Wednesday 27 November 2013

Name the Biologist

This time we have two scientists with a connection in discovering something useful (they discovered other useful things but this one was a joint effort)



As for last week the mystery biologist was Alfred Russel Wallace who also came up with the theory of evolution via natural selection and was published papers alongside Darwin. The bizarre thing is that he was a major celebrity at the time but has been largely forgotten. Maybe a weird case of memetic survival of the fittest? Anyway these two articles do a pretty good job of analysing the man and why he has been forgotten. What can we learn from Wallace? 
  •  If you want to be remembered you need to bring out a populist book rather than publish high impact papers - something that is probably very true of this era's "memorable" scientists.
  •  Rushing your paper through when you realise someone else has scooped you always helps. 
  • Being honourable and polite can often lead to you being forgotten.

2 comments:

  1. No update yet as I've forgotten who they are! Pretty embarrassing.

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