John Van Wyhe
Biographic Data
| ID | 1200171 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Van Wyhe |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Wyhe |
| SIGNATURE | VAN WYHE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6653-6623 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods
Wallace's Help: The Many People Who Aided A. R. Wallace in the Malay Archipelago
Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 91, Part 1, No. 314, June 2018
The impact of A. R. Wallace's Sarawak Law paper reassessed
This article examines six main elements in the modern story of the impact of Alfred Russel Wallace's 1855 Sarawak Law paper, particularly in the many accounts of Charles Darwin's life and work. These elements are: Each of these are very frequently repeated as straightforward facts in the popular and scholarly literature. It is here argued that each of these is erroneous and that the role of the Sarawak Law paper in the historiography of Darwin an…
‘I am Ali Wallace’: The Malay Assistant of Alfred Russel Wallace
The famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace collected natural history specimens throughout Southeast Asia from 1854–1862. One of the least known of the players in Wallace’s story is his Malay assistant Ali, from Sarawak. This article combines the surviving evidence to bring Ali and his role in the expedition out of the shadows. Several corrections to traditional accounts are emphasized; these include the fact that Ali was not always a collecting …
Going the whole orang: Darwin, Wallace and the natural history of orangutans
This article surveys the European discovery and early ideas about orangutans followed by the contrasting experiences with these animals of the co-founders of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The first non-human great ape that both of them interacted with was the orangutan. They were both profoundly influenced by what they saw, but the contexts of their observations could hardly be more different. Darwin me…
My appointment received the sanction of the Admiralty”: Why Charles Darwin really was the naturalist on HMS Beagle
In Alfred Russel Wallace's Shadow: His Forgotten Assistant, Charles Allen (1839-1892)
The famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace took a young Englishman named Charles Martin Allen with him to the Malay Archipelago in 1854. Allen has remained a shadowy figure and until now almost nothing was known about his life. Wallace trained Allen to collect and prepare natural history specimens of birds and insects. Allen worked for Wallace first in Singapore, the Malay Peninsula and Sarawak (1854-6) and later in the Moluccas and New Guinea (…
John Tweedie and Charles Darwin in Buenos Aires
The journey of exploration undertaken by Charles Darwin FRS during the voyage of HMS Beagle has a central place within the historical development of evolutionary theory and has been intensively studied. Despite this, new facts continue to emerge about some of the details of Darwin's activities. Drawing on recently published Darwin material and unpublished letters in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, we document a hitherto unexamined…
Darwin Online and the Evolution of the Darwin Industry
Within weeks of Charles Darwin’s death in April 1882 accounts of his life began to appear around the world in the form of obituaries. These were followed by numerous biographies over the ensuing years. Most important of these was the three-volume Life and letters of Charles Darwin (1887) edited by his son Francis Darwin (1848–1925). This not only made available a large number of letters to and from Darwin but also reproduced most of his privately…
Mind the gap: Did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years
It is widely believed that Charles Darwin avoided publishing his theory of evolution for many years. Many explanations have been proposed to identify Darwin's reasons or motives for doing so. This essay demonstrates that Darwin's delay is a recent historiographical theme for which there is no clear evidence, and indeed is overwhelmingly contradicted by the historical evidence. It is also shown that Darwin's belief in evolution was not a secret be…
The launch and reception of Darwin online
The complete work of Charles Darwin online
Was Phrenology a Reform Science? Towards a New Generalization for Phrenology
Ah, does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him? Thomas Carlyle, On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history (1841), 271. In this essay I argue that the general characterization of phrenology should not be that phrenology was a reform science, as is a common view today, but that phrenology was a science of personal authority. I will show that the reform science characteriza-tio…
The authority of human nature: The Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall
This essay is the first account in English to examine Franz Joseph Gall and the origins of phrenology. In doing so a host of legends about Gall and the beginnings of phrenology, which exist only in the English-language historiography, are dispelled. An understanding of the context of phrenology's origins is essential to the historicization of the movement as a whole. The first of two sections in the essay, therefore, introduces Gall's biography a…
The authority of human nature: The Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall
This essay is the first account in English to examine Franz Joseph Gall and the origins of phrenology. In doing so a host of legends about Gall and the beginnings of phrenology, which exist only in the English-language historiography, are dispelled. An understanding of the context of phrenology's origins is essential to the historicization of the movement as a whole. The first of two sections in the essay, therefore, introduces Gall's biography a…
Going the whole orang: Darwin, Wallace and the natural history of orangutans
This article surveys the European discovery and early ideas about orangutans followed by the contrasting experiences with these animals of the co-founders of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The first non-human great ape that both of them interacted with was the orangutan. They were both profoundly influenced by what they saw, but the contexts of their observations could hardly be more different. Darwin me…
