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Scientific American Honors WKU June 09, 2003 The magazine chose Smith's work Wallace, an English evolutionist and social critic, as one of the 50 best science-technical subjects-related websites of the year. Smith, a biogeographer, science librarian and associate professor in WKU's Department of Library Public Services, has been studying Wallace's work for more than 25 years. The Wallace site is at http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/index1.htm Scientific American editors grouped their 50 favorites into 10 categories. Smith's work on Wallace is one of five listed in the Great Minds section. Here's what the magazine had to say about the site: "Alfred Russel Wallace may not be a household name in the modern world, but by the time of his death in 1913 this English naturalist, evolutionist and geographer was regarded as one of the great scientists of the day. Wallace, in fact, nearly beat Darwin to the punch with his own ideas about evolution by natural selection. This site, assembled by biogeographer and Wallace scholar Charles H. Smith of Western Kentucky University, aims to elucidate the life and times of a man history has left largely in Darwin's shadow. By bringing together, among other things, a biography, interviews Wallace gave, the naturalist's own writings, and an extensive FAQ (Did Darwin steal material from Wallace to complete his theory of natural selection?), it manages to accomplish just that." The Wallace website went online at Western in 2000 after a more modest version had appeared as part of a University of California-Berkeley site in 1998-99. Dr. Smith maintains several other sites and will be opening two more later this year.
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