“The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear”

Officially, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are co-discoverers of evolution. Wallace had written to Darwin from Indonesia where he was working as a naturalist, outlining his ideas on natural selection, which Darwin was dismayed to read were the same as his.

Ever the honourable gent, Darwin arranged for a co-authored paper explaining their discovery to be read at the Linnean Society of London in 1859: On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.

The quote above is from Thomas Bell, president of the society, commenting in his annual report on the papers of that year.

Unlikely Objects

Products of a counterfactual history of science

“The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear”