Theory of Evolution: One Star in Wallace's Universe

We like our heroes to have their noses in a lot of things: it tends to produce holistic ideas that make sense of the space between co-existing opposing forces. In this hero's case, overshadowed by the circumstances of a dramatic race in the history of science, he thought deeply and effectively about many things that we're just beginning to hear about. Tune into the podcast, Alfred Russel Wallace's Universe.

"Alfred Russel Wallace at His Table" by Victor Eustaphieff.

November 2013 marks the centenary of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), a man who not only developed the theory of natural selection alongside Darwin, he was also the first to scientifically explore whether it was possible for life to exist beyond Earth. One hundred years on, this podcast discovers just how much closer we are to one of mankind's ultimate goals, finding extraterrestrial life and whether the long forgotten genius of the 19th century was right all along.

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Presented and produced by Graihagh Jackson.

Music by Ludovico Einaudi, Indaco; SFX thanks to NASA

Drawing by Wallace.

Wallace at 24.

Malay Archipelago.

But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life.