We see Wallace spending years in remote jungles, collecting astounding quantities of specimens, writing with bemused attachment on his reception in places where... » 

We see Wallace spending years in remote jungles, collecting astounding quantities of specimens, writing with bemused attachment on his reception in places where no white man had ever gone, and shaping his 1858 paper on natural selection, prompting Darwin to publish his own first paper outlining the theory of evolution. Wallace's powerful but largely self-trained intellect rabged broadly across the scientific issues of his time, showing a fascinating mixture of incisive probity and surprising naiveté. Shermer reveals the iconoclastic outlook that led him to overturn scientific orthodoxy as he worked in relative isolation, which also led him to embrace unorthodox beliefs. «