Darwin and Wallace

Ella Starobinska

P1. BEFORE THE ORIGIN

Encounter with different races and civilization

CD (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)

Travels :

Beagle

(1831-1836).

ARW (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913)

Travels :

1848-1852 Mischief to Brazil,S.America

1854 -1862 –Malaysia and Indonesia

From My Life, 1905: Wallace was impressed by

• 1.‘the virgin forest, everywhere grand, often beautiful and even sublime’.

• 2. ‘the wonderful variety and exquisite beauty of the butterflies and birds’

• 3. The most unexpected sensation of surprise and delight was my first meeting and living with man in a state of nature with absolute uncontaminated savages. ... as original and self-sustaining as are the wild animals of the forests, absolutely independent of civilization, and who could and did live their lives in their own way, as they had done for countless generations before America was discovered

Wallace writes from Borneo

• ‘The more I see of uncivilized people, the better I think of human nature on the whole, and the essential differences between civilized and savage man seem to disappear’ (Wallace, 1905 Vol. I: 342–3).

• Political Views, Materials, Moral Elevation

Q: Where is Borneo?

Darwin and “Savages”

Encounter on the board of the Beagle

Three captive and “part-civilized” Fuegians

Describes them as being in a “degrades state”

Revert to “wild state” in 1834 when Darwin returns

Both Wallace and Darwin distinguish

between “civilized” and “savage”

What creature is this?

Non-human animal observation –IMPORTANT

• Jenny, London Zoo, 1838

• Keeper teasing her with apple

• Children’s tantrum.

• Tests: mirror, smells, sounds

• Similar reaction as William’s and Anne’s

Wallace and Mias

• Species Notebook, March 19th, 1855:• “Mias” (Orangutan in the language of

Dyaks, people of Borneo) • Recruits locals to track, shoot the “great beasts” to be measured, skinned, packaged as

specimens for England• Ruthless disregard and recognition of

emotional surprise of victims

Wallace and Mias, ctd

• Letter home describing how he tried to rescue a baby Mias• Mother is refered to as the “wild woman of the woods”. Killed by

Wallace.• Resemblance of baby mias’ behavior to humans• Contradiction in 1850s views

P2. Natural Selection

• Radical transformation in Wallace’s world-view

• In 1858 in Galilo Wallace suffers from a fever.

• Remembers Malthus’ Principles of Population

• Sends the manuscript to Darwin• Darwin declares Wallace’s idea to be an"

identical” hypothesis

Q1: Who is this? Q2: What did he suggest?

W: NATURAL SELECTION• The origin of new species - the outcome of

a 'struggle for existence' in which only the 'fittest' or best-adapted survive, and succeed in passing on their advantageous attributes to their offspring

• Darwin rushed to publish Origin of the Species, 1859

• Wallace becomes an advocate of Darwinism

Advocate Until a Turning Point

• Wallace formulates the following based on the Darwinian view:

• “… none of the definite facts of organic nature, no special organ, no characteristic form or marking, no peculiarities of instinct or of habit, no relations between species or between groups of species – can exist, but which must now be or once have been useful to the individuals or the races which possess them. ” (Mimicry and other Protective Resemblances among Animals )

W: Natural Selection and Humans

• Development of Mental Faculties and traits favored in the “Struggle for Life”:

• I.e. “make tools and weapons, control the use of fire, make clothes, domesticate other animals and grow crops would all deliver advantages in the struggle for life”

• Which are favored by Natural Selection

Enhancement of Mental and Moral Faculties vs. Bodily Structures

• Mental Faculties=Brain, CNS

• Development from “barely social” ancestor produces a civilized human :– “'His brain alone would have increased in size

and complexity and his cranium have undergone corresponding changes of form ” (Wallace, 1864b)

– Acquires adaptations of races according to region.

Man Escapes Natural Selection

• Fixation of racial faculties when brain is developed.

