Historical Influences on Darwin
I believe Thomas Malthus had the most influence over Charles Darwin’s development of his theory of Natural Selection. According to Brittanica.com he actually anonymously published, An Essay on the Principle of Population which many took notice to. “He pointed out that in nature, there is a tendency for animal populations to increase in size, but the amount of resources remains relatively the same. Therefore population size is held in check by resource availability” (Jurmain et al., 2014, p. 32). Based on the main arguments held in Darwin’s theory, it seems Thomas Malthus touched on a major one; that resources are limited. No matter what has happened in the many generations that Earth and the population have changed, there has always been a struggle for resources. The saying my mom used to always tell me is that there will always be someone with more than you and someone with much less whenever I happened to seem ungrateful for something. She is not wrong, it is a harsh reality that somewhere in the world, including those in our own community even, others have much less. It stems back to the concept that the world can only hold and produce so much at a given time. Charles Darwin extended this theory to all organisms instead of just humans, which is what Thomas Malthus was originally focused on. Even with such great influence, I feel Darwin might have figured this out on his own in time. It seems common sense that the world has diversity in resources otherwise we would all be living the exact same. The attitude of the church affected Darwin’s decision to publish his theory because at the time there was lots of political unrest in Britain. If the theory of evolution was to be widely accepted, then the church would crash and society would be torn apart.
More information on Thomas Malthus:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus
More information on Thomas Malthus:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus
I also believe that Malthus had a impact on Darwin. He might not have been a major impact but, he helped Darwin realize there was more to humans then he originally thought. I think what your mom taught you was amazing it is a good reality check. I also believe that Darwin would have come to find this out without Malthus but, like you said with the pressure from the church it was hard for Darwin to find the courage to post anything. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThe struggle for adequate resources is certainly a main factor in this topic. With this, I believe that it is something Darwin could have figured out on his own. Although it may have taken him a little while longer, lack of resources proves all his theories of Natural Selection.
ReplyDeleteHi Am & RL,
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing quite a few Malthus choices in the blogs. I chose Lamarck, but that's why we were given choices. I'd really loathe seeing all the same choices, this way we get a better description of everyone's influence on Darwin, not just the same one we chose. I do think, though, that a common thread among all of the choices is that Darwin would have ultimately arrived at his theory regardless of any single influence, it just might have taken more time, but he definitely would have gotten there. Again, good post. Thanks for shedding more light on Malthus' influence since I would not have had as much information on him as I did Lamarck, since I chose him.
I advise that you treat these posts as you would college papers, complete with the correct formatting and paragraphs for each prompt/topic. As is, I'm having trouble parsing out where you address each prompt. It is to your advantage to make your response as clear as possible. Don't make me guess.
ReplyDeleteVery good discussion here (and I enjoyed that you brought your mom in on this!). A clarification: The Malthusian principles applied to natural populations and less so to human populations. Malthus understood that populations had the potential of growing exponentially, which resources tended to grow at a slower, arithmetic rate. He noticed that natural populations of animals never seemed to overpopulate their available resources. It was as if some natural force was limiting their population size. He then compared natural populations to human populations and recognized that humans seemed to be lacking this natural force (whatever it was) and as a result, humans seemed to outgrow their available resources. Malthus argued that unless humans self-regulated their reproduction (he was a huge proponent of birth control), other processes, such as famine, disease and war, would be the natural result, forcing us to cut our populations via mass death.
Because you don't break up your post into paragraphs, I don't see where you focus on identifying the bullet points from the guidelines that can be attributed to Malthus. You mention "resources are limited" and that is one of the Malthusian principles. The other is the point regarding the potential of populations to grow exponentially. These two points together produce competition for those limited resources, and this is the basis for Darwin's mechanism for natural selection, with those most "fit" for a given environment being more successful than others and passing those traits down, while those less 'fit' traits are not.
Google limited my comments, so I'm completing it here:
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"It seems common sense that the world has diversity in resources otherwise we would all be living the exact same. "
Yes, in retrospect, it certainly does seem like common sense. And that was a common response by other scientists after Darwin published, kind of a "Doh!" reaction, with many wondering why they hadn't seen the connection themselves. And yet Darwin himself had great difficulty making this connection until after he read Malthus' work. 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. 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. Even Darwin himself seems to indicate just how important Malthus was to his work 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".
Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
"If the theory of evolution was to be widely accepted, then the church would crash and society would be torn apart."
Do you really think Darwin delayed publishing his work for more than 20 years because he feared damaging the church and society? Or is it more likely that his reasons were personal? People are, by their nature, selfish in their decisions. That isn't bad, it's just natural. A person is more likely to take into account the impact of their choices on themselves and their families before they take into consideration society in general. So let's think about what personal reasons Darwin may have had to delay? And how did the church play a role in this? How might Darwin have been negatively impacted by publishing, from the perspective of his position in society and in academia? And what about his family? Remember that his wife was very devout. How might she have been impacted if the church responded negatively to Darwin? Scientists don't work in a vacuum. They can be influenced not just by academics but also by social, cultural and personal issues.