The part of Darwin's theory suggesting that females choose mates immediately triggered attacks from all sides. Many scientists found the idea absurd. One man who supported the theory of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, particularly hated the notion of sexual selection and actively spoke against it.
Upon reading this passage, I was struck by the description of Alfred Russel Wallace as a "man who supported the theory of evolution." Anyone familiar with the history of science would be surprised to learn that that Wallace was merely someone "who supported the theory of evolution" (even allowing for the fact that the article I read was an adapted version of a longer article). The fact of the matter is that Wallace (1823-1913) was long regarded, along with Darwin, as the co-discoverer of the modern theory of evolution by natural selection. Why should he be described in such a slighting way? I can only speculate, but I suspect that this it is due to the fact that Wallace is not viewed with great favor by many modern biologists because he ultimately broke with Darwin on a key point. While agreeing with Darwin that the physical characteristics of human beings can be explained by natural selection, he denied that natural selection could explain such human characteristics as the ability to engage in abstract thought or to use language. As David Klinghoffer, in a blog posting entitled "Alfred Russel Wallace--Intelligent Design's Lost Ancestor, Now Found" at the evolutionnews.org website (see www.evolutionnews.org/2016/06/alfred_wallace102895.html) tells us:
Simply put, natural selection as Wallace and Darwin understood it is a strictly utilitarian doctrine. That unguided natural process can select only traits that are useful to propagating a species. Anything else, including pretty much everything that makes humans exceptional [like abstract reasoning or language], must come from...somewhere else.
According to Wallace, that "somewhere else" must be some sort of "Overruling Intelligence." In other words, Wallace was not willing to accept the notion that the existence and nature of living things can be explained through an appeal to only materialistic forces. Something (or Someone) else had to have been involved. Because of this seemingly "creationist" view, Wallace's role in the development of modern biology has been downplayed, as in the article I have been discussing. However, doing so, it seems to me, distorts historical reality Perhaps the day will come when Wallace will be restored to his rightful place in the history of biology. Then even students in an ESL class in an American university will have a proper awareness of his historical importance.
Image of Alfred Russel Wallace from commons.wikimedia.org