And oh yes, Al, Alfred Russell Wallace deserves some credit as well. Evolution by Natural Selection was one of these things which was always going to be discovered some time in the 19th Century.
There's also something quite amusingly appropriate, being in mind his political views, that he looked like Nye Bevan with a beard.
*Wikis Al Russell Wallace*
Ah yes, but I don't see how having left-wing political views has anything to do with evolution, of course evolution is political in the vague sense because it makes pronouncements about the nature of man but how often is it thought of as effecting day to day situations or the present day world of politics? Unless you mean his interest in spirtualism (ho, ho, ho...).
I brought it up because it's mildly amusing and for no other reason
Though it's (mildly) significant, I guess, in another way; not everyone in the 19th century who accepted evolution, natural selection and so on was into social darwinism.
Poll
