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The
Darwin–Wallace Medal is a medal awarded by the
Linnean Society of LondonThe Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...
for "major advances in evolutionary biology". Historically, the medals have been awarded every 50 years, beginning in 1908. That year marked 50 years after the joint presentation by
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and
Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
of two scientific papers—
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection—to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858. However, in 2008 the Linnean Society announced that due to the continuing importance of evolutionary research, the medal will be awarded on an annual basis beginning in 2010.
1908
The first award was of a gold medal to
Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
, and silver medals to six other distinguished scientists:
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
- August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
- Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
- Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
- E. Ray Lankester
- Eduard Strasburger
Eduard Adolf Strasburger was a German professor who was one of the most famous botanists of the 19th century....
1958
20 silver medals were awarded:
- Edgar Anderson
Edgar Anderson was an American botanist. His 1949 book Introgressive Hybridization was an original and important contribution to botanical genetics....
- E. Pavlovsky
- Maurice Caullery
Maurice Jules Gaston Corneille Caullery , Paris) was a French biologist.Caullery specialised in parasitic protozoans and marine invertebrates. He also worked on insects.-Awards:...
- Bernhard Rensch
Bernhard Rensch was a German evolutionary biologist, and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. He is probably best known as one of the architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis, which he popularised in Germany...
- Ronald A. Fisher
- G. Gaylord Simpson
- C. R. Florin
Carl Rudolf Florin was a Swedish botanist, specialising in gymnosperms, including both modern and fossil material.He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1947, and Professor Bergianus from 1944.-Awards:...
- Carl Skottsberg
Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg was a Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica.Skottsberg was born in Karlshamn, began his academic studies at Uppsala University in 1898 and received his doctorate and a docentship there in 1907...
- Roger Heim
Roger Heim was a French botanist specialising in mycology and tropical phytopathology. He was known for his studies describing the anatomy of the mushroom hymenium, the systematics and phylogeny of higher fungi , the mycology of tropical fungi such as...
- H. Hamshaw Thomas
- J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
- Erik Stensiö
Erik Helge Osvald Stensiö was a Swedish paleozoologist.Erik Andersson, as his original name was, was born in the village of Stensjö in Döderhult parish in Kalmar County; he later took his new surname from his place of origin and is occasionally referred to with both names...
- John Hutchinson
John Hutchinson, OBE, FRS was a renowned English botanist, taxonomist and author.-Life and career:...
- Göte Turesson
Göte Wilhelm Turesson was a Swedish evolutionary botanist who made significant contributions to ecological genetics, and coined the terms ecotype and agamospecies. He conducted extensive work to demonstrate that there is a genetic basis to the differentiation of plant populations...
- Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
- Victor van Straelen
Victor van Straelen was a Belgian conservationist, palaeontologist and carcinologist.Van Straelen was born in Antwerp on 14 June 1889, and worked chiefly as a palaeontologist until his retirement in 1954....
- Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
- D. M. S. Watson
- H. J. Muller
- John Christopher Willis
John Christopher Willis FRS was an English botanist.Born in Liverpool, he was educated at University College, Liverpool and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1896 he was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Ceylon until 1912 when he was appointed director of the...
(posthumously)
2008
13 silver medals were awarded, including 2 posthumously:
- Nick Barton
Professor Nicholas Hamilton Barton FRS FRSE is a British evolutionary biologist.He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he graduated with a first-class degree in Natural Sciences in 1976 and gained his PhD under Godfrey Hewitt at the University of East Anglia in 1979...
- M.W. Chase
- Bryan Clarke
Professor Bryan Campbell Clarke FRS, born in 1932, is a British geneticist. He is professor emeritus of genetics at the University of Nottingham. Clarke is particularly noted for his work on apostatic selection and other forms of frequency-dependent selection, and work on polymorphism in snails,...
- Joseph Felsenstein
- Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
(posthumously)
- Peter R. Grant
- Rosemary Grant
- James Mallet
- Lynn Margulis
Lynn Margulis was an American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is best known for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles, and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory, which is now generally accepted...
- John Maynard Smith
John Maynard Smith,His surname was Maynard Smith, not Smith, nor was it hyphenated. F.R.S. was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J.B.S....
(posthumously)
- Mohamed Noor
Mohamed Noor is a Professor and Associate Chair of Biology at Duke University. His specialities include Evolution, Genetics and Genomics.With a BS from the College of William and Mary and a PhD from University of Chicago , together with a postdoctoral residency at Cornell University , he...
- H. Allen Orr
H. Allen Orr is University Professor and Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester.- Education and career :He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Philosophy from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Chicago. At...
- Linda Partridge
Dame Linda Partridge DBE is a British geneticist, who studies the biology and genetics of ageing and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease....
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