Darwin–Wallace Medal

The Darwin–Wallace Medal is awarded by the Linnean Society of London for "major advances in evolutionary biology".Gage A.T. and Stearn W.T. 1988. A Bicentenary History of the Linnean Society of London. Linnean Society of London, pp. 165-174.

The medals have been awarded every 50 years, beginning in 1908. That year marked 50 years after the joint presentation of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. These were On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. The papers were both about natural selection as the main cause of evolution. The papers were presented to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858. 

Wallace was one of the first to get of the medal. In his case it was made of gold, rather than the silver versions given to the six other medallists.Gage A.T. and Stearn W.T. 1988 A bicentenary history of the Linnean Society of London, Linnean Society of London, p. 101. 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:

Joseph Dalton Hooker
August Weismann
Ernst Haeckel
Francis Galton
E. Ray Lankester
Eduard Strasburger

 1958 
20 silver medals were awarded:

Edgar Anderson
Yevgeny Pavlovsky
Maurice Caullery
Bernhard Rensch
Ronald A. Fisher
G. Gaylord Simpson
Carl Rudolf Florin
Carl Skottsberg
Roger Heim
H. Hamshaw Thomas
J.B.S. Haldane
Erik Stensiö
John Hutchinson
Göte Turesson
Julian Huxley
Victor van Straelen
Ernst Mayr
D.M.S. Watson
H.J. Muller
John Christopher Willis (posthumously)

 2008 
13 silver medals were awarded, including 2 posthumously:

 Nick Barton
 M.W. Chase
 Bryan Clarke 
 Joseph Felsenstein
 Stephen Jay Gould (posthumously)
 Peter R. Grant
 Rosemary Grant
 James Mallet
 Lynn Margulis
 John Maynard Smith (posthumously)
 Mohamed Noor
 H. Allen Orr 
 Linda Partridge

 From 2010  
 Brian Charlesworth (2010)
 James A. Lake (2011)
 Loren H. Rieseberg (2012)
 Godfrey Hewitt (2013)
 Dolph Schluter (2014)
 Roger Butlin (2015)
 Pamela S. Soltis and Douglas E. Soltis (2016)

 References 

Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom
Category:Science awards