The 19th century was a turbulent time.
The turn of the century was marked by the Napoleonic wars, which for more than a decade
had tested the very balance of power maintained in Europe.
Latin America, after decades of struggling under foreign rule, successfully vyed for
its independence.
And by the middle of the century, much of Europe was being rocked in the wake of the
democratic upheavals of the monarchies of Europe.
The instability created from the events of the day was hardly the climate to foster great
discoveries, but between the chaos and confusion, a handful of scientists attempted to peer
back the veil of confusion, and better understand the complex world that lay before them.
Our story begins with a single man and a ship.
In 1854 he set out on an expedition to study the natural history of the world, and collect
specimens for study and sale.
Far from the conveniences of the modern era, expeditions in this time were dangerous.
Just two years before, his ship burns in the Atlantic Ocean on its return voyage from South
America, losing many of his specimens to the sea and leaving him adrift for ten days before
his rescue by a british bound vessel.
Although much of his four years of work had gone down with the ship, that wouldn’t stop
his desire to try again.
On this voyage, while exploring an archipelago, he began to refine his thoughts on evolution,
and what would come to be his famous insight on natural selection.
That archipelago, not the Galapoagos, but the Malay Archipelago and the mans name, not
Charles Darwin, but Alfred Russel Wallace.
The man whose findings would start a race to claim the discovery of evolution...
Wallace was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist.
He had previously led expeditions in the amazon, but his discoveries here, on these collections
of islands, would come to define his legacy, and the legacy of the man who he was forever
in the shadow of.
Over a period of eight years, he accumulated more than an astonishing 125,000 specimens,
including more than 5,000 species new to western science.
In his studies, Wallace noticed a striking pattern in the distribution of animals around
the archipelago.
He proposed an imaginary line, that would come to be termed Wallace’s Line, dividing
the region into two parts, that marked the boundary between the animal life of the Australian
region and that of Asia.
Wallace began to wonder why there would be such a distinct line dividing the islands,
and what lead to the differences in species across them.
One day in 1858, while feverish and confined to his hut on the island of Ternate (now in
Indonesia), Wallace had a realisation.
He came to understand how species evolved - they changed because the fittest individuals
survived and reproduced, passing their advantageous characteristics on to their offspring.
Wallace immediately wrote to someone he knew was interested in the subject, Charles Darwin,
unaware that he had been wrestling with similar notions for more than a decade prior.
To understand why he did this we’ll have to take a step back.
Charles Dawrin was born in the winter of 1809, the son of a wealthy doctor and financier.
In his studies at University, Darwin was fascinated by natural history and evidence for divine
design in nature.
After his studies, and time spent mapping the strata, the orderly layers of sediment
left over millions of years, in Wales, he was invited aboard the HMS Beagle, on an expedition
to chart the coastline of South America.
Despite his father's objections, who would prefer he follow in his footsteps into medicine,
Charles Darwin set sale on December 27th, 1831.
The planned two year voyage stretched on to five.
While the HMS Beagle surveyed and charted coasts, Dawrin spent most of that time on
land investigating the geology of the continent and making additions to his natural history
collection.
Despite some previous work collecting beetles and marine invertebrates, at the time, Darwin
was largely a novice in the nature of most specimens he collected, periodically sending
them back to Cambrdige for expert appraisal.
After stops in Cape Verde and Brazil, the expedition moved southward towards Patagonia.
It was here, in the cliffs of Punta Alta, that Darwin would make the first major discovery.
The fossils of a huge extinct mammal beside modern day seashells, indicating a recent
extinction with no signs of a catastrophe or drastic change in the climate, which, at
the time, was believed to be necessary to drive a species to extinction.
Since many believed species largely didn’t change and were perfectly suited towards their
environment, for them to die out their environment would have to drastically change to they point
where they could no longer survive.
So Darwin began to wonder what had made this species go extinct...
As he continued around South America, more things began to stand out to him.
He discovered seashells high in the Andes mountains, where the ground had seemingly
risen out of the ocean.
But like Wallace, it would take an Archipelago to reveal the truth to him..
In September of 1835 the HMS Beagle landed on San Cristobal, the Eastern most of the
Galapagos islands.
On the islands he noticed mockingbirds similar to those he had seen in Chile, but differing
slightly from island to island.
On the islands, he had heard from locals, that slight variations in tortoise shells
could be used to tell from which island they originated, although Darwin failed to collect
any of theses shells, despite having a liking for the taste of the tortoises held within
them…
In fact, not even Darwin would realize the magnitude of his discoveries here until long
after he left the galapagos.
So little did he think of his discovery of slight differences between finch populations
from island to island, that he failed to make note from which island his specimens originated,
later having to backtrack where they came from from the journals of the fellow sailors
aboard the ship.
Analyzing his specimens on the way home, Darwin had the first inklings at what would become
his theory of natural selection.
In his notes, Darwin wrote that, if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds and the
tortoises were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously
added "would" before "undermine".
Upon his return to England, Darwin presented his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological
Society.
The ornithologist John Gould soon announced that the Galapagos birds that Darwin had thought
were a mixture of several different birds, were in fact, all finches.
Furthermore, Gould told Darwin that Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate
species, not just varieties of one.
After conferring with the journals of his fellow sailors and allocating each species
to islands, he first realized how their distribution changed going southwards.
By mid-March of 1837, barely six months after his return to England, Darwin was speculating
in his notes on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain
the geographical distribution of living species of numerous birds through South America.
He further detailed his thoughts on sexual reproduction around variation in offspring
"to adapt & alter the race to (a) changing world" explaining his observations in the
Galápagos.
In 1844 Darwin had written out his ideas into a 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his
research results if he died prematurely.
Darwin's findings remained unpublished as he worked on them for more than a decade.
Today there is debate over whether this delay was caused by Darwin’s fear of being ostracized
by society for going against the commonly held belief that species were fixed, or whether
frequent illness and work on other projects slowed his efforts.
When Darwin's close friend and confidant, Charles Lylle, read a paper by Alfred Wallace,
"On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species", he saw similarities with
Darwin's thoughts and urged him to publish to establish precedence.
Though Darwin saw no threat, on May 14, 1856 he began writing a short paper, which expanded
into a full book.
For years, he continued his research, obtaining information and specimens from naturalists
worldwide including Wallace who was working in Borneo.
As he worked on his book, in 1858 he received the letter from Wallace revealing how close
he was to discovering what Darwin had been wrestling with for over a decade.
Racing to finish his book before it was too late, the next year On the Origin of Species
was published and proved unexpectedly popular.
In the book, Darwin set out one long argument of detailed observations, inferences and consideration
of anticipated objections.
Darwin's theory is simply stated in the introduction:
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as,
consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any
being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex
and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and
thus be naturally selected.
From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate
its new and modified form.”
At the end of the book he concluded that:
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally
breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling
on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
The last word was the only time any variant of "evolved" appeared in the first five editions
of the book.
While Alfrud Wallace has largely been consigned to the footnote of history, he continued to
push the needle of human knowledge for decades and was elected to the Royal Society in 1893
for his contributions to the theory of natural selection.
Darwin and Wallace continued to exchange communications and were even good friends, sharing their
discoveries, until Darwin’s death in 1882.