The Heretic in Darwin's Court explores the controversial life and scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace-Victorian traveler, spiritualist, and scientist who proposed the theory of natural selection with his noted colleague, Charles Darwin. In this biography, Ross A. Slotten recounts Wallace's twelve years of harrowing travels in the western and eastern tropics, which place him in the pantheon of the greatest explorer-naturalists of the nineteenth century. The remaining fifty years of Wallace's life were just as ...
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The Heretic in Darwin's Court explores the controversial life and scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace-Victorian traveler, spiritualist, and scientist who proposed the theory of natural selection with his noted colleague, Charles Darwin. In this biography, Ross A. Slotten recounts Wallace's twelve years of harrowing travels in the western and eastern tropics, which place him in the pantheon of the greatest explorer-naturalists of the nineteenth century. The remaining fifty years of Wallace's life were just as controversial. In addition to diverging from Darwin on two fundamental issues-sexual selection and the origin of the human mind-Wallace pursued topics that most scientific figures of his day conspicuously avoided, including spiritualism, phrenology, mesmerism, environmentalism, and life on Mars. The Heretic in Darwin's Court casts new light on Wallace's intellectual investigations into the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe itself. His achievements remain some of the most inspired scientific accomplishments in history.
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