Riposi In Pace - Gentle Giant

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It was August 20th, 1858

Do you know what happend on August, 20th in 1858?

It was the day of publishing the "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection". A presentation of two manuscriptes, one of Alfred Russel Wallace and one of Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

But this is only half of the story. Do you know hot it starts?

After Darwin's return from his last expedition in 1836, he was working on a new theory about creating species on earth. He searched for more and more evidences, because he was afraid of loosing his reputation as well known scientist.

In the meanwhile developed Alfred Russel Wallace, while traveling through the malaysian and indonesian archipelagio, his own idea on evolution. He wrote down his idea in the "Ternate Essay". So called after an island "Ternate"  (part of Maluku Islands) of eastern Indonesia.

Alfred Russel Wallace

He was not well known as scientist and so he commited his idea together with an letter to a well accepted scientist, called Charles Darwin.

Darwin was stunned. He was totally surprised about this "Ternate Letter" and couldn't believe that Wallace developed in this theory on evolution in such a short time, while he spent twenty years of research in his work, which he now saw comprimised.

So he decided to write down a final summary of his work and sent it together with the letter of Wallace and some personal words to a friend at the Linnean Society of London for releasing this ideas.

The letter was read in june 1858 and printed at August, 20th in 1858. The order of reading and printing Darwin's manuscripts first, was the determing factor for calling Darwin the "discoverer on evolution".

Nearly nobody tooks notice of publishing this idea and this brought Darwin to intensify his studies and so he published the book "On the Origin of Species" one year later. This was a affront against the church and their worldview and the fight between the science and church started. Darwin was called a heretic and liar.

Wallace was never jealous on Darwin and the glory. They exchanged her knowledge till the death of Darwin in 1882 and Wallace declared later, his biggest merit was, to bring Darwin to publish his studies.

Wallace reminds me on my travels around Bali and Lombok, where the tight part of the Lombok strait  is called Wallace-Line. This line shows a fictive border of a different fauna in Bali and Lombok. That's why he was thinking about the evolution of species.

Darwin in contrast reminds me always at the Galapagos Islands. A kind of lost world with dragons and some special species on this group of islands.

This one is a bit different, but also a relict of a different world. 

A often spotted water monitor in a Park in Bangkok.