Wallace's unfinished business: The "other man" in evolutionary theory

Abstract

After a century in the shadows, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) has recently become the subject of increasing attention. It is suggested here, expanding on observations made by anthropologist Gregory Bateson some years ago, that Wallace's cybernetics-like view of the operation of natural selection - as a governor-like principle tending to keep species unvarying - can be expanded to a more complete evolutionary understanding by exploring in modern context Wallace's idea that "more recondite forces" are driving the process. Specifically, when the environment is regarded as a final cause (but not a deterministic force), individual adaptations may be viewed as entropy-relaying structures (acting in response to, and as a part of, larger scale biogeochemical agenda), whereas negentropy is accumulated by nonrandomly directed organism-and population-level forms of ecological engagement. Thus, range change in particular is viewed as a process that is both driven and nonrandom, and ultimately connected to the derivation of more and more organized individual, population, and community structures. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.