Earlier than Thought

Evolutionary Theorists Stymied by the Human Mind

More than 150 years ago, the battle over the human mind sidelined Alfred Russel Wallace from the elite science group that had gathered around his co-theorist Charles Darwin. Wallace was unwilling to concede that the human mind is merely an organ that has evolved like any other. As University of Durham historian Neil Thomas explains, for Wallace, “on more mature reflection, no simple ape-to-human progression was any longer tenable and he could no longer assent to the ontological equivalence of humans and nonhuman animals proposed by Darwin.” Thus Wallace was largely forgotten, and Darwin became the cultural icon of evolution.

Yet Wallace’s skepticism was well justified. We have no evidence to support the...