Malthus not only made an influence in Darwin, but also in his community. According to The Encyclopedia of Evolution, "Malthus' observation that in nature plants and animals produce far more offspring than can survive." Due to Malthus' observation, the community had a change of perspective that many offspring survive due to the limit amount of resources. The population of these plants and animals had a limit of offspring that survive depending on their environmental conditions they live in.
Malthus purpose that food and water will remain the same, but the population of animals and humans will increase. As all organisms increase, many of them will not survive due to the limit amount of resources available for them. This gave a positive effect in Darwin theory that offspring that survive will have a set of population because of their limited resources.
Without the influence of Malthus Essay, Darwin would have never develop this idea of "struggle for existence", which was what Darwin needed to complete his theory of Natural Selection. Darwin had a better understanding of the population of many organism, and how they set as a limit from the environment conditions they live in.
Darwin was afraid of the church due to the thought that he might be sentence to house arrest like Galileo, he wasn't able to express his ideas without the church threatening his life.
Work Cited: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
You've made several points about Malthus' work that I also thought were key to the development of Darwin's theory. His observation of the reproductive tendencies of plants and animals and their similarities to those of man afforded Darwin a different perspective on his own work, and an important breakthrough. Certainly agree with you there. Your third paragraph concerning the recognition that resources are limited is a big piece of the natural selection pie. It seems that Malthus' conclusion that the human population would also need limits was necessary to the creation of Darwin's theory, so your post makes a lot of sense to me.
ReplyDeleteHi Jose Rodriguez,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree that Malthus work and especially his published essay influenced Darwin greatly. Malthus was able to provide the foundation and basis of Darwin’s eventual discoveries and theories. I agree that Malthus conclusion that food and water will remain the same but population will grow sparked Darwin the idea that only those organisms with better access to resources would survive. My opinion differs I that I think Darwin would have developed his ideas without the work of Malthus. I think Darwin would have eventually come across this theory and conclusion but would have taken him much longer and struggle more. I agree that Malthus did have a great amount of positive influence on Darwin.
On general, you have the basis of Malthus' work stated correctly, but while he used natural populations to explain his ideas, his primary concern was in human populations. He was worried that if human populations outgrew their resources, only famine and disease would be able to bring the population numbers back under control. He was a huge advocate of birth control, particularly for the poorer populations of humans.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand this statement: "This gave a positive effect in Darwin theory that offspring that survive will have a set of population because of their limited resources."
From Malthus, Darwin gained the concept of competition for resources, but he also recognized that in spite of the potential to reproduce well beyond their resource capacity, populations were not that high. He simply asked "Who is not surviving or reproducing?" From there, it was the connection that those best able to compete for those resources, due to favorable heritable traits, would leave more surviving offspring. Hence the concept of natural selection was born.
I hesitate to assign too much importance to any one scientist/theorist in their influence over another's work, but in this case, Malthus may well have been this important to Darwin, giving him that guidance to make the necessary logical leap to his theory. I do wonder if Darwin would have developed his ideas without Malthus' influence.
The Church of England wasn't putting anyone under house arrest during Darwin's era, and I didn't feel that his life was threatened, but that doesn't mean they didn't have power and influence to make life difficult for those who threatened that power. In particular, Darwin's wife was very religious and he was worried how publishing his work might affect her. Though he did wait over 20 years, he did end up publishing with her blessing.