Charles Darwin is credited with the evolutionary theory, but his knowledge was influenced by many great scientists of his time. In my opinion, Thomas Malthus had the largest, positive influence on Darwin's theory development for a few reasons. Malthus' book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, pointed out the fact that although population sizes increase, the amount of resources tend to stay the same. He was, in fact, focusing more on humans, but Darwin expanded this thought to all organisms. Malthus showed the science community, including Darwin, that competition is constantly present when population size is restricted by the mount of resources available (https://www.allaboutscience.org/malthus-faq.htm). Malthus was able to prompt Darwin to realize that the number of offspring produced in a species were more than the number that was meant to survive.
The bullet point Who gets better access to these limited resources? was most influenced by Thomas Malthus. It states that the organisms that are better adapted to their environment are more competitive. Malthus found that resources stayed at a constant capacity, but those that knew how to deal with the issues in a smarter way were ultimately more competitive and would survive longer. Darwin took this idea and centered his entire evolutionary theory around it. The survival of the organisms best adapted to their environment was the basis of natural selection. In fact, I don't believe that Darwin would have developed the theory of evolution without Malthus' discoveries and insights. Because Malthus came up with "the survival of he fittest," Darwin was able to elaborate on it and clarify how that related to the evolution of organisms over time.
Darwin was reluctant to publish his theory for the world to see, partly because he knew how controversial it would be, especially within the church. The ideas within evolutionary theory go against what many religious groups believe in, and people at this time did were concerned with going against the norm. Darwin finally decided to publish his findings after realizing that Alfred Russell Wallace might get credit instead.
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteYour answer is very thorough and you've convinced me that Thomas Malthus was more important in his contribution to evolutionary theory than I thought he was. I really like how you mentioned his key point, competition, which is a huge part of natural selection! I agree that Malthus' findings gave Darwin a big step up in developing his theory.
Nicole!
ReplyDeleteMan, job well done! I honestly feel like was just reading an article from an educational website. I agree very much that Malthus' book and his thoughts launched Darwin into his next phase of developing the theory of evolution. It was almost like the light bulb above his head suddenly got turned on.
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog and seeing how the two men connected in their theories. I did not know much about Thomas Malthus and your post basically summarized who he was for me. It also showed me that Malthus focused on one part of it but Darwin stuck with those findings and just added to it which is very informative. Since, I wrote about how my individual had sort of a negative impact on Darwin it was nice to see it from the other standpoint.
An initial comment on your sources: When using online sources, it is easy to get stuck with unreliable sources, and unfortunately you have found one. The AllAboutScience site is actually part of a site called AllAboutGod, which is a religious site. This doesn't automatically mean their information is wrong, but unfortunately in this case, their information is biased and misinformed.
ReplyDeleteIn my old Blackboard course, I had a separate page with a guide on how to choose good sources and avoid bad ones. Canvas won't allow for that much flexibility, unfortunately. Try to stick with scientific sites for sources such as: Educational sites such as universities, scientific literature, scientific sites such as Discovery or National Geographic.
Aside from that, well done on your opening description of Malthus' work. You do a good job of providing the details your reader needs to draw connections between Malthus' work and Darwin's.
With regard to bullet points, Malthus' work didn't extend this question. That was something Darwin asked after reading Malthus' book. As an economist, Malthus was focused on straight supply and demand issues and didn't get into the finer details about WHO got the supply. As such, the two bullet points you can attribute to Malthus are (a) All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially (which increases demand) and (b)Resources are limited (which speaks to supply).
I agree with your conclusion in the next section. 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. 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
I agree with your points, but can we get a little deeper here? Darwin delayed publishing for more than 20 years so it is worthwhile to try to understand the reason for this extensive delay. What were Darwin's concerns? And was he only worried about himself (personally and professionally) or was he also worried about how his family might be impacted by publishing? Remember that his wife was very devout. How might she have been impacted if the church responded negatively to Darwin? Remember that scientists don't work in a vacuum. They can be influenced not just by academics but also by social, cultural and personal issues.