• “as soon as the human intellect became developed above a certain low stage, man's body would cease to be materially affected by natural selection, because the development of his mental faculties would render important modifications of its form and structure unnecessary. ”

Man Escapes Natural Selection, • “Bright paradise”=utopia• Balance of socio-political views and natural

selection• “earth will produce only cultivated plants and

domestic animals; when man's selection shall have supplanted "natural selection … the world is again inhabited by a single homogeneous race, no individual of which will be inferior to the noblest specimens of existing humanity. Each one will then work out his own happiness in relation to that of his fellows; perfect freedom of action will be maintained, since the well balanced moral faculties will never permit any one to transgress on the equal freedom of others …into as bright a paradise as ever haunted the dreams of seer or poet ”(Wallace, 1864)

Problems

• 1) How “bright paradise” is achieved– Races inferior to one race– Admiration of savages or racial hierarchy– Virtues of the superior race

2)Cultivated plants and domesticated animals

-- beauty of forests, butterflies, Amazon

P3. The Heretic

Benton outlines the Argument:• 1) range of capacities and related physical

features that could not have been acquired by natural selection alone

• 2) potential of these attributes is realized only under conditions of advanced civilization.

• 3) the originally acquired capacities are preparations for advanced state of human progress.

• 4)superior intelligence has guided human evolution for some higher purpose.

Limits of Nat. Selection as Applied to Man (1869-1870)

• ‘Savages', early humans and 'civilized' humans differ very little in cranial capacity.

• Brain and mental abilities- also differ very little from ‘civilized ’ and ‘savage’

• Big difference with apes and animals

• Human backs don’t have hair.

• The hairy family in Birmah

• Walking in the upright position- to protect back.

• HURTFUL TRAIT.

• When migrated to colder climate,

why was this trait not restored?

Mental Capacity:

Hair Covering

Q: According to Wallace,

• If natural selection is not responsible for this phenomena, then WHAT IS????

Darwin’s Response

• Wallace again provokes Darwin to publish• The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1874)• In his introduction argues that humans did descend from some

ape-like ancestor. (However, this is not an issue between Darwin and Wallace)

• Natural selection was experienced by men. Variation in sub-population, different reproductive rated and famine with other checks. Experience struggle for life.

Response• Mental Capacity:

• humans do not differ fundamentally from other animals, especially the primates, in their senses, the small number of instincts emotional repertoire and in their capacity to reason, imagine, dream and so on.

• Humans- degrees of acquiring, Babies->adults.

Same with evolution

• Hair Covering

• Sexual selection.

Darwin on Races

• “The American aborigines, negroes and Europeans” are different

• Fuegians: “with the many little traits of character, showing how similar their minds were to ours.” (Darwin 1874)

• Racial differences– - Partly adaptation to geography– SEXUAL SELECTION

Conclusion

References• Benton, Ted. "Race, Sex and the 'earthly Paradise': Wallace versus Darwin on Human Evolution and Prospects."

The Sociological Review 57.S2 (2010): 23-46. Wiley InterScience, 12 Mar. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/fulltext/123320683/HTMLSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0>.

• ·  Darwin, C., (1859), On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, London: John Murray.• ·  Darwin, C., (1874), [1871], The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, London: John Murray.• ·  Darwin, C., (1987), [1837], Charles Darwin's Notebooks 1836–1846 P. H. Barrett, P. J. Gautrey, S. Herbert, D.

Kohn and S. Smith (eds), London & Cambridge: British Museum (Natural History)/Cambridge University..• ·  Wallace, A. R., (1856), On the habits of the Orang Utan of Borneo, Annals and Magazine of Natural History,

July:26–32. Links  • ·  Wallace, A. R., (1858), On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type, Journal of the

Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, Vol. 3:53–62. (reprinted without alteration in Wallace, 1870). Links  • ·  Wallace, A. R., (1864a), 'On the phenomena of variation and geographical distribution, as illustrated by the

Papilionidae of the Malayan region' in Transactions of the Linnaean Society, Vol. XXV. Links  • ·  Wallace, A. R., (1864b), The origin of human races and the antiquity of man deduced from the theory of

'natural selection', Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 2:clviii–clxxxvii. (reprinted, but with a new title and significant alterations, in Wallace, 1870). Links  

• ·  Wallace, A. R., (1867b), Creation by law, Quarterly Journal of Science, October:471–488. Republished in Wallace, A. R., (1870), Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, London: Macmillan. Links  

• ·  Wallace, A. R., (1868), A theory of birds' nests, Journal of Travel and Natural History, 2:73–89. Republished in Wallace, A. R., (1870), Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, London: Macmillan. Links  

• ·  Wallace, A. R., (1870), Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, London: Macmillan.• ·  Wallace, A. R., (1905), My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions (in two volumes), London: Chapman & Hall.