Baby, It's Cold Outside!

The environmental factor I will be discussing is cold.  I have chosen this because, having come from Chicago, I have a clear recollection of the bitter cold winters.  One frigid February day it actually got down to -27, with a wind chill of -70!  Even on the hottest days here in California, I have never felt anything like that.  To me, it seems like it would be hard for anything to survive (human or plant) for a prolonged period of time, in that kind of cold weather.   Every winter I would watch as everything in our garden died and all the trees became bare and the ground became cold and hard.  I think that is the epitome of a disruption of homeostasis.  I know you could argue that it happens here during hot spells but it seems like things are still alive.  I think the phrase “dead of winter” actually comes from the fact that everything is actually dead.

A short-term adaptation to cold is shivering, which I certainly did on that bitter cold February morning!  Shivering is the result of a constriction of the muscles in the body in an effort to produce heat to warm the body.  It is a natural response not unlike sweating.  Have you ever tried to “not” shiver when it is cold?  Pretty darn difficult!

A facultative adaptation, often seen in Eskimos and others who have lived for generations in cold climates in something called the hunter response to cold. The cycle of vasoconstriction and vasodilation in the extremities when exposed to cold is not unique – our bodies all do this.  The vasoconstriction is what helps our bodies retain heat, but unfortunately it restricts heat (blood flow) to our extremities) so at some point a dilation occurs in the extremities, and then the cycle repeats.  In people who have spent generations in cold climates, the amount of time between vasoconstriction and subsequent vasodilation is so small, as to appear almost continuous.  Their bodies have adapted this trait to survive in constant cold weather.

One developmental adaptation, again seen in the Eskimo population, which can be directly linked to the cold, is the shape of their faces.  The low brow and flat face has been linked to their need to eat frozen seal meat, a direct result of the cold climate, which over time, altered the shape of the face.

For cultural adaptations I am going to switch back to my personal experience because I think there are cultural differences between people who live in colder climates than people who live in warmer climates.  I know that when I was living in Chicago, and it was winter, we had a “hunker down” mentality and so we weren’t as social.  That changed with the seasons, but I would speculate that if a person lived in perpetual cold they would behave much like we did in the winter – they would socialize in tight circles and not spread out.  They would hunker down and stock up more (like hunt big game that might last longer).  We would do the modern times version of that by going to the big box stores and getting most of our groceries so we could avoid being out.  Our activities centered more on family.  Everyone also put on a little extra weight in the winter which we always attributed to being less active but now that I reflect, I wonder if it was also extra insulation and a seasonal slowing down of our metabolisms.  That is an interesting thought.  Everyone says California has a different lifestyle and type of “personality” than the Midwest and I agree, and I have to believe some of that comes from the cultural adaptations to weather.  I think the label that Midwesterners are more “down-home” may stem from the fact that they literally had to stay home due to weather conditions and it is a cultural adaptation.

I think one of the benefits to exploring human variation across environmental clines is that it is giving us another piece of the evolutionary picture that is critical to understanding our species in greater depth.  Take the sickle cell trait, for instance.  It turns out it was environmental all along – areas that had high rates of malaria were the regions where this trait was adapted.  This was an environmental impact but for a long time the trait was looked at only through a racial lens.  Once the lens was expanded it made it easier to conceive that this wasn’t a race-based trait, which was eventually confirmed. 

I think studying human variation from this environmental perspective is extremely beneficial because it takes away much of the stigma associated with race.  If discussions about the differences we see in humans are grounded in how they may have adapted to their environments it makes it more difficult to stigmatize people because of how they appear or even how they act.  For example, most of us have experienced cold weather at some time or another so if we were to consider the Eskimos behaviors and certain features as being the result of generations of adaptation to that environment they might not seem so different from anyone else.  At the end of the day, that is the most important thing – we are all the same, save for slight variations, and our environments play a big role in that.  One final thought - as I reflect upon what I wrote I realize that one of the best benefits is a greater understanding of society and how people interact with each other and how that is driven by environmental factors.  What I wrote about the differences between Midwesterners and Californians has just always been something I've heard people say and have observed, but after writing this, I now am curious about what might actually be going on, and if the environment is having a real impact on this.

Don't Speak! The Language Experiment

I conducted both of my language experiments using my husband as my partner so we could reflect on the differences, including advantages and disadvantages of both types of communication.

