Question

Briefly describe how the work of Malthus on human population contributed to the development of Darwin/Wallace's mechanism of natural selection.

Answer 1

Darwin and Wallace were two naturalists working independently, but their theory were simillar coincidently. Darwing wrote the "Origin of Species" in 1859. During their initial studies, they were influenced by the study of an economist, Thomas Robert Malthus. Malthus wrote a book in 1797 named "An Essay on The Principle of Population", in which he discribed that many of the government polocies for poor people are failed due to population pressure. He explained further that food supply increases arithmetically, while population increases exponentially. Thus the population can double in fewer time than food supply.

Darwin and Wallace thought that the simillar will happen for animal and plant species. For example if a bettle do not have any constrains, it could populate exponentially. But they are not able to grow at their full potential and many of them even could not reach at their adult stage, further they also have to face many physical and environmental stresses.

Like this, the theory of Malthus, have contributed in the development of Darwin/Wallace's mechanism of natural selection.