Thomas Malthus
So for our first blog post, after looking at the five choices of influences on Charles Darwin's thoughts towards evolution, I thought that the most influential of them was Thomas Malthus. The first thing I looked at about him was a quote by Charles Darwin that goes, "In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long- continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, 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). Darwin used Malthus' book to get his first solid theory to work with. Darwin built on Malthus' thoughts on overpopulation in nature in that instead of just stating that famine and poverty due to overpopulation were God's way of keeping men from being lazy, he gave a natural reason for famine in a species. If there are too many of a species in an area that is not capable of supporting that large of a population then many of that species will die. It forms a competitive environment for all of the resources. Based on that, the bullet points from the assignment description that relate the two men's ideas best would be: Resources are limited and Organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts.I don't think that Darwin could have formed his theory of natural selection as well as he did without Malthus' research. Like Darwin said in the quote above, he got his theory from reading Population. I don't think that Darwin cared much about the attitude of the church when publishing his book. Obviously it had at least a small influence on him, but I think that he really wanted to get his ideas out there in part to dispel the thought that each species had been meticulously created by some higher being rather than just nature taking its course.
"...he [Malthus] gave a natural reason for famine in a species."
ReplyDeleteExactly. This is why Darwin could take this information and apply it to his own ideas of the natural world, because they applied directly.
You explain how Darwin used applied Malthus' idea but you don't ever explain Malthus' work itself in terms of Malthus' background and research. That should have been part of the first paragraph.
I tend to agree that Malthus was very important to Darwin. Even Darwin seems to agree, based upon the quote you included in your post.
"I don't think that Darwin cared much about the attitude of the church when publishing his book."
Really? He delayed publishing for over two decades, and only published then when Wallace came on the scene Darwin risked losing the claim on his idea. He was very much affected by the church, but the question is what was he concerned about? What possible repercussions might have resulted that would impacted himself and his family?
We both forgot to show how the church felt about what Darwin wrote. We had very similar points on what Malthus did and how he influenced Darwin. I found it really amazing though on how he inspired Darwins findings don't you think?
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