Historical Influences on Darwin
Thomas Malthus had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his theory of natural selection. He was a political economist who wrote and discussed in Essay on the Principle of Population that if man did not control his production of offspring, then there would no food control leading to famine. Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population played an important role in Darwin’s discovery of natural selection. Darwin extended Malthus’ observation of animals producing more offspring than can survive onto humans. Transferring this observation helped him recognize that food and environments effect an animal’s survival, and that the animal with the advantageous characteristics will survive and pass them to their offspring.
The
point most directly affected by Malthus’ work are 1) resources are limited and
2) organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their
reproductive efforts. These two points are most influenced because they reflect
the main point in Malthus’ paper.
Darwin
may have been able to develop his theory without Malthus’ paper, yet it would
not have happened before Wallace submitted a paper. Darwin’s theory of natural
selection was fueled by the concept of Malthus’ paper.
The
attitude of the church affected Darwin
in a substantial amount. Not only was Darwin’s wife highly religious and felt
his work was against the church. Many of Darwin’s colleagues would have
ostracized him for releasing such work. For these reasons Darwin took so long
in submitting his work.
Hello Sandeep. I also wrote about Thomas Malthus and many of our ideas are similar. However, I noticed that you picked up on some interesting and important points that I did not. Many of the people who wrote about Malthus, including me, said that Darwin would have eventually discovered natural selection but it would have taken longer. None of us took into account Wallace like you did. This is very interesting. Without Malthus' help, it is possible that Darwin could have published his findings after Wallace did. That would have led to a complete roll reversal in history leaving Wallace to be called the "founder of evolution", not Darwin. I also liked what you said about Darwin being afraid to release his work. I recognized that the church and his peers would scrutinize his work, but I forgot that Darwin's wife was a person of religious standing. She most definitely slowed him from publishing his work. It was not until he found out about Wallace that Darwin published his book "On the Origin of Species." Good job!
ReplyDeleteThomas Malthus was a great choice I agree that was a big influence of Darwins. I agree with the points that you choose that directly affected but, I'm curious to know from your perspective why Malthus influenced Darwin? besides the main point in the paper. I agree with Darwin being able to develop the paper without Malthus and how Wallace probably would have come up with one before him if Darwin didn't have Malthus because Darwin would have to had taken longer to come up with natural selection. I also agree with how much the church affected him. I didn't know about his wife so that was cool to know !
ReplyDeleteIn general, your information on Malthus' work is correct, although it was Malthus that transferred the line of logic from non-human populations to human populations. Darwin reversed the process, using Malthus' ideas to explain differential survival rates in natural non-human populations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your choice of bullet points.
Wallace himself was directly influenced by Malthus and both seemed to be inspired in equal measures by his ideas. I suppose it is possible that Wallace would have read the work and Darwin would not have, but given how wide read Darwin was, I think that is unlikely, so neither would have come up with the concept of natural selection without Malthus' influence.
I agree that Darwin's wife did likely play a role in his publishing delay, though she eventually gave her blessing to his work. I agree that Darwin was likely aware of how his work might have been received negatively by some of his colleagues. It was actually surprising how little uproar there was when he and Wallace produced their joint paper outlining their theory.
Overall, good start to the course.