1) I believe that Thomas Malthus had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his theory of Natural selection.
2) Malthus contributed to the scientific community by coming up with the idea that plants as well as men tend to produce more offspring than can survive. As stated on the website http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html, he blamed three elements of living conditions in the 19th century. "The overproduction of young; the inability of resources to keep up with the rising human population; and the irresponsibility of the lower classes. To combat this, Malthus suggested the family size of the lower class ought to be regulated such that poor families do not produce more children than they can support."
3) The point most directly affected by Mathus was that resources are limited. Mathus suggested that families should limit their children, this meaning that they should not have more children than they can support.
4) No, because Darwin as well found out that resources are limited and that evolution is based on survival of the fittest with the right amount of resources.
5) The church was against anything that contradicted the bible. Darwin feared the people will not like his ideas as to how the world was created. Because of this, it took Darwin 23 years to publish his book.
In general, good. I agree that Darwin may have come up with this on his own, but it was Malthus' concept of competition for resources, leading to differential survival, that led Darwin to ask the question "Who survives and who doesn't?" Is it random or is there a selection process. This was a HUGE step forward in his throught processes toward the concept of nature as the selection force.
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