Malthus' Push
Thomas Malthus was a political economist that helped Darwin close in on the theory of natural selection. Malthus studied how the increasing human population could lead to an inability to feed everyone, we would end up with more mouths to feed than food. He proposed that the human population needed to be controlled to prevent "famine and misery". Malthus said the same was true for the populations of plants and animals also, populations had to be controlled by something or they would take over.
Darwin reading what Malthus had published concluded that living things don't necessarily reproduce enough just for stability, as he previously thought. They reproduce more than what's necessary and they all have different traits. He realized that some animals were better fit to handle some conditions in the wild. This makes these animals more likely to survive and reproduce, therefore, passing their traits on to their offspring.
Without reading Mathus' findings Darwin eventually may have come to the same conclusions about natural selection but Thomas Mathus seems to have been a big push in the right direction for Darwin.
Darwin held off for a while on publishing and going public with his findings in an attempt to remain respected by the church. When he did finally release his findings he was scrutinized by the catholic church.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/%3C?%20echo%20$baseURL;%20?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/5/l_025_01.html
https://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/darwin-and-his-theory-of-evolution/
Good Blog. Although Malthus was worried about the growth of the population and that food resources would be limited. His foresight has not yet come to pass because we have not suffered famine due to lack of resources.The famines in some communities are due to politics. During his time Malthus did not factor in urbanization and advance technology.
ReplyDeleteHi Laina,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post! I myself have chosen Alfred Russel Wallace. Had he not been on the list that the professor gave us, I would have chosen Thomas Malthus as well. I believe he really did have one of the most influence over Darwin's development of his theory of natural selection. Moreover, I am glad that you mentioned Thomas Malthus realized that some animals were better fit to handle some conditions in the wild. Great blog!
I like that you stated how Darwin believed in the ideas he had studied, but used Thomas Malthus's theory of overpopulation to further explain why natural selection occurs in processes in order to prevent disruptions to the species and environment. Malthus definitely pushed Darwin in the right direction by providing an explanation for competitive and resourceful behaviors among different members of the same species. Thank you for sharing your insight.
ReplyDeleteI like how you mentioned that Darwin used Malthus' work as a way to add to and also reinforce his ideas about evolution. After reading your post, I can see how Darwin could have come up with his theory eventually, but not without more time. I find it a bit amusing that an economist would end up having a big influence on Darwin, because at the time people thought humans were special when compared to other species, yet a theory dealing with the overpopulation of humans would prove to be true with all animals. I enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteYou've presented a reasonable summary of Malthus' work, but can we dig a little deeper to help us understand the connection between Malthus and Darwin? For example...
ReplyDeleteMalthus was an economist who was also very concerned about the problems related to overpopulation. He understood that populations had the potential of growing exponentially, which resources tended to grow at a slower, arithmetic rate. He noticed that natural populations of animals never seemed to overpopulate their available resources. It was as if some natural force was limiting their population size. He then compared natural populations to human populations and recognized that humans seemed to be lacking this natural force (whatever it was) and as a result, humans seemed to outgrow their available resources. Malthus argued that unless humans self-regulated their reproduction (he was a huge proponent of birth control), other processes, such as famine, disease and war, would be the natural result, forcing us to cut our populations via mass death.
Note that there are two "Malthusian principles" expressed here: (1) Populations grow at a faster exponential rate and (2) resources grow at a slower arithmetic rate.
In the next section, you were asked to review the bullet points in the guidelines and choose those that best applied to Malthus. I don't see you doing that in your next paragraph, and it would have helped you better understand both Malthus' work and Darwin's. There are two that apply directly to Malthus and his "Malthusian principles" identified above. One is "All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially" which is Malthus' first principle. The other is "Resources are limited", which is the implications of the second Malthusian principle.
"Without reading Mathus' findings Darwin eventually may have come to the same conclusions about natural selection"
I actually doubt this. 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
Re: Last paragraph.... Darwin actually delayed publishing for more that 20 years. Note that the church in question here was the Church of England, not the Catholic Church. But beyond that, I'd like to hone in here on your point that Darwin wanted to remain "respected" in the church. Can we unpack that and expand upon it? What were Darwin's concerns? What would be the cost of losing the respect of the church, both personally and professionally? And was he only worried about himself 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.
You have some good basic information here, but don't be afraid to expand and dig a little deeper into these issues beyond the superficial. You have some good resources here. Use them! It will help you develop a more complete understanding of these concepts.