From Newsgroup: talk.origins

I just watched an Attenborough video on Birds of Paradise and he quoted
from Wallace about the birds evolving not for man, but for themselves,
but that they would be exploited and doomed by human occupation.

I found the full quote here:
https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/wallace-quotes

QUOTE:
[on the beauty of a bird of paradise...] "Thus one of my objects in
coming to the far East was accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of
the King Bird of Paradise...The remote island in which I found myself situated, in an almost unvisited sea, far from the tracks of
merchant-fleets and navies; the wild luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched far away on every side; the rude uncultured savages who
gathered round me-all had their influence in determining the emotions
with which I gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought of the long
ages of the past, during which the successive generations of this little creature had run their course-year by year of being born, and living and
dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze
upon their loveliness-to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty.
Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad that on the one
hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit
their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages
yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should
civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral,
intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin
forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced
relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance,
and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful
structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made
for man. Many of them have no relation to him. The cycle of their
existence has gone on independently of his, and is disturbed or broken
by every advance in man's intellectual development; and their happiness
and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence,
their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately
related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone, limited only by
the equal well-being and perpetuation of the numberless other organisms
with which each is more or less intimately connected." (From Wallace's
1869 book The Malay Archipelago).
END QUOTE:

The fellow quoting Wallace seems to miss the meaning Wallace wanted to
convey. He was not speaking on the beauty of a bird of paradise, but
the reason for such beauty to have arisen independent of man. Wallace understood that these birds had come into existence to benefit only themselves. Once man came fully into the picture they would likely
cease to exist. Wallace did not understand how such variation could
evolve. Darwin came up with the answer of sexual selection. The
females had selected for the feather variations that evolved all the
species of birds of paradise. These birds had designed themselves. It
is a sort of intelligent design evolution. Little different from how we
have selected for the variation among dogs and pigeons, and it happened
within the last 10 million years.

Dembski admitted a couple decades ago that natural selection could be
the designer. This would be one such example.

Ron Okimoto

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From Newsgroup: talk.origins

On 5/1/26 12:36 PM, RonO wrote:

I just watched an Attenborough video on Birds of Paradise and he quoted
from Wallace about the birds evolving not for man, but for themselves,
but that they would be exploited and doomed by human occupation.

I found the full quote here: https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/wallace-quotes

QUOTE:
[on the beauty of a bird of paradise...] "Thus one of my objects in
coming to the far East was accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of
the King Bird of Paradise...The remote island in which I found myself situated, in an almost unvisited sea, far from the tracks of
merchant-fleets and navies; the wild luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched far away on every side; the rude uncultured savages who
gathered round me-all had their influence in determining the emotions
with which I gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought of the long
ages of the past, during which the successive generations of this little creature had run their course-year by year of being born, and living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze
upon their loveliness-to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty.
Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad that on the one
hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit
their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages
yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should
civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral,
intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin
forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance,
and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful
structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made
for man. Many of them have no relation to him. The cycle of their
existence has gone on independently of his, and is disturbed or broken
by every advance in man's intellectual development; and their happiness
and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence,
their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately
related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone, limited only by
the equal well-being and perpetuation of the numberless other organisms
with which each is more or less intimately connected." (From Wallace's
1869 book The Malay Archipelago).
END QUOTE:

The fellow quoting Wallace seems to miss the meaning Wallace wanted to convey.-a He was not speaking on the beauty of a bird of paradise, but
the reason for such beauty to have arisen independent of man.-a Wallace understood that these birds had come into existence to benefit only themselves.-a Once man came fully into the picture they would likely
cease to exist.

Not just "man". Civilized, intelligent, cultured Europeans. The people
who already lived there apparently were incapable of appreciating the
birds but also were no danger to them. Aside from your point, the casual racism makes this bit hard to read.

-a Wallace did not understand how such variation could
evolve.-a Darwin came up with the answer of sexual selection.-a The
females had selected for the feather variations that evolved all the
species of birds of paradise.-a These birds had designed themselves.-a It
is a sort of intelligent design evolution.-a Little different from how we have selected for the variation among dogs and pigeons, and it happened within the last 10 million years.

Dembski admitted a couple decades ago that natural selection could be
the designer.-a This would be one such example.

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: talk.origins

On 5/2/2026 8:40 AM, John Harshman wrote:

On 5/1/26 12:36 PM, RonO wrote:

I just watched an Attenborough video on Birds of Paradise and he
quoted from Wallace about the birds evolving not for man, but for
themselves, but that they would be exploited and doomed by human
occupation.

I found the full quote here:
https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/wallace-quotes

QUOTE:
[on the beauty of a bird of paradise...] "Thus one of my objects in
coming to the far East was accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of
the King Bird of Paradise...The remote island in which I found myself
situated, in an almost unvisited sea, far from the tracks of merchant-
fleets and navies; the wild luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched
far away on every side; the rude uncultured savages who gathered round
me-all had their influence in determining the emotions with which I
gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought of the long ages of the
past, during which the successive generations of this little creature
had run their course-year by year of being born, and living and dying
amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze upon
their loveliness-to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty. Such
ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad that on the one
hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit
their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages
yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should
civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral,
intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin
forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced
relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the
disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose
wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and
enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things
were not made for man. Many of them have no relation to him. The cycle
of their existence has gone on independently of his, and is disturbed
or broken by every advance in man's intellectual development; and
their happiness and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles
for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be
immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone,
limited only by the equal well-being and perpetuation of the
numberless other organisms with which each is more or less intimately
connected." (From Wallace's 1869 book The Malay Archipelago).
END QUOTE:

The fellow quoting Wallace seems to miss the meaning Wallace wanted to
convey.-a He was not speaking on the beauty of a bird of paradise, but
the reason for such beauty to have arisen independent of man.-a Wallace
understood that these birds had come into existence to benefit only
themselves.-a Once man came fully into the picture they would likely
cease to exist.

Not just "man". Civilized, intelligent, cultured Europeans. The people
who already lived there apparently were incapable of appreciating the
birds but also were no danger to them. Aside from your point, the casual racism makes this bit hard to read.

You likely cannot name very many biologists of the time that were not
"casual" racists. Europeans with the leisure time to study nature as an occupation or hobby were a privileged class. Look at the claims against Darwin. He was anti-slavery, but was likely just as much of a casual
racist as other upper class Englishmen.

Besides the casual racism it is also anti-creationism. Even though
Wallace was a Biblical creationist he believed that these birds had
created themselves for their own purposes. Darwin came up with the way
that they had done just that. The Attenborough video noted that the
amazing male plumage displays only evolved where food is plentiful and
males are not needed to raise the brood. Where food is scarce the males
and females evolved similar colored plumage and pair up to raise their
young. The birds are related to crows and were claimed to have been
around the size of a starling when they managed to colonize the island. Starlings are not closely related to crows, and Attenborough was just
noting that the ancestral birds of paradise would have been on the small
side of the crow family. They likely had the brain power to alter their culture in a way that allowed the sexual selection of all the varied
species.

Ron Okimoto

-a Wallace did not understand how such variation could evolve.-a Darwin
came up with the answer of sexual selection.-a The females had selected
for the feather variations that evolved all the species of birds of
paradise.-a These birds had designed themselves.-a It is a sort of
intelligent design evolution.-a Little different from how we have
selected for the variation among dogs and pigeons, and it happened
within the last 10 million years.

Dembski admitted a couple decades ago that natural selection could be
the designer.-a This would be one such example.

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2