The Darwin–Wallace Medal is a medal awarded by the
Linnean Society of London
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript a ...
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 Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
and
Alfred Russel Wallace of two scientific papers—''
''—to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858. Fittingly, Wallace was one of the first recipients of the medal, in his case it was, exceptionally, in gold, rather than the silver version presented in the six other initial awards. 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.
Awardees
1908
The first award was of a gold medal to
Alfred Russel Wallace, and silver medals to six other distinguished scientists:
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Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For 20 years he served as director of the Ro ...
*
August Weismann
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (; 17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charl ...
*
Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...
*
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English polymath and the originator of eugenics during the Victorian era; his ideas later became the basis of behavioural genetics.
Galton produced over 340 papers and b ...
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E. Ray Lankester
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Eduard Strasburger
1958
20 silver medals were awarded:
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Edgar Anderson
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E. Pavlovsky
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Maurice Caullery
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Bernhard Rensch
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Ronald A. Fisher
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G. Gaylord Simpson
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C. R. Florin
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Carl Skottsberg
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Roger Heim
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H. Hamshaw Thomas
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J. B. S. Haldane
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Erik Stensiö
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John Hutchinson
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Göte Turesson
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Julian Huxley
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Victor van Straelen
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Ernst Mayr
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D. M. S. Watson
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H. J. Muller
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John Christopher Willis (posthumously)
2008
13 silver medals were awarded, including 2 posthumously:
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Nick Barton
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M. W. Chase
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Bryan Clarke
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Joseph Felsenstein
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Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
(posthumously)
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Peter R. Grant
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Rosemary Grant
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James Mallet
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Lynn Margulis
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John Maynard Smith (posthumously)
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Mohamed Noor
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H. Allen Orr
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Linda Partridge
From 2010
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Brian Charlesworth (2010)
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James A. Lake (2011)
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Loren H. Rieseberg (2012)
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Godfrey Hewitt (2013)
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Dolph Schluter (2014)
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Roger Butlin (2015)
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Pamela S. Soltis and
Douglas E. Soltis (2016)
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John N. Thompson (2017)
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Josephine Pemberton (2018)
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David Reich and
Svante Pääbo (2019)
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Spencer Barrett (2020)
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Sarah Otto (2021)
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David Jablonski (2022)
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Ziheng Yang (2023)
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Peter Crane (2024)
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Trudy Mackay (2025)
See also
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List of biology awards
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwin-Wallace Medal
Biology awards
British science and technology awards
Linnean Society of London