Hi, readers of this site. Yvonne has a query concerning a strong and ongoing personal interest of hers. It concerns
For many years she has felt that Alfred Russel Wallace has been undeservedly overlooked (indeed, declared a non-person). Here’s why. Dr. Wallace was a naturalist–but a middle-class individual without Charles Darwin’s upper-class status. His work in that field led him (Wallace) to develop the theory of survival of the fittest and natural selection. He wrote to Darwin outlining this idea; and, to put it bluntly, Darwin usurped the idea and claimed it as his own. After all, a middle-class naturalist couldn’t possibly have a better idea than an upper-class one.
What Yvonne is interested in is this: How did Roddenberry know of Wallace? In an episode involving a holodeck experience of a 19th-century reception, why did he have Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain repeatedly mention Wallace so forcibly? Did Roddenberry share Wallace’s–and
Arthur Conan Doyle’s–belief in spiritualism (spiritism)? Did Clemens share it?