In the first experiment I attempted to communicate with my husband without using any symbolic language.  This was extremely difficult because I didn’t know how to convey things I was trying to tell him and I kept getting frustrated.  I felt like I had nothing to fall back on to get him to understand, so our conversation kept stalling and the simplest idea took forever to figure out.  I’d try to point or wiggle my fingers or do anything I could think of to make him understand and finally, a lot of the time I just gave up.  The way my husband communicated with me was also altered by this experiment.  For one thing, he was also getting frustrated when he couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say and each time he would guess and I would shake my head no, he would get more aggravated so that a relatively benign conversation became uncomfortable rather quickly.  He works at Home Depot in Sylmar, which has a large Hispanic clientele, and he said that this is sometimes what it feels like when clients are trying to explain something to him and he doesn’t speak their language or vice versa.  Everyone tends to get aggravated.  This brings me to the final point: thinking about how hard it must be to be a person who does not speak English in America, or a deaf person trying to communicate in a hearing world.  In this experiment my husband had the definite advantage because there was a societal “agreement” that his spoken language was correct, so the onus was on me to try and figure out a way to make him understand me, not the other way around.  This must be how non-english speaking people, or deaf people feel in our society: the attitude in our country is that they are responsible for getting the rest of us to understand what they want and need. 

The second experiment was quite different.  It was difficult for entirely different reasons, although we were able to go the entire 15 minutes.  I purposely waited to tell my husband a joke I had heard earlier so I could see how it would be to tell this joke to him with no facial movement, no vocal intonation or variety, and no body movement.  It was so difficult, especially not to laugh while telling it.  He said it definitely ruined the joke to a large degree.  The next thing I noted was that he mentioned something good that he had accomplished and I told him how proud I was of him, and then I asked him if it felt like I was proud and he said “No”.  He said it did not feel encouraging at all.  On the plus side, we were really listening to each other because I was talking so monotone that it made it easy to hear every word.  I usually talk very fast and my husband told me this was the slowest he had ever heard me speak.  He also said that some of my word choices were interesting and did not necessarily sound like “me” because I had time to think before I spoke.  So that might be a good thing to consider trying to do more of in the future.  The experiment showed us both how vital the non-verbal components of communication are.  The fact that my husband didn’t feel praised by me was a big thing.  Furthermore, I love to tell jokes and laughter is a huge part of our daily lives and we realized that our voices, facial expressions and body language are actually sometimes even more important than the words we are saying.  Without these we might not be able to laugh like we do!  Unfortunately there are many people who have trouble reading and understanding these non-verbal cues.  My own nephew Vincent is autistic and I have watched him struggle with this from a very young age.  He did not say his first word until he was five and I remember how we all tried to connect with him.  Now, because he has been working with special therapists for years he is able to speak and do many things he could not, but he still misses many of the subtle nuances of language (puns, inside jokes, analogies) that we take for granted.  In addition, he misses many of the non-verbal clues, like when someone is being sarcastic, he would take what they are saying literally.  Or if someone looks bored or embarrassed by what he is saying he would never pick up on that.  I am trying to think of an environmental situation when it might be beneficial to not pick up on verbal cues and I am honestly at a loss.  I rely on them so much to get a “read” on things, which is why I get frustrated by texting sometimes, so I am really unsure of when that information would not be a good thing to have.   Perhaps someone will let me know in my comments section. J

In conclusion, the experiment really opened both my eyes and my husband’s eyes to the importance of verbal and non-verbal communication.  I think in the future we will try to be more understanding of people who, for whatever reason, may be struggling to understand our language.  We will also try not to assume that the onus is on the other person to make us understand them rather than try harder to meet in the middle.  We also realized that even with each other this would be a great idea, because even though we technically both speak English, sometimes I have no earthly idea what he is talking about!

The Myth of the Missing Link

In his book, The Top 10 Myths About Evolution, Cameron M. Smith tackles the myth of the missing link head on.  Before I give you a glimpse of a portion of his book I want to mention the first thing that caught my eye from his narrative: how common it has been for scientists and reporters to use the term "missing link" over the years.  It is so deeply ingrained in our lexicon and our collective consciousness that it makes sense that there would have been so many of us who erroneously referenced it while doing the Piltdown man assignment. In fact, I believe after reading this, that you would be hard pressed to be able to teach this course without "addressing the monkey in the room" so to speak.  I believe this chapter of this book might be a great tool to use because the author traces the history of the term while simultaneously showing why it cannot be true.  I have provided a link to the online book as well as an excerpt.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_tHnw-njcsAC&oi=fnd&pg=PT10&dq=Evolution+and+the+missing+link+myth&ots=6jEAsDBdeD&sig=pMH0L9HwsqlvvrrcfzwaQkRIsPQ

Here is a taste of what Smith writes:

Smith, C. M. (2007). The Top 10 Myths About Evolution. Prometheus Books. New York, NY.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The Piltdown Hoax

   

