04/17/14 Historical Influences on Darwin
1.
Out
of the five individuals I believe that Thomas Malthus had the most influence
over Darwin’s development of his theory of Natural Science.
2.
What
Thomas Malthus contributed to the Scientific Community was to influence Darwin
with his essay the Principle of Population (1798), which had
his observation that in nature plants and animals produce for more offspring
than can survive, and that man is capable of over producing if left unchecked.
Malthus speculated the natural outcome of population growth would be famine and
poverty. http://www.allaboutscience.org/malthus-faq.htm
3.
Malthus
thoughts on families’ sizes need to be regulated, because he speculated that
the outcome of man would lead to famine and poverty. Darwin disproved this with
his example of rabbits and their production rates. Rabbits have the potential
to produce 200 offspring in their lifetime. Darwin showed that with natural
selection, the rabbits were not able to produce their potential.
4.
Yes
I believe that Darwin could of came up with his theory of natural selection
without the help of Thomas Malthus. The reason I believe this is because
natural selection deals with ideal traits being passed down to the off spring, which
he observed on the Galapagos Islands.
The Church took offence towards Darwin and
prolonged the publication of his book. It took 23 years of work for Darwin to
be able to release his book
Hi Erick,
ReplyDeleteI also believe Malthus influenced Darwin the most. I liked that you believe Darwin would have came up with his theory without the help of Malthus. I thought he wouldn't have but after reading yours, I see where that might have been a possibility. I would like to have seen more of the points where Malthus influenced Darwin. Over all I enjoyed reading.
Claudia
Hello Erick,
ReplyDeleteI also choose Malthus. I completely agree how the Church took offence to Darwin and those like him. I also believe, his wife having a strong religious background/believing aided to the prolonging of Darwin's work. You did an excellent job.
Good background on Malthus. You are correct that Malthus argued in favor of birth control to avoid overpopulation leading for catastrophic results. However, Darwin didn't disprove Malthus. Malthus' point was that human populations seemed to be lacking natural limiting factors that restricted the population sizes of non-human organisms. He wouldn't have disagreed that rabbit populations didn't exhibit the tendency to over-populate as did human populations.
ReplyDeleteSo which bullet points from the assignment guidelines do you think best represents the contribution Malthus made to Darwin's work? This section was missing.
It is possible that Darwin could have developed his theory on his own, but even Darwin, in his writings, identifies Malthus as being crucial to his theory. I do wonder if Malthus was a key (or one of two keys, Lyell being the other) to Darwin's theory.
Actually, the church didn't even know about Darwin's work until after he published. He managed to keep it a secret for over 20 years. It was Darwin himself who chose to delay publishing his theory. Why did he delay? What concerns did he have that made him wait that long?
One caution: The source you used (allaboutscience) is identified in the blackboard course page called "Bad Resources". It is unreliable and unscientific in nature and intent and should be avoided. Take some time to review that page, along with the page called "Good Resources" to learn how to identify good sources for this class.