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A. R. Wallace Is Evolution’s Last Man Standing

Alfred Russel Wallace
Image: Alfred Russel Wallace, via Wikimedia Commons.

American zoologist T. D. A. Cockerell, writing for The Dial on April 16, 1911, reviewed Alfred Russel Wallace’s then-recently released The World of Life. He wrote cautiously but approvingly.

Being thus a work of philosophy as well as science, it necessarily covers much debatable ground. Those of us who are not prepared to follow Dr. Wallace in all the intricacies of his personal faith, may nevertheless feel very strongly that he has done well in bringing forward his solution of the riddle of the ages, the result of more than fifty years of thought.

Indeed Cockerell’s confidence is confirmed today more than ever. A new edition of Wallace book, Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwinism, is out now, edited by science historian Michael Flannery. In his Foreword to the new book, William A. Dembski notes how current scholarship is demolishing the neo-Darwinian paradigm and confirming Wallace at almost every turn. Dembski says that staunch Darwinian defender “[Jerry] Coyne’s ‘one going theory’ may be steadily going away.”

When we look at that first generation of modern evolutionists, from Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley to John Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, only Wallace’s postulation of an “Overruling Intelligence” to explain the complexities of humanity and nature has stood the test of time. To understand his enduring presence in biology as well as natural theology, The World of Life is indispensable. Once his thought is placed in context and illuminated by the latest research and historiography, as it is in Intelligent Evolution, you’ll understand why Wallace remains evolution’s last man standing. Order your copy today.