Charles Darwin's debt to Malthus and Edward Blyth.
نویسنده
چکیده
The traditional view of Darwin's development of the theory of natural selection is that Darwin was inspired to formulate his theory by reading Mathus' Essay on Population. 1 According to a different notion, Darwin overemphasized his debt to Mathus regarding natural selection in order to hide the impact of other writers, in particular Edward Blyth, on his own thinking. 2 The purpose of this paper is to examine these conflicting ideas about the history of Darwin's thinking in the development of the theory of natural selection. By focusing on three basic questions, I will attempt to determine the relative merit of both positions. Was Edward Blyth's work an important prelude to Darwin's theory of natural selection? Was Darwin aware of Blyth's work before he read Malthus? How strongly was Darwin influenced by Mathus?
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Journal of the history of biology
دوره 7 2 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1974