Planetary History, Wallace, and Natural Selection

Concerns about the anthropogenic ecological degradation of the planet—deforestation, species endangerment, pollution, and an increasing carbon footprint—have prompted numerous studies calling for wide-ranging, comprehensive global programs. In this regard, Tim Flannery's effort in Here on Earth to enlist Alfred Russel Wallace, a nineteenth-century naturalist, in the service of a twentieth-century idea falls prey to presentism on the grounds of a conceptual misunderstanding and incomplete or interpolated primary data.