In this concise video, historian Michael Flannery continues our education in the under-appreciated figure of Alfred Wallace Russel, evolutionary theory’s co-discoverer. Here he shows the two major differences in perspective, practical and philosophical, that separated Wallace from Charles Darwin and set them on paths that would ultimately diverge radically from one another.

As Professor Flannery explains, Darwin’s position as a child of privilege and his naturalistic worldview both in their different ways shaped his approach to the study of nature, as did Wallace’s own struggling middle-class background and his less rigid understanding of science and limits. Wallace, of course, would go on to become effectively the founder of the modern intelligent-design movement.