Two Men and a Destiny

The fascinating adventure of evolution on the 140th anniversary of the death of Charles Darwin (1882-2022).

The night that Alfred Russell Wallace knew he was going to die, the Sri Lankan jungle roared under an intense storm that had lasted several days and that, far from subsiding, was getting worse. It's the end of March 1858 and the wind ruthlessly shakes the rickety wooden cabin. Inside, a middle-aged man with a beard of several months is lying exhausted on a jargon. High fever, chills, and nausea portend the worst. He suffers from malaria and fears for his life. “If my plan is different, maybe God will save me. But if the opposite is to happen, it will be necessary to resign yourself”, he would write that same night to his mother.

Moved by the will of someone who has something amazing to tell the world, the naturalist will get up from the couch and sit at his makeshift desk. He will spend all night writing letters to say goodbye to his family and some of his closest friends. He will also write a very special letter addressed to the most famous naturalist of that time; some pages with trembling letters explaining a disconcerting theory that today, more than 160 years later, is being studied with admiration in biology schools around the world.

The night that Alfred Russell Wallace feared for his life and wrote the letter to Charles Darwin explaining his theory, the great knowledge of classical science had found a place. Galileo and Newton laid the foundations of physics, astronomy and celestial mechanics. Lavoisier revolutionized chemistry, banishing alchemy and elevating it to the rank of science. Gauss amazingly promoted mathematical algebra, geometry and probability calculations, and Redi and Spallanzani had dismantled spontaneous generation, leading medicine to search for pathogens and microorganisms that cause diseases. In the middle of the 19th century, one had the feeling, as Jules Verne would write, that human beings already knew almost everything.

The night that Wallace contributed with his letter to changing science and the way of understanding life, Natural Sciences were a hobby typical of adventurous aristocrats and adventurous explorers passionate about the collections of fossils and shells, sheets of birds, insectaries of butterflies stuck in pins and herbaria of tulips and orchids, but they had no scientific discipline. It took almost three months for Wallace's letter to reach Darwin's hands and when it did, events precipitated.

The day Darwin read Wallace's letter, he learned that his compatriot had arrived, studying different ecosystems, flora and fauna, to the same conclusion as him: species evolve to adapt to the demands and changes of the environment in which they live. He knew then that he had to accelerate the publication of the book he had been working on for 20 years, and he also understood that, in honor of truth and justice, he should share the glory with Alfred Russel Wallace.

On the morning of July 1, 1858, there was no room for pins in the Magna Hall of the Royal Society in London. An important part of their academic colleagues, the conventionalism and rigid Victorian morality of the time and, above all, the 1900 years of vision imposed by the Genesis of the Pentateuch were ahead, so Darwin and Wallace knew how likely it was to succeed as to be riddled with gunshots. Just like Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the 1969 film Two Men and One Destiny. That's a beautiful way to die, a moment of lead to enter forever into the eternity of history before the fascinating eyes of Katherine Ross.

That morning I was watching SCIENCE, with capital letters, which was excited to witness the theory that would turn amateur naturalism into a first-rate academic discipline. Darwin and Wallace spoke of transformation, of morphological changes, of common ancestors, of converging and diverging evolutionary branches, of speciation, competence and adaptability. In short, the origin and evolution of all living forms on our planet.

—We haven't won yet—would say Tomas Huxely, a zoologist who defends evolution. —But if we continue like this, we will win— Because in that wonderful struggle between knowledge and obscurantism, the courageous, the daring, were the ones who had dedicated their lives to study and experimentation. Two men who rode together to the immortality of history.

By the way, by this point in the post, our readers will have already deduced that Wallace didn't die that stormy night in March 1858. Relentlessly to catch his breath, his travels and studies continued, because science continues to advance and move on a single certainty. It is possible that those who seek the light of knowledge will die of tiredness. But those who deny it will always live in fear.

To learn more:

● A naturalist's journey on the Beagle. Charles Darwin (1839)

● The origin of species. Charles Darwin (1859)

●. Charles Darwin. Autobiography (1876)

● Darwin's secret. John Darton (2005)

● Biography of Alfred Russel Wallace. Juan R. Medina Precioso (2021)

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