Historical Influences on Darwin
Thomas Malthus
1. Thomas Malthus had a large influence on Darwin and the theory on natural selection. Thomas Malthus was a political economist who viewed living conditions as a large part of man's survival. Malthus believed that without the regulation of family sizes, famine and poverty would always exist and eventually overrun man. This relates to Darwin's theory on natural selection in a positive way because both ideas coincide with each other and are large factors in the process of natural selection.
2. Malthus believed in the critical point of the growth of population against the natural food supply. His main idea was that the growth of man would outrun the food supply and that eventually man would be stricken with famine and poverty. His thoughts on evolution included the ideas of humans only evolving if possible throughout the world. If there are enough resources and supplies then the human race could evolve. However, without the proper resources and supplies, the human race could not evolve. Darwin believed that the reproduction of humans was not as large of a factor as Malthus believed it to be. This ultimately aided Darwin in his theory and became a critical factor in determining his theory on natural selection.
3. Yes, Darwin could have developed his theory on evolution without the thoughts from Malthus because the thought of food supply and human reproduction rates does not necessarily affect the process that eventually became natural selection.
4. The church influenced his publication because the church believed that Darwin had neglected the ways of the church. Prior to writing the book, Darwin had quit the idea of becoming a clergyman for the church.
Good opening discussion on Malthus.
ReplyDeleteJust a clarification: Malthus used natural populations to generate a theory on human populations and it's danger of overpopulation. Darwin used Malthus' ideas on human population to guide him in his theory of evolution of natural populations (though it also reflected human evolution as well). Malthus himself was an anti-evolutionist and would have been horrified to learn that he was so important to a prominent theory of evolution.
What bullet point do you think best applies to Malthus' work?
Malthus is actually one of those few scientists that may have been indispensable to Darwin. Even Darwin mentions Malthus in his writings, describing his feelings after reading Malthus' work, "Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work."
The church didn't really know of Darwin's work until he published but he did delay publication for more than two decades. Why did he delay? What repercussions against himself and his family concerned Darwin?
It looks like the first two blogs that I looked at also both picked Malthus as Darwin's inspiration like I did so I'll just go with it. I think that it would have been good to include Malthus' explanation for the emergence of new species of animals throughout history. He thought that God had meticulously 'designed' and created all these different animals. He didn't believe in evolution and probably wouldn't be too happy that we have all been saying that he was a huge influence on Darwin's thoughts on natural selection.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your paragraph 2 because without natural selection species of animals would just keep growing and overwhelm earth thus limiting resources. Which would then (i think) lead to the demise of many things.
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