Protein Synthesis Assignment - DNA Code

ACC ACA GAU GAC TAC TTG GAA ATT CTG TCT AGT ACT GAA CGC ATC GGC CUG CGC

Anthro 101

Historical influences blog post.

1. Probably the most influential person on Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection was Thomas Malthus. He was not a scientist but an economist who wrote several essays on how the increasing population would grow faster than the amount of food production could support resulting in many fatalities due to starvation. Darwin took this and applied it to all species of animals. Malthus’ ideas were the same as “survival of the fittest” Darwin observed that it applied to humans and well as animals. Darwin gave a Malthus’ work a lot of praise for helping him develop his own ideas about evolution.

2. http://evolution.about.com/od/scientists/p/Thomas-Malthus.htm. Thomas Malthus biggest contribution to the scientific community was his most prominent piece of work the essay titled ‘The Principles of Population’ written in 1798. Poverty interested him as all periods throughout history, suffering has been prevalent. He theorized that as populations increase in size there would be insufficient food to facilitate for that many people. He suggested that as a result there would be starvation and famine.

3. There are several points that were influenced by Thomas Malthus; resources are limited. Our planet a limit of how much we can hold and produce. There will not be enough resources available for all organisms to reproduce as many offspring they can. This point was hugely influenced by Malthus because it was his essay that first theorized that as the population gets bigger the demand for food is higher, however there will be not enough food to provide for the population leading to starvation and deaths. Organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts. This can be related to humans and how the lower classes were dying due to the lack of resources that were presented to them. Malthus solution was to limit the number of offspring the lower classes were able to produce, he blamed the poor for continuing to reproduce even though they don’t have the resources to do so. This is essentially the same as “survival of the fittest” those who cannot successfully reproduce as a result of their access to resources die and do not prosper.

4. Darwin essentially read and was inspired by Malthus’ essay ‘The Principles of Population’. He then took his theory and applied it to species of animals. Malthus helped inspire Darwin to refine his natural selection theory by giving a reason to why there is competition between members of the same species. You could argue that without the influence of Thomas Malthus, Darwin would never have been able to refine his theory of ‘Natural Selection’. Because he was able to look at Malthus’s work, relate to it and use it to further his own scientific theories.
5. The attitude of the Church affected Darwin and the publication of his book because he knew how much it would anger them and how much they would be opposed to it. The church obviously didn’t take too kindly to ideas being published that denounced the word of God which Darwin’s theory directly opposes. However Alfred Wallace urged him to push on with the book’s publication regardless of the result.