Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Lots to share this week-- first of all, like most of the country, it is SNOWING here! Unlike most of the country, I am thrilled about it! Arlington can be a beautiful, heavenly oasis-- but only when encased in snow, which is extremely rare. If I had an office window, I'd think I was on top of the world today. As it is, I am thinking of sending out a department-wide email to propose a lunchtime snowball fight in the parking lot. You know-- grad students, professors, administrators, staff-- there is probably a lot of pent up frustration between these factions that could be worked out with a few well-place pelts with mounds of snow. It's a cure-all!

In other news, tomorrow is my friend Britt's birthday (I am celebrating with her in spirit in Las Vegas this weekend where we are undoubtedly, in spirit, going to do all kinds of things that will "stay in Vegas", also in spirit). Britt is the best friend and best colleague one could ever hope to have-- here we are united in recreation and science in front of an aptly-named shop in Chicago last summer. Happy Bday B!!!!
Only slightly more famously, Feb. 12th is also Charles Darwin's birthday. This was an especially big deal last year, even among non-biologists, because it was Darwin's 200th bday (if he were still alive, which you'd think a bunch of biologists would agree is a silly concept) and the 150th anniversary of his most famous book, On the Origin of Species (conveniently published when he was exactly 50 years old, so two centuries later biologists and museum curators could go especially crazy celebrating their even-numbered anniversaries.) Now, don't get me wrong-- I love Charlie Darwin (check out the Low Anthem's song about him that I have posted in the upper right hand corner, in fact). And if you want to read about his amazing insights, there are plenty of other blogs where you can do that I am sure. He somehow managed to casually "notice" every major tenet of biology that has emerged in the last 200 years, long before it became clear to most biologists, simply by walking around his gardens, collecting beetles, raising pigeons, and blogging (I mean, writing in his journal). He is most famous for elucidating how changes in species occur over time:

"It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life."
—On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859

HOWEVER, this principle was also "noticed" by another biologist, halfway around the world at the time-- Alfred Russel Wallace. I recently saw a great talk by Oscar Flores on Wallace outlining how his background (poor vs. rich) and adventures abroad (long vs. short) differed so dramatically from Darwin's, but how they both managed to converge on the concept of natural selection independently. In fact, Wallace had written a letter to Darwin describing his ideas which arrived just days before the final draft of On the Origin was disseminated (with lots of apparent last minute additions to the text which may have been the result of reading this letter.) The timelines of their independent development of the idea are radically different, fascinating, and too lengthy for me to describe in detail here, but what is certain is that the fruition of their ideas was simultaneous (at best, for Darwin), and the subsequent aftermath was just as dissimilar as the lead up, perhaps because of the rich vs. poor difference mentioned earlier. As you know, Charles Darwin is famous worldwide as the grandfather of evolutionary theory, while A. R. Wallace is a relative unknown outside the field of biology.
What was most moving to me about the talk was Oscar's final slide, with this quote from a letter Darwin wrote to Wallace shortly before he died:

"I hope it is a satisfaction to reflect - and very few things in my life have been more satisfactory to me - that we have never felt any jealousy towards each other, though in some sense rivals. I believe I can say this of myself with truth, and I am absolutely sure that it is true of you".

Wallace's birthday was Jan 8th-- he would have turned 187 if he were still alive. My goal is to elevate public knowledge of Wallace's contribution to biological understanding sufficiently by 2023 so that we can at least have another excuse for a bunch of geeky biology parties.
Even Darwin agrees with me, as he wrote about Wallace's 1864 paper:

"It is really admirable, but you ought not... to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine".

All that said, I *do* love this poster: