I chose to research Thomas Malthus' contribution to Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species." Thomas Malthus published "An Essay on the Principle of Population" which discussed the issue of an ever increasing population yes a relatively stable food supply. Thomas Malthus was an English economist whom was aiming to get population restrictions put into place, rather than advance any scientific ideas.
The specific bullet point closely associated with Thomas Malthus' essay would be "Resources are limited." The entire purpose of Malthus' publication was to strive for a limit on population size in England to reduce the effects of famine and poverty. This pertains to the "Resources are limited" bullet point because Thomas was most worried that if the English continued to carelessly reproduce they would be the cause of their own demise.
Charles Darwin could not have come up with his theory of natural selection without reading Thomas Malthus' publication, or at least not nearly as soon as he did. It was not until after Darwin read "An Essay on the Principle of Population" that he realized an overproduction of offspring causes competition for limited resources and came up with his theory of natural selection.
The attitude of the church was definitely suppressing Charles Darwin's attempt to spread his hypothesis of evolution throughout England. The attitude towards evolution and hereditary traits was believed to be a "blending" process from parental units to offspring. There was much opposition to Darwin's "Origin of Species" book at first, but as people read it and began to follow Darwin's ideas his notoriety increase.
I agree with you that "Resources are limited" is one of the most closely bullet points associated with Malthus' essay, since having resources is one of the main reasons for an individual to survive and therefore produce offspring! Having a lack of food and resources is one of the main reasons for a species to become extinct therefore not being able to go through evolution overtime.
ReplyDeleteWdoolittle,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Darwin could not have came up with his theory of natural selection as soon as he did without Thomas Malthus. From my research that I read it clearly stated that Malthus's view of human struggle in the "Essay on the Principle of Population," influenced Darwin's theory.
I also chose Thomas Malthus as Darwin's biggest influence. It's fascinating to me that the paper Darwin read instantly gave him his mechanism to explain evolution, yet Darwin held onto those ideas for 20 years before publishing them. Surprisingly, in that 20 year span it never dawned on anybody else that this might be what is driving evolution. Wallace was a kind of catalyst when he sent his ideas to Darwin for review. Darwin had a copy of his theory hidden away in a drawer with instructions for his wife to publish it upon his death. Maybe if Wallace hadn't sent his thoughts to Darwin, The Origin of Species would not have been published and Darwinism would be Wallaceism...
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your recognition of Malthus' purpose in his work. He would not have considered himself a scientist but instead a mathmatician who was very worried about the future of the human species. He foresaw doom, death and famine unless humans learned to control their reproductive activties. Very gloomy. Not a good person to have at a party. :-)
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your observation that Darwin wouldn't have developed his theory "as soon as he did" without Malthus' work. Being familiar with Malthus gave Darwin a huge step up in his development of his theory of natural selection, but I tend to think he would have come up with the concept on his own in his naturalist studies on the Beagle.
Good post.