Darwin Blog 04/17/14

The infamous Charles Darwin was born in England on February 12, 1809 to a mother of five children. Coming from a long line of scientists, it seemed only appropriate that he too would soon find his calling in life as a Naturalist despite his fathers hopes that he would become a medical doctor.  His interest in nature and the study thereof soon landed Darwin a spot on the HMS Beagle alongside his professor and mentor John Stevens Henslow.  On December 27, 1831 the HMS Beagle launched its five year voyage around the world where he began his work collecting specimens of birds, plants and fossils which eventually would lead to his theory of Natural Selection. 


Although there were many mentors and scholars in Darwin's life, the one I believe was most influential was that of Thomas Malthus.  For a good read on the contributions of Malthus and his ideology and how it still is sought after even in todays society, go to this link: http://ezproxy.canyons.edu:2125/docview/235869985/540E583AB8264664PQ/10?accountid=38295


Malthus was famous for writing his book entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population which became the catalyst for Darwin altering his theories on natural selection.  Malthus contends that over-population leads to famine, disease and death.  The more the population grows, the more food and supplies become scarce.  Society will always have a group in poverty and be deprived of natural resources and food thus separating those that have a chance of survival and those that don't.  He believed that the human race has a natural need to reproduce, therefor growing geometrically while the food supplies can only grow arithmetically.  Therefore, a system needs to be put in place to stop and altar the growth of the human race, i.e. birth control etc.


The bulletin points that most directly affect the works of Malthus are:

• All organisms have the potential of reproducing exponentially. Malthus contends that the human race feels a need to continuously reproduce.  This was also the starting point of Darwin's work.  However as the population reproduces, food and natural resources become scarce, and there is always left a level of society in poverty.  Natural Selection is the determining factor on who is the rich upper class and who is in poverty per Darwin's theory.
• Resources are limited.  Malthus' studies have shown that as the population grows, resources become limited and will eventually run out if we become too over-populated.
• Artificial selection is identical to natural selection with one important difference.  Humans choose to reproduce.  Even families that are in poverty choose to have off spring that they know are going to be born in to poverty.  As the population grows and natural resources don't, there's always a separation in classes from poor to rich to middle class. 

I don't believe that Darwin could have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence of Malthus simply because Darwin's initial belief was that population would only grow until it stabilized with current resources.  Little did Darwin know that this over-population was leading to famine, and disease, misery and war.  A fight for survival if you will.  This fight for survival is what defied Darwin's initial theory on natural selection and brought about a reason why these struggles were occurring between populations thus altering his theory on natural selection.  Malthus' findings were perhaps the biggest influence on Darwin's theories.


The attitude of the church in affecting Darwin and his publication of On the Origin of Species? was such that Christians believed in Heaven and Earth and man was created by God thus there could be no alternative answer.  To publish a book somewhat challenging the higher power and offering  a more scientific theory turned out to be not so controversial after all.  Darwin was not trying to proclaim himself atheist, he just wanted facts to support the theories of the church and went in search of alternative observations scientifically rather than by faith alone.  So in that respect he wasn't trying to defy the church, just seek alternatives as to why people are the way they are, because he was notices a lot of misery.