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Scientists meet to push Wallace to Darwindom
Local and foreign scientists are attending a four-day event in South Sulawesi's Makassar to celebrate the 150th anniversary of British biogeographer Alfred Russel Wallace's Letter from Ternate, a work that some believe defines the scientist as a co-discoverer of the Darwinian theory of natural selection
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ocal and foreign scientists are attending a four-day event in South Sulawesi's Makassar to celebrate the 150th anniversary of British biogeographer Alfred Russel Wallace's Letter from Ternate, a work that some believe defines the scientist as a co-discoverer of the Darwinian theory of natural selection.
Starting Wednesday, the International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace and The Wallacea will discuss scientific and historical perspectives on the Letter from Ternate, which Wallace wrote while on Maluku's Ternate Island and sent to Charles Darwin in 1858.
He sent the letter attached with his essay On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, which outlined the mechanics of an evolutionary divergence of species from similar ones due to environmental pressures.
The essay did not deploy but expressed Darwin's term of "natural selection", the mechanism by which evolution may take place within a given population of organisms. It reportedly prompted the so-called father of evolution to publish his famous work On the Origin of Species in 1859.
The conference will also highlight the richness of Wallacea's biodiversity. Wallacea is a transition zone from Asia to Australia located in central Indonesia, which was named after Wallace for his success in noting the differences in mammal and bird fauna between the islands either side of the line during his exploration in the then Malay archipelago. It was later used by scientists as a foundation for the discovery of plate tectonics.
Wallacea is home to unique plant and animal species absent from other areas in Asia and Australia, and forms the center of the Coral Triangle, a renowned global epicenter of marine life.
The conservation of the zone, which has produced many crucial drugs, is another main topic to be discussed in the forum.
Sangkot Marzuki, chairman of the Indonesian Academy Sciences and the organizer of the event, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday the conference was part of series of events to remind the global community of Wallace's "forgotten" role in developing the theory of evolution.
"The evolutionary theory is the biggest discovery of the 19th century; and Darwin and Wallace have been named the co-discoverers of natural selection. Unfortunately, while Darwin became exceedingly famous and has been dubbed the father of evolution, Wallace has been named only the father of biogeography and is forgotten," he said.
"With UNESCO declaring 2009 as Darwin year (in conjunction with Darwin's bicentenary), we cannot stay silent. We have to remind the world of the contribution Wallace has made; no one can deny that he did as much as Darwin."
Sangkot, also a professor of medicine and director of the government-owned Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, said the fact that Wallace's legacy had been largely forgotten meant Indonesia's unique biodiversity -- Wallace's key inspiration in developing his theory -- had also been overlooked.
About 200 participants will attend the four-day conference, including scientists from Australia, Britain, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United States.
AIPI cooperated with the Indonesian Wallacea Foundation, International Conservation Institution and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in organizing the Wallace and Wallacea events.