The Piltdown Hoax, as it has been dubbed, began in the small English town of Piltdown, in 1912, when a laborer working for an amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson uncovered part of a human skull. Although evidence of early man had already been discovered in other countries in Europe, including Germany and France, as well as Africa, the British had yet to make such a find. Dawson, who had long wanted to be recognized within the scientific community, seized upon this opportunity and quickly reported the find to London's Natural History Museum. Sir Arthur Woorward, a highly respected geologist from the museum, joined him at the Piltdown site where, in addition to uncovering other prehistoric animals and tools, they finally uncovered the remainder of the ape-like skull, complete with human teeth. This confirmed Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and marked England as the birthplace of early man. Piltdown Man, as he was named, became famous throughout the world although there were some people who were skeptical of the legitimacy of the find. Sir Arthur Woodward's stamp of approval helped lend credence to the situation, and another amateur archaeologist and philosopher named Father Teilard de Chardin also supported the findings. Father Chardin's motivation was that the skull seemed to support his long held theory that man developed his large brain prior to walking erect (which has now been proved false).


For over 40 years, despite growing skepticism, the Piltdown man was accepted as truth. Finally, in 1953, tests determined that the skull was not a half a million years old, but was, in fact, less than 100 years old and had been stained to give it an aged look. In addition, the skull had been pieced together from various animals, including the infamous jaw with teeth, which was probably that of a female orangutan. The teeth, which had been alleged to be human because of the "flat" canines, were revealed to have been filed down. The question then focused on who did this and why. The most obvious suspect was Charles Dawson himself, with the motivation being his ambition to be accepted in academic circles, and the revelations that he was a less than upstanding citizen. While Sir Arthur Woodward was considered a suspect, the fact that he spent the remainder of his life returning to Piltdown to try and find more remains seemed to suggest that he was also duped, although it is a mystery why a noted man of science would not have conducted simple tests that were available to date the fossils. Another man who may have been the culprit was a colleague of Sir Woodward, Martin Hinton, who held a grudge against the man and was known for pulling pranks. The case against him was strengthened when other forged fossils that had been forged in the same manner were found in a trunk belonging to him. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes and an avid collector of fossils, was considered based upon his grudge against the scientific community because they scoffed at his unscientifically recognized spiritual practices.



There were a number of human faults that allowed this hoax to not only be perpetrated, but to go on for so long. The first faults were with the people involved in the actual hoax. Dawson, whether guilty or not, placed greed and self-interest ahead of science which is a dangerous thing because his motivation was not pure. Science is about discovery and finding answers to the unknown. Because this was not Dawson's driving purpose, he was doomed before he started. I believe Woodward got caught up in the prestige, and the accolades, and even began to believe he was seeing things that weren't there and this led to taking short cuts. This is dangerous because Woodward is in a very influential position, which makes his endorsements powerful. Almost like what we talk about today when we think of our sports stars as 'role models'. It's a dangerous position because if you are revered you can lose your humility, but if you lose your humility you may lose your ability to be an objective scientist. Father Chardin has a classic case of researcher bias because he had a set belief system and was merely looking for something to support that belief. That is a very dangerous thing in research because often the researcher misses things that are right in front of them simply because they contradict their hypothesis. Although there is some evidence to suggest that Martin Hinton was the perpetrator of the hoax, there is actual written proof that he knew it was a hoax for many years which is something many people suspected. This leads to us to wonder why so many noted scientists allowed this find to go unchallenged and untested for 40 years? The human fault at play here is respect. It is rare that you would ever consider respect a human fault but when it comes to science, not challenging or questioning someone's findings out of respect for them, or their status, or their country can lead to something like this, or worse.


The positive aspects of science that ultimately lead to the unearthing of the Piltdown Hoax are based upon the thing always makes science great: testing. First, a scientist applied a chemical test to determine if the fossils were real and how old they were. They were looking at the nitrogen content in the fossils and it was eventually determined that the fossils were less than 100 years old. They determine that the bones had been boiled and then they had been coated with a stain to give them an aged look. They were also able to determine that the bones of the skull had been pieced together, with pieces being filed down in places to make them appear as if they fit together. In addition, they could see file marks on the teeth where they had been filed down from sharp points into flat 'human-like' teeth. It was determined that this jaw bone portion of the skull was actually from a female orangutan. Once scientists actually began to use the scientific methodologies that are in place to test these finds, science immediately did it's job.



It is not possible to ever remove the human factor from scientific testing nor should we want to. We are human, and it is our human ability to see patterns, make connections, have passion, be determined, and myriad other things that enhances science. However, as the Piltdown Hoax shows, human faults can be fertile ground for scientific error 'if" they are not accounted for. The scientific method, as well as the research method for social research, both include the retest component and other built-in steps to try and limit bias and other human error.



