Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace, often overshadowed by his more famous contemporary Charles Darwin, independently formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection. While Darwin spent years meticulously documenting finches, Wallace was busy gallivanting through the Malay Archipelago, discovering new species and writing papers that made Darwin finally pull the trigger on publishing "On the Origin of Species." Talk about a motivational rival.

However, Wallace's scientific brilliance wasn't his only defining characteristic. Later in life, he became a fervent advocate for spiritualism, believing in communication with the dead and other such spectral shenanigans. This put him at odds with many scientific colleagues who preferred their evidence to be a bit more, shall we say, corporeal.

His contributions to biology are undeniable, and he even coined the term "Wallace Line" to describe the biogeographical boundary between Asian and Australian fauna. But alas, when it came to his religious inclinations, Wallace's spiritual leanings never veered towards the synagogue. His ancestors hailed from good old British stock, and any Jewish identity was, much like his later scientific consensus on spiritualism, entirely absent.