Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 17:18:57 -0600
From: Lisa Rogers <LROGERS-AT-deq.state.ut.us>
Subject: Darwin and Malthus [was "analogy"]


Carrol and all,

I was recently asked to review [pre-publication] a bit of writing on
"economics and biology", and an excerpt from my comments seems
relevant here, regarding the relation between Darwin and Malthus.

----
BTW, please don't overplay the influence of Malthus on Darwin's
theory.  Darwin did a lot of hard work on his theory before reading
Malthus, and Lyell's geology probably played a bigger role overall. 
Malthus contribution was to point out the fact that many more are
born within many species than actually live a normal lifespan.  I
think he also talked about struggle that must result from this fact. 
This combined with what Darwin was already working on, to help things
jell.  

So, I wouldn't say simply that Malthus "inspired Darwin's theory". 
I'm sensitive to this not just because of the attribution of credit
or blame, but as you probably know, a common [in the left] critique
of Darwin is that he was just a capitalist lackey tailing Malthus and
trying to naturalize capitalism.  I disagree with that critique.

Besides, altho Malthus can reasonably be called an "economist",
Darwin referred only to Malthus' _population theory_, which I think
would not fall into the modern category of "economics".  So perhaps
that's not a very good example of crossover or borrowing between
"economics and biology" anyway.
----

I'm curious Carrol, in what way do you think that Darwin was making
an analogy with Malthus' work, or would you otherwise expand on that?

thanks,
Lisa


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