Historical Influences on Darwin
Charles Darwin was an English Naturalist, who was best known for his contribution to the Theory of Evolution. During his lifetime Darwin had many influences that contributed to his findings. One person in particular who had a big influence on Darwin was Thomas Malthus. Thomas Malthus was an English economist, who is best known for his theory that the population growth would always surpass the food supply. "Population will always expand to the limit of substance."(Encyclopedia Britannica 2019) The Malthusian theory stated that the human population would increase geometrically, while natural resources would increase arithmetically.
Thomas Malthus's views helped Darwin develop his own findings on natural selection. Like Malthus, Darwin believed that those who were most adaptable would survive and the the weakest of the population would die off, this is known as natural selection, also seen as survival of the fittest. It is hard to say for sure if Darwin would have been able to develop this theory of Natural Selection without the influence of Malthus. It was because of Darwin reading Malthus's findings that he was able to come up with or enhance his ideas of natural selection, so I believe that Malthus did play a major part in Darwins work.
The attitude of the church played a very important role in affecting Darwins Evolutionary theory. In fact Darwin did not publish his findings until about 20 years after, because of the negative views of the church toward evolution. The church felt that the evolutionary theory contradicted many core teachings of the Christian faith. So although there were many who influenced Darwins work, I feel that Malthus had the greatest influence.
Thomas Malthus's views helped Darwin develop his own findings on natural selection. Like Malthus, Darwin believed that those who were most adaptable would survive and the the weakest of the population would die off, this is known as natural selection, also seen as survival of the fittest. It is hard to say for sure if Darwin would have been able to develop this theory of Natural Selection without the influence of Malthus. It was because of Darwin reading Malthus's findings that he was able to come up with or enhance his ideas of natural selection, so I believe that Malthus did play a major part in Darwins work.
The attitude of the church played a very important role in affecting Darwins Evolutionary theory. In fact Darwin did not publish his findings until about 20 years after, because of the negative views of the church toward evolution. The church felt that the evolutionary theory contradicted many core teachings of the Christian faith. So although there were many who influenced Darwins work, I feel that Malthus had the greatest influence.
Opening comment: There are four key prompts in the guidelines but I only see three paragraphs in your post. Make sure it is very clear where you address each of the prompts in the guidelines. Each prompt should have its own paragraph, so your reader doesn't have trouble parsing out your answers.
ReplyDelete"who is best known for his theory that the population growth would always surpass the food supply"
That is only true for human populations. Did he find that to be the case for non-human populations?
"The Malthusian theory stated that the human population would increase geometrically, while natural resources would increase arithmetically."
Correct. But what is the result of these two conflicting mathematical principles? How did Darwin use this to help him develop his mechanism of natural selection? Expand.
Missing the next section which asked you to identify the bullet points from the guidelines which could be directly attributed to Malthus. There are two of them: (1) "All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially" and (2) "Resources are limited."
" Like Malthus, Darwin believed that those who were most adaptable would survive and the the weakest of the population would die off"
No, no, no. Understand that Malthus was not just an economist, he was also a minister who was morally opposed to the concept of evolution. He would have been horrified to know that his work served as the foundation for Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. So Malthus would not have considered the issue of adaptability at all. That was a concept Darwin developed from those two basic Malthusian principles, generating the concept of competition for resources.
" It is hard to say for sure if Darwin would have been able to develop this theory of Natural Selection without the influence of Malthus. "
Well, how about we listen to what Darwin had to say on the topic:
"... it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work".
Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
I usually don't like to grant any one scientist so much credit as to be indispensable to the work of another, but in the case of Malthus (and Lyell) I'm willing to do so. As you explain in the second section, Malthus' work was the logical foundation for Darwin's theory. At the time Darwin read Malthus' essay, Darwin had collected a mountain of specimens and data, but couldn't figure out how to put it all together into a cohesive theory. Malthus concept of resource competition was key.
"because of the negative views of the church toward evolution"
Okay. I agree with your point here, but the logic needs to be expanded. How could the church's opinion on evolution cause Darwin to delay publishing his work? As you state, he delayed publishing for more than 20 years so it is worthwhile to try to understand the reason for this extensive delay. What were Darwin's concerns? And was he only worried about himself (perhaps professionally) or was he also worried about how his family might be impacted by publishing? Remember that his wife was very devout. How might she have been impacted if the church responded negatively to Darwin? Remember that scientists don't work in a vacuum. They can be influenced not just by academics but also by social, cultural and personal issues.