Darwin Online and the Evolution of the Darwin Industry
Within weeks of Charles Darwin’s death in April 1882 accounts of his life began to appear around the world in the form of obituaries. These were followed by numerous biographies over the ensuing years. Most important of these was the three-volume Life and letters of Charles Darwin (1887) edited by his son Francis Darwin (1848–1925). This not only made available a large number of letters to and from Darwin but also reproduced most of his privately…
Was Phrenology a Reform Science? Towards a New Generalization for Phrenology
Ah, does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him? Thomas Carlyle, On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history (1841), 271. In this essay I argue that the general characterization of phrenology should not be that phrenology was a reform science, as is a common view today, but that phrenology was a science of personal authority. I will show that the reform science characteriza-tio…
The authority of human nature: The Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall
This essay is the first account in English to examine Franz Joseph Gall and the origins of phrenology. In doing so a host of legends about Gall and the beginnings of phrenology, which exist only in the English-language historiography, are dispelled. An understanding of the context of phrenology's origins is essential to the historicization of the movement as a whole. The first of two sections in the essay, therefore, introduces Gall's biography a…
Was Phrenology a Reform Science? Towards a New Generalization for Phrenology
Ah, does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him? Thomas Carlyle, On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history (1841), 271. In this essay I argue that the general characterization of phrenology should not be that phrenology was a reform science, as is a common view today, but that phrenology was a science of personal authority. I will show that the reform science characteriza-tio…
The complete work of Charles Darwin online
Mind the gap: Did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years
It is widely believed that Charles Darwin avoided publishing his theory of evolution for many years. Many explanations have been proposed to identify Darwin's reasons or motives for doing so. This essay demonstrates that Darwin's delay is a recent historiographical theme for which there is no clear evidence, and indeed is overwhelmingly contradicted by the historical evidence. It is also shown that Darwin's belief in evolution was not a secret be…
The launch and reception of Darwin online
Darwin Online and the Evolution of the Darwin Industry
Within weeks of Charles Darwin’s death in April 1882 accounts of his life began to appear around the world in the form of obituaries. These were followed by numerous biographies over the ensuing years. Most important of these was the three-volume Life and letters of Charles Darwin (1887) edited by his son Francis Darwin (1848–1925). This not only made available a large number of letters to and from Darwin but also reproduced most of his privately…
In Alfred Russel Wallace's Shadow: His Forgotten Assistant, Charles Allen (1839-1892)
The famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace took a young Englishman named Charles Martin Allen with him to the Malay Archipelago in 1854. Allen has remained a shadowy figure and until now almost nothing was known about his life. Wallace trained Allen to collect and prepare natural history specimens of birds and insects. Allen worked for Wallace first in Singapore, the Malay Peninsula and Sarawak (1854-6) and later in the Moluccas and New Guinea (…
John Tweedie and Charles Darwin in Buenos Aires
The journey of exploration undertaken by Charles Darwin FRS during the voyage of HMS Beagle has a central place within the historical development of evolutionary theory and has been intensively studied. Despite this, new facts continue to emerge about some of the details of Darwin's activities. Drawing on recently published Darwin material and unpublished letters in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, we document a hitherto unexamined…
My appointment received the sanction of the Admiralty”: Why Charles Darwin really was the naturalist on HMS Beagle
‘I am Ali Wallace’: The Malay Assistant of Alfred Russel Wallace
The famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace collected natural history specimens throughout Southeast Asia from 1854–1862. One of the least known of the players in Wallace’s story is his Malay assistant Ali, from Sarawak. This article combines the surviving evidence to bring Ali and his role in the expedition out of the shadows. Several corrections to traditional accounts are emphasized; these include the fact that Ali was not always a collecting …
Going the whole orang: Darwin, Wallace and the natural history of orangutans
This article surveys the European discovery and early ideas about orangutans followed by the contrasting experiences with these animals of the co-founders of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The first non-human great ape that both of them interacted with was the orangutan. They were both profoundly influenced by what they saw, but the contexts of their observations could hardly be more different. Darwin me…
The impact of A. R. Wallace's Sarawak Law paper reassessed
This article examines six main elements in the modern story of the impact of Alfred Russel Wallace's 1855 Sarawak Law paper, particularly in the many accounts of Charles Darwin's life and work. These elements are: Each of these are very frequently repeated as straightforward facts in the popular and scholarly literature. It is here argued that each of these is erroneous and that the role of the Sarawak Law paper in the historiography of Darwin an…
Wallace's Help: The Many People Who Aided A. R. Wallace in the Malay Archipelago
Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 91, Part 1, No. 314, June 2018
Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods
History (12 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Art history (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Evolution and Science Education (7 works) · History of Science and Natural History (7 works) · Charles darwin (6 works) · Darwin (ADL) (6 works) · Darwinism (6 works)