• Question: Why does Darwin get all the recognition for the evolution theory and Alfred Russel Wallace never gets mentioned?

    Asked by 277enek38 to Emma, Karla, Shane, Stephen, Yang on 7 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Emma Hanley

      Emma Hanley answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      Good question, I guess it came down to Darwin publishing his book first and so he got recognition for his book and research.

    • Photo: Karla Dussan

      Karla Dussan answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      That is a very common thing in science. Sometimes people in different places end up arriving to the same conclusions through independent observations. Although in my opinion, that allows to make sure our theories and hypothesis, that is the conclusions of our studies, are consistent and valid… because different people through independent experiments arrive to the same conclusions. It is scientists’ duty to report what they observe and build on the common body of knowledge đŸ™‚

    • Photo: Shane Mcdonagh

      Shane Mcdonagh answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      The unfortunate answer is that science, like many other things, involves a bit of showmanship. Darwin promoted his ideas more and included in his writings many beautiful examples of his theory, making his works more appealing to a wider audience when the idea began to take off again many decades after they first published their findings. Wallace did not concentrate on publicising his work as much and so Darwin became the face of the theory.

      This has happened a lot over the centuries in science.

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