Wallace, The Scientist
======================

In 1848, following numerous poor investments and failed business
ventures, the 25 year old Alfred Russell Wallace set out aboard the
*Mischief* for Brazil. His plan was to document the geography, flora,
fauna and people of South America, collecting evidence for the
transmutation of species as well as animal specimens which could be sold
to collectors back in the United Kingdom. However, on the return journey
four years later, the ship caught fire and the majority of his notes and
specimens were lost. Undaunted he spent the following eight years doing
the same around the island of South East Asia, ultimately collecting
over 126,000 specimens and documenting several thousand new species.

During this expedition, sick with fever on the island of Ternate,
Wallace was struck with an idea; the mechanism by which the
transmutation of species occurred. Wallace composed his ideas in a
letter to Charles Darwin who immediately recognized the contents as
identical to his own work on natural selection. Concerned that he would
miss out, Darwin and his friends arranged for a presentation of both
Darwin's and Wallace's idea to the Royal Society as soon as possible.
Although this went ahead without Wallace's presence or knowledge (he was
still in South East Asia), he later expressed his happiness at being
included at all.

Publishing alongside Darwin gave Wallace considerable fame during his
lifetime and the efforts of Darwin and his friends allowed Wallace free
access to the scientific community. However, following a further series
of bad investments Wallace again faced an uncertain future, which
stabilized after Darwin lobbied successfully for him to receive a
government pension for lifetime contributions to science. Today,
Wallace's legacy can be seen in the `Wallace
Line <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line>`__, the `Wallace
Effect <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_effect>`__ and Wallace, a
platform for conducting research on experimental cultural evolution.
