At last someone has made a very nice video (admittedly a short one) which acknowledges the importance of Alfred Russel Wallace in the discovery of evolution by natural selection. Watch it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=100542500&m=100542542
It features images of butterfly specimens from Wallace's private insect collection in the Natural History Museum, London, which I curate.
Hooray for American National Public Radio, their science correspondent Joe Palca, and biologist Sean Carroll!!! May this be the start of things to come.
There is also a related radio programme about Darwin and Wallace:- http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=100542500&m=100553885, including an interview with me:- http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=100542500&m=100602890 Also see this page:- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100542500
As I said to Sean Carroll when he visited me at the NHM recently: I think that historians of science should be examining the bigger picture of the history of the idea of natural selection, rather than narrowly focussing on one independent originator of it i.e. Charles Darwin. Apart from leading to a more accurate and balanced view of history, this would have the wonderful effect of eliminating the target that creationists currently have i.e. Darwin and Darwinism. It would show that scientific process was inevitably leading towards the discovery of the mechanism of evolutionary change and that it wasn't the 'evil' idea of just one man.
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