: Ross Slotten's new biography of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) continues where others have left off. There has now been at least one full-length biographical study of Wallace published each year since 2000, plus several anthologies and other works. Clearly, Wallace is starting to "get his due." But there is yet much to do, and this latest biography demonstrates this point well.

Slotten is an amateur investigator, and this work was obviously a labor of love. But he's put a good deal of effort into his study, along the way uncovering new archival sources that shed further light on Wallace's many contacts over his long life. So, the reader will find further new things here, even if he or she has already digested the recent excellent studies by Peter Raby, Michael Shermer, and Martin Fichman. Slotten writes well, provides enough historical context to keep things interesting, and only occasionally is factually inaccurate (for example, in some of the chronology he offers for the period of Wallace's adoption of spiritualism, circa 1865-1866).

On the other hand, his efforts sometimes cross over into ill-advised opinion and elaboration. One thing he plays a bit too much on is Wallace's status as an outsider to the intellectual community of his time: the "poor Wallace" line (in relation to his dealings with Darwin, and everyone else). Actually, though Wallace was in fact an outsider, the real story of his life is how little such matters seemed to affect his thought process: when it came to the world of ideas, he was just about as fearless a thinker as we have had. Slotten does a rather poor job of exposing this side--the really important one--of Wallace, and to this extent does just about nothing to expand our knowledge of his world view past the status quo.

But for someone as unusual as Wallace, one cannot ask for everything at once. We should be happy for a well-written, well-researched, and admirably detailed accounting of a very interesting man's life, and continue to hope that future treatments will reach more and more into just what made Wallace tic, and how we in our time can make use of that information.

Rating:
Summary: Wallace's breakthrough...followed by Darwin
Review: The place of Wallace in the rise of modern evolutionary theory and its confusions is always a contentious one, and the record shows the persistent, but let us hope, not permament distortion of the facts of the case. The record should show that Wallace produced the first version of what Darwin later got credit for. It's that simple, and any honest profession would move to correct the injustice. But not here, the stakes are too high, and the agenda too ambitious to allow that to happen.

The facts speak for themselves and all biographers tend to 'fumble' the ball here. No fumble at all, it is a fixed necessity of compromise with the Darwin propaganda machine. Let us grant the excesses of some claims that Darwin plagiarized Wallace. Even so the sleight of hand pulled off by Darwin and his gang as to the Ternate paper should be a minimum charge against the paradigm dogmatists here.
This useful and always interesting new biography of Wallace, in a recent slew of such, manages reasonably well to navigate the fudge that occurs here in all cases except those in the wake of Brackman's A Delicate Arrangement which attempted an expose of the great cover story here.
In many ways, this issue of Darwin's rigged priority apart, this is one of the best of the genre and fills in a lot of gaps, especially as to the later Wallace with his ventures into spiritualism. Current scientism finds spiritualism silly superstition. No doubt this is the case, but the false reductionism of Darwinism in action is no less silly and totally fails to grapple with the far greater complexity of man known for millennia. It dawned on Wallace that the methodology emerging couldn't possibly constitute a theory of man's evolution and the way it has totally amputated its subject matter in the regime of brainwashing that has taken over the subject. In a context where to even mention a Buddhist sutra is to be called an irrationalist the true 'evolutionary psychology' of man has become almost a taboo subject. These tactics will come to a bad end sooner or later, and at that point the dissent of Wallace on the evolutionary emergence of man will come into its own again against the false reputation of that iconic imposter, Charles Darwin frantic for his priority at the receipt of the Ternate letter.


Rating:
Summary: The "Indiana Jones" of Evolution
Review: This book was recommended by a friend. It's a great read, and would make a great action movie. I dimly remembered someone simultaneously developing a theory of evolution with Darwin. After reading this book, I don't know why Wallace isn't more famous than Darwin. He was certainly more interesting. He was self-made, from London's lower classes; trecked around the jungles of South America and the Pacific islands; was involved in a shipwreck; was recognized by England's most prestigious scientific societies; got involved in unpopular social causes and ended up going to seances and visiting mediums. This cost him him his hard-won scientific standing in Victorian London, but that didn't seem to phase him; he had moved on intellectually. He is a fascinating and colorful character. The author doesn't try to explain away the contradictions, but lets Wallace emerge as what he is -- a complexs and enigmatic, and ultimately very sympathetic figure. The book is also a fascinating study of Victorian England. It also contains a very lucid discussion of the thought process that led to the theory of evolution, which becomes almost a sub-plot, with its own heros and villains. This author writes in a clear, lucid prose, and lets his opinion occasionally show through, but generally plays it straight. The scholarship is impressive, but you aren't overwhelmed by it. The author keeps a critical distance from the character, so the portrayal feels ultimately balanced. If you are looking for a good biography, this is a book you should relish.

Rating:
Summary: The "Indiana Jones" of Evolution
Review: This book was recommended by a friend. It's a great read, and would make a great action movie. I dimly remembered someone simultaneously developing a theory of evolution with Darwin. After reading this book, I don't know why Wallace isn't more famous than Darwin. He was certainly more interesting. He was self-made, from London's lower classes; trecked around the jungles of South America and the Pacific islands; was involved in a shipwreck; was recognized by England's most prestigious scientific societies; got involved in unpopular social causes and ended up going to seances and visiting mediums. This cost him him his hard-won scientific standing in Victorian London, but that didn't seem to phase him; he had moved on intellectually. He is a fascinating and colorful character. The author doesn't try to explain away the contradictions, but lets Wallace emerge as what he is -- a complexs and enigmatic, and ultimately very sympathetic figure. The book is also a fascinating study of Victorian England. It also contains a very lucid discussion of the thought process that led to the theory of evolution, which becomes almost a sub-plot, with its own heros and villains. This author writes in a clear, lucid prose, and lets his opinion occasionally show through, but generally plays it straight. The scholarship is impressive, but you aren't overwhelmed by it. The author keeps a critical distance from the character, so the portrayal feels ultimately balanced. If you are looking for a good biography, this is a book you should relish.