When it comes to Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, Thomas Malthus, an English economist had the greatest positive influence on it. Strangely enough, Malthus was not interested in science or the change of species what so ever, he wrote his paper “An Essay on the Principle of Population” to argue for a limit to human population growth. Although his essay contributed greatly to the contemporary system of economics, he made a huge influence in the world of science and biology. If Malthus never made an argument towards limiting human population growth Darwin would have never found the most crucial key to his idea of Natural Selection, competition.
The competition among individuals was extremely important to Malthus because he believed that even though human population was increasing the resources were staying the same. With this belief he made the assumption that a lack of sufficient food and water would make humans deal with a lifetime of misery and famine. Malthus said, “…if not for natural controls such as famine and disease…” the size of human population would increase immensely.(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/5/l_025_01.html) This assertion was the most influence on Darwin because he used it towards all organisms, not just humans. Competition or what Darwin saw as the “struggle for existence” was the biggest component to his theory of Natural Selection which has come to be the key to evolution theory.
The point stating “All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially.” was influenced by Thomas Malthus because he wrote in “An Essay on the Principle of Population” about how vast the human population was becoming during his lifetime and this influenced Darwin to look at how often and how many offspring organisms reproduce and question why all of the offspring do not survive into adulthood. “Resources are limited.” is a huge point when looking at Malthus’ contribution to Darwin because it is the true answer as to what I had said earlier. The fact that there are so many limited necessary resources for survival cause many offspring from a species to die off, which leads even more into the entire theory of Natural Selection. Thanks to Thomas Malthus, Natural Selection became Charles Darwin’s greatest work. Darwin used Malthus’ assertions as a basis to his research on all organisms, that is why Natural Selection would have never been a reality without the wisdom of Thomas Malthus.
During the time of Darwin's findings on Natural Selection the church saw the work very opposing to what they believed in. He was afraid to insult his wife as well because of her strong association and belief in the church. Alfred Russel Wallace lead Darwin to finally publish his book "On the Origins of Species" because he was the original finder of the theory of Natural Selection. Although the topic was extremely controversial, the liberal Anglicans believed his theory was all apart of God's work.
Good background on Malthus. Yes, he focused on human populations and didn't agree with concepts of evolutionary theory. He would have been horrified to know that his work was so crucial to the most successful theory of evolution!
ReplyDeleteGood choice on bullet points. I agree with both and you supported your argument well.
I'm not usually willing to give too much credit to any one person in their influence over another's work, but I'm willing to consider it with Malthus (as you seem to be arguing as well). Darwin was having difficulty putting all of the pieces of his research puzzle together into a cogent theory until he read Malthus' paper. He even discussed this in his writings:
"...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."
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
Good work highlighting Darwin's concerns with his wife with regard to publishing his work. She was a very important part of his life and I do think her opinion and the impact on her life had a lot to do with his decision to publish. In fact, the story goes that he asked her to read his work and published (in part) because she encouraged him to do so.
Good first post.
I wrote about Malthus as well but didn't include as much background on him as you did. I enjoyed getting a more clearer picture of who he was. It was Malthus' writings that gave him the final push to conclude his theory on natural selection.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Noelle.