I assume Thomas Malthus most influenced over Charles Darwin's development of his theory of Natural selection.
Thomas Malthus's "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798) inspired Darwin to come up with the idea of his theory "Natural Selection." The main idea of Malthus's
work is that population growth would too much faster than food supply growth, which would eventually cause hunger, disease, and struggle. This thoughts directly effect and overlap one of Darwin's theory of evolution by the mechanism of natural selection. Charles Darwin developed his theory with many other's such as writers, geologists, scientists influences and his own hypothetic model. Therefore, Darwin could not have developed the theory of Natural Selection with only himself.
Even though, most of christians believed six-day interpretation of Genesis, Charles Darwin's theory "the Origin of Species" was accepted because many christians had already accepted another theory "Old Earth" by Harvard biologist Asa Gray before Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859.
All About Science, How did Thomas Malthus influence Charles Darwin?
http://www.allaboutscience.org/thomas-malthus-faq.htm
Biologos, How have Christians responded to Darwin’s “Origin of Species”?, July 10,2012
http://biologos.org/questions/christian-response-to-darwin
First a word on sources: This is a science course, so I am going to expect that your sources will also be science based. Both of your sources are religion based (and one is listed on the course under the heading of "Bad Resources"). Take some time to review the section on "good resources" so you know how to look for a reliable scientific source.
ReplyDeleteYou have the basics on Malthus' work but I would have liked to have seen this expanded. Additionally, which bullet point in the assignment background best applied to Malthus' idea? How did these ideas "overlap" with Darwin's? More specifics are needed with this.
Yes, Darwin was influenced my many people, but the question at hand is could he have developed his idea without Malthus.
The final question didn't ask about Christians accepting Darwin's idea. It asked how the influence of the church impacted Darwin and specifically his decision to publish his work.
Make sure you read the assignment background carefully and email with questions if you have any.
One additional comment. Since this is for class (i.e., not for personal use), would it be possible to change the kanji characters in your blog to the standard english so students understand and can use the commenting system? Thank you.
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