Evolution by natural selection
Evolución por selección natural
- Date
- 1858-1859 · confidence high
- Place
- Down House, Kent / Linnean Society, London, England
- Credited to
- Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
- People
- 👤 Alfred Russel Wallace1823–1913👤 Charles Darwin1809–1882
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
All species descend with modification from common ancestors; natural selection of heritable variation explains adaptation. It unified all of biology under a single explanatory principle.
Wallace's letter from Ternate (1858) prompted the joint presentation at the Linnean Society; Darwin had been working on the idea for 20 years.
What it led to
- evolutionary biology
- physical anthropology and the origin of humans
- the modern synthesis
- a revolution in the human view of our place in nature
- ecology
Built on
- Darwin's observations in the Galápagos1835
- Lamarck
- Malthus
- Lyell and deep time
- voyage of the Beagle
- Wallace's biogeography