El “darwinismo puro” de Alfred Russel Wallace: aportaciones a la teoría evolutiva moderna

Juan Manuel  Rodríguez Caso

doi:10.3989/asclepio.2020.25

Autores/as

Juan Manuel Rodríguez Caso Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Colegio de Historia, UNAM https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0745-4657

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2020.25

Palabras clave:

Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Darwinismo, Neodarwinismo, Selección Natural

Resumen

La historia suele ser insistente en recordar el caso de Alfred Russel Wallace como quien, de manera secundaria, apoyó la propuesta de Darwin. Para efectos de este trabajo se presenta lo que Wallace denominó en su obra Darwinism (1889) los elementos básicos del darwinismo puro, que servirían de base para lo que George John Romanes llamaría neodarwinismo, a partir tanto del trabajo de Wallace como del de August Weismann. Esos elementos abarcan ideas que comúnmente se asocian de manera exclusiva con el trabajo de Charles Darwin, como el concepto biológico de especie, los diferentes tipos de variación y su origen, la importancia de la selección natural como el mecanismo preponderante para entender la evolución, el rechazo a los mecanismos lamarckianos, entre otros puntos. A partir de lo anterior, los objetivos de este trabajo son dos: por un lado, rescatar esos conceptos básicos del darwinismo puro de Wallace; y por el otro, establecer algunas posibles explicaciones sobre por qué persiste la idea de que el trabajo de Wallace no parece haber sido de importancia para el desarrollo de la Síntesis Moderna.

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Citas

NOTA: la obra original de Wallace se puede consultar de manera gratuita en línea, a través de: The Alfred Russel Wallace Page, http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/index1.htm, y Wallace Online, http://wallace-online.org/

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