Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace's Contribution to our Understanding of Natural Selection
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was not only backed up by fossils and research, but also by a concept he thought of called ‘natural selection’ which later became an unavoidable aspect of evolution. A British biologist named Alfred Russel Wallace also independently conceived the concept of natural selection and believed that it was a way for life to change and eventually evolve. One day, Darwin received a letter from Wallace with contained an essay outlining a theory very similar to Darwin’s natural selection.
Wallace and Darwin met briefly before Wallace left on his second trip around the world. They had previously exchanged a few letters discussing Wallace’s observations abroad. Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace both were skeptical of each other as Darwin’s concept of natural selection has been around for 15 years. Darwin was warned by his colleagues that anyone could steal his idea if he didn’t publish it sooner. Nevertheless, both agreed to publish Wallace’s essay and Darwin’s 1844 essay and to announce they had independently made the same conclusions. In 1858, papers by both men were read at a scientific meeting. Charles later published his book: “On the Origin of Species” in 1859 and was considered one of the most influential scientific books of all time.
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace’s contributed very much to our understanding of natural selection. Both ideas of natural selection were made separately but both had similarities between them. They proposed that in order for evolution to change, variation in each generation in a single species must have occurred. The variation that occurred in an individual will affect their survival and whether they would live longer or die early. If the variation was able to increase their chances of survival, the trait would be passed down the further generations increasing their chances of survival and reproducing. Eventually, that favorable, varied trait will evolve and become an important trait/phenotype to their survival