Friday, April 18, 2014

Historical Influence on Darwin

  1. Out of the five individuals that were listed, I chose Thomas Malthus. I believe that Malthus had the most influence over Darwin's theory.
  2. One day, as Darwin read for amusement, he stumbled upon Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus believed that plants and animals produce more offspring than can survive. And if left unchecked, mankind could overproduce, leaving man struggling to exist. People need to practice restraint in reproduction because the production of people is increasing far more than the production of food.
    1. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
    2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/5/l_025_01.html
    3. http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/malthus.htm
  3. The points most directed by Malthus' work are:
    1. All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially.
    2. What is preventing organisms from reproducing at their potential?
    3. Resources are limited.
    4. Organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts
  4. Malthus played a big part in Darwin's theory and I do not think without the influence and ideas of Malthus he could have developed his theory of natural selection. In his work, Malthus focused on population. He believed that with the unequal amount of production between food and people, people being more, and diseases and poverty, it would lead mankind struggling. Meaning mankind and food had to balance out, which meant the restraint of reproduction and contraceptives.
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1 comment:

  1. L RodriguezApril 19, 2014 at 6:37 AM

    Okay on your background of Malthus work.

    I agree with your bullet points 1 and 3. Number 2 was not a question Malthus was concerned with... that was a question Darwin asked based upon Malthus' work. Likewise with #4, which a logical path Darwin took after reading Malthus' ideas which lead him to developing his theory of natural selection.

    I agree that Malthus may have been indespensible to Darwin, but not because of his conclusions on human populations. It was his observations of the affect on limited resources on non-human populations that drew the interest of Darwin (and Wallace). Even Darwin, in his writings, talks about how important Malthus' work was to the development of his theory.

    Missing the final section?

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