Historical Influences: Thomas Malthus' Influence on Darwinism
Thomas Malthus was a sort of precursor to both Darwin and Wallace. He contributed to the theory of evolution (almost unknowingly) through an essay he wrote called An Essay on the Principle of Population where he came to the conclusion that populations can increase exponentially, faster than available resources. So a species can populate rather quickly, but the more that are born, the less that survive to adulthood due to the competition of food and water and shelter.Malthus emphasized the struggle to survive, especially in human populations. This was key to Darwin's hypothesis of survival of the fittest, though he used the concepts of animals struggling and adapting to survive to a more focused degree.
https://www.allaboutscience.org/malthus-faq.htm
To really put it all together, the points that Darwin made towards his theory of evolution that Malthus most influenced are that:
1) Resources are limited and do not grow at the same speed as populations.
2) All organisms have the potential to reproduce exponentially, though it may be both a pro and a con. Having more populace can ensure that the species has a chance to fight extinction, but it also means that many of those reproduced organisms will not live to adulthood, due to fierce competition for limited resources. It's a double-edged sword.
And seeing how influential these two points are in Darwin's "survival of the fittest" quotable quote, his theory of evolution would be quite empty without Malthus' predominant essay.
Without Malthus' contribution, Darwin would have been left with species and heritable traits. The barest of theory bones.
We wouldn't really have this concept of Darwinism (at least its name and the era it broke into scientific history) if the Catholic Church had succeeded in snuffing out Darwin's proposal. Evolution was far too contradictory for the Church, as their biblical texts dated their belief of the creation of the world to a few thousand years ago, while science (evolutionism, anthropology, archaeology) date the existence of the world we live to billions of years ago.
Because of this, Darwin's publishing of his theory was held back for a while, as the Church was a rather large political power in the 18th and 19th century, so it inspired heavy controversy.
Though, just as species adapt, so did the Catholic Church:
http://www.resourcemelb.catholic.edu.au/object.cfm?o=219&pid=1615&showrm=true&uptam=false
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.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, you offer a very good summation of the key points of Malthus' work and how it relates to Darwin's.
Excellent choice of bullet points with good explanations. Nice use of images as well.
" Without Malthus' contribution, Darwin would have been left with species and heritable traits."
Well, he had Lamarck's work and Lyell's and ultimately Wallace's. So he still had quite a bit to go on. 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)
"We wouldn't really have this concept of Darwinism (at least its name and the era it broke into scientific history) if the Catholic Church had succeeded in snuffing out Darwin's proposal. "
This doesn't address the question in the prompt. Did the church in any way influence Darwin's decision to publish? 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 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.