Historical Influences Blog Post
1. Thomas Malthus
2. Thomas Malthus was an English economist and scholar who wrote an essay on the principle of population. Malthus’s work and research lead him to the conclusion that a population’s size is limited to the amount of available natural resources. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
3. The points that Malthus made through his work were that all populations have the potential to reproducing exponentially, however, limited resources prevent organisms from reproducing at their potential. Malthus had a positive influence on Charles Darwin because Darwin applied these principles to all organisms. Malthus’s research led Darwin's discovery of the mechanism of natural selection.
4. Thomas Malthus laid down the backbone to Darwin's research. While we can not be certain, it is safe to say that Darwin, on his own, may not have been able to develop his theory of natural selection within his lifetime.
5. Darwin's discoveries did not agree with the beliefs and attituded of the church. Genesis states that God created the world in six days however Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that the world and the life forms within it have progressed over the course of millions of years. This caused Darwin to refrain from publicizing his work for twenty-three years.
Johan, your text has disappeared off of the right side of the screen. This can happen if you create your post in Google Docs and then copy it over. The text wrapping doesn't follow and this is the result. You need to make sure you re-format your document once it is in your blog to reset the text-wrapping.
ReplyDeleteI am going to re-post your assignment below as a comment here so I can grade it and other students can review it. For all future assignments, it is your responsibility to check your post after you publish to make sure it is clearly visible to your readers.
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Historical Influences Blog Post
1. Thomas Malthus
2. Thomas Malthus was an English economist and scholar who wrote an essay on the principle of population. Malthus’s work and research lead him to the conclusion that a population’s size is limited to the amount of available natural resources. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
3. The points that Malthus made through his work were that all populations have the potential to reproducing exponentially, however, limited resources prevent organisms from reproducing at their potential. Malthus had a positive influence on Charles Darwin because Darwin applied these principles to all organisms. Malthus’s research led Darwin's discovery of the mechanism of natural selection.
4. Thomas Malthus laid down the backbone to Darwin's research. While we can not be certain, it is safe to say that Darwin, on his own, may not have been able to develop his theory of natural selection within his lifetime.
5. Darwin's discoveries did not agree with the beliefs and attituded of the church. Genesis states that God created the world in six days however Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that the world and the life forms within it have progressed over the course of millions of years. This caused Darwin to refrain from publicizing his work for twenty-three years.
Instructor Feedback:
ReplyDelete"Malthus’s work and research lead him to the conclusion that a population’s size is limited to the amount of available natural resources."
Was that really his conclusion? You would have benefitted from expanding your answer here and offering more detail. Some clarification: Malthus 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.
Good choice on bullet points. That said, more background information in the opening section would have helped here as well.
"Thomas Malthus laid down the backbone to Darwin's research."
I don't disagree with this but you haven't explained how this is the case. At the time Darwin read Malthus' essay, Darwin had collected a mountain of specimens and data, but couldn't figure out how to put it all together into a cohesive theory. Malthus concept of resource competition was key. 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
"Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that the world and the life forms within it have progressed over the course of millions of years."
Actually, Darwin's theory says nothing about this, but it only works if the earth is, in fact, millions (actually, billions) of years old.
"This caused Darwin to refrain from publicizing his work for twenty-three years."
I don't see the connection here. Scientists over history have constantly presented concepts that contradicted church teachings. We are asking about Darwin here. As you state, he delayed publishing for more than two decades. Why? 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.
Hi Professor! Thank you for taking the time to provide such thorough feedback! I will make sure to double check my blog post in the future so that it does not run off the side of the page. I will revert back to this when creating future posts.
DeleteThank you for the response, Jonah.
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