Two Parents of the Theory of the Evolution

My Brazilian friend and colleague Prof. Ildeu Moreira informs me that during the Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) on July 13, the replica Wallace plaque which the Wallace Fund recently donated to INPA (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia) in Manaus, Amazonas, was officially unveiled by none other than Charles Darwin's great-great grandson Randal Keynes. A copy of the Wallace's huge manuscript map of the Rio Negro (he was the first to map this mighty river) was also unveiled. The plaque was donated by the Fund to commemorate Wallace's four year expedition in Amazonas and is the first of the Wallace plaques to be officially unveiled. Others have been sent to: The Royal Geographical Society (London); Bogor Botanic Garden (Java, Indonesia); the Royal Entomological Society (London); the National Botanic Garden of Wales; the University of Glamorgan (Wales); Cardiff University (Wales); Thurrock Museum (Grays, Essex, UK); Usk Rural Life Museum (Wales); and the Wallace Education Centre, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (Singapore). They will hopefully go on show soon (if they haven't already).

A few more plaques we promised various organisations are still to be made because of an unfortunate problem which delayed the project considerably. The mould which was made from the original plaque and which we thought would produce all of them, started to break down after the tenth copy. We therefore had to have another (very expensive!) mould made, which was cast from the first of the plaques. This took time. Also each plaque takes several days to produce because they are hand made from many different layers, each of which has to harden before the next is applied.

Getting back to the unveiling of the Brazilian plaque. You can see an article and a nice news report from Brazil's main television channel, TV Globo, about it in Portuguese HERE. I have made a English translation of the article which follows:

"Two Parents of the Theory of the Evolution

The great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, the environmentalist Randal Keynes,

is in Manaus to pay homage to his illustrious relative. He also used the opportunity

to minimize a historical injustice.

By Daniela Assayag ( Manaus)

There was a crowded audience to hear the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. The environmentalist Randal Keynes travels the world speaking about the legacy of his great-great-grandfather. The trip to Brazil is part of the commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, the book that revolutionized science by showing that species evolve through time. But, a century and more later, another person enters the scene. Alfred Wallace was a contemporary of Charles Darwin. The two English naturalists had both been in Brazil . Darwin covered the coast. Wallace lived in Amazonia for four years. Whilst in the forest he studied palms and fishes and observed the behavior of the monkeys of the Rio Negro, but he ended up losing everything that he collected because the boat he took to return to England sank. Years later in Indonesia he discovered the process of evolution by natural selection. Wallace then sent his theory in a letter to Darwin from Asia . He wanted to know what the famous naturalist thought of his article. What Wallace did not imagine was that Charles Darwin had worked out the same theory 20 years before and that he was then pressurized into making his ideas public so as not to run the risk of losing credit for them. The theory of the origin of the species was then published by Darwin and Wallace simultaneously. The scientists recognized at the time that they were coauthors, but only Darwin became famous. "Writers of popular science books and school books do not recognize the great importance that Alfred Wallace had in the development of the theory", stated the Head of the Department for the Popularisation of Science of the Ministry of Science & Technology, Ildeu Moreira. Today the great-great-grandson of Darwin participated in a homage to Alfred Wallace and said that it was wonderful to celebrate both Darwin and Wallace, and that he does not doubt that his great-great-grandfather felt forced to publish its ideas more quickly than he would have because of Wallace and that the theory, yes, has two parents."

Ildeu Moreira also informs me that during the same meeting Prof. Nelson Papavero (Museum of Zoology, University of São Paulo) chaired a conference about Darwin and Wallace's contributions to natural selection. Also, a round-table discussion (Evolution Now) considered the state of evolutionary theory today and talked about the Brazilian Darwin Trails project (www.casadaciencia.ufrj.br/caminhosdedarwin).