This is a great lesson because as students we hear many things from a lot of different sources and often they contradict each other. A perfect example is what is presented to us in the media. Many of us simply hear a story and take it as fact, especially things related to politics. We often forget about things like ratings and media bias and hidden agendas. If something sounds sensational, it's a good idea to check out the facts and make sure that it holds up to scrutiny. Another thing that I will take away from this is how long it took for anyone to actually stand up and say "Hold on, we need to check this out". I know that when someone tells me something that sounds strange (or that I sometimes even know is an incorrect fact) they sometimes seem offended when I say that I need to check it out. People want you to believe what they tell you, even when they aren't sure of their own source. I have to admit, if the person telling me the information is someone in a position of authority, I will sometimes not say anything, even if I am skeptical. An example of this is once when I was having a conversation with a teacher and I used the word dearth to describe the lack of people needed for a task. The instructor told me I had used the word incorrectly because dearth meant an excess of, not a lack of. I knew the definition of dearth, so I knew that I had used it correctly, but I didn't want to challenge it because I thought my teacher might feel disrespected. Now I can see why that might not be the best thing to do, and when it comes to science, it is never the right thing!

Comparing Sociality and Mating in Primates

In the following Blog Post I will be comparing the mating patterns and sociality of representatives of five different categories of primates: Lemur, Spider Monkey, Baboon, Gibbon, and Chimpanzee.  

a.       Lemurs are primates from the suborder Strepsirhini (prosimians.  Their geographic habitat is limited to Madagascar and the nearby Comoro Islands.  Because of Madagascar’s climate extremes due to both tropical rain forests and dry desert topography, Lemurs have developed adaptive traits such as hypo-metabolisms (the ability to hibernate), cathemerality (they are both nocturnal and diurnal), and rigid breeding periods (1).  Spider Monkeys are New World Monkeys (Platyrrhini) found in the tropical rain forests of Central America and northern regions of South America.  Their habitat is the very top reaches of the trees and they use their extremely long arms and prehensile tails to grab tree limbs and move from tree top to tree top(2).  Baboons are Old World Monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) who can be found in Africa. Baboons are extremely adaptable to the environments that they live in, so much so that Baboons living in the savannah region of southern Africa are dubbed ‘savannah baboons’, those living in the mountainous regions are called ‘mountain baboons’ and those living in desert areas of Africa are termed ‘desert baboons’.  They also adapt their diet and their ability to digest and process food to whatever food is available within the habitat, even eating human garbage when necessary (3).  

A Gibbon is a Lesser Ape (Hylobatidae) who can be found in Southeast Asia.  Like the Spider Monkey they make their home up in the trees where they move about from tree to tree.  Unlike the Spider Monkey, they do not have a prehensile tail, instead using their unusually long arms (longer than their legs) and lightweight bodies to move rapidly through and across the trees.  In fact, they are considered the fastest “non-flying tree-dwelling mammals in the world”(4). Chimpanzees are Great Apes (Hominidae) who can be found in Central and West Africa.  Through genetic science we now know that Chimpanzees are our closest living relative, sharing 98% of our human DNA. However, they still often walk on all fours, and enjoy eating and sleeping in trees like some other primates.  Sadly, many species of great apes, including Chimpanzees, are in serious danger of extinction at the hands of humans, due to deforestation and other encroachments upon their natural habitats, as well as exposure to disease and killing for profit. (5)

    b. & c.  A common social pattern found in Lemurs is that while they often roam alone during the day, foraging for food, they sleep in organized groups at night.  In fact, even if the location of the sleeping group changes, the Lemur will still find, recognize, and rejoin his group to sleep with.  Another socialization feature common to Lemurs is that males more often form groups with other males while females group with females. Over time, this has led to the formation of more mother-daughter dyads, or strong pair-bondings between females.  As a result, as pairs of females have joined with other females there has been a shift in Lemur socialization to one of females in the dominate position, which differs from other primates (1).  As mentioned previously, Lemurs have a truncated mating season which is driven by environmental factors such as length of daylight. During this time the female vagina, which is normally closed, will open to allow for mating to occur.  Females are often aggressive during mating, and studies have suggested this is due to the female having more to gain from the reproductive success of the mating session, given the limited resources.  

Unlike Lemurs, Spider Monkeys mate year round with the female selecting a male to mate with.  The process includes both the male and the female sniffing each other before copulation. Spider Monkeys form small, loose social groups of 15-25, and during the day these groups break off into smaller groups of 2-8, only to come back together at night to sleep. This social system is called fusion-fission and is unique to only a few primate categories, including the Chimpanzee.  Another unique social trait of the Spider Monkey is that males stick together and tend to form life-long bonds, whereas females leave the group at puberty.(6)  

The social habits of baboons are very much driven by their environment.  They can vary in group size from just a few to a couple hundred and this is in direct correlation to how much food is available and how hard it is for them to get it.  The harder it is to obtain food, the smaller their groups tend to be.  In addition, some Baboons migrate to higher ground during the wetter months at which point their groups may dwindle in size, only to increase when they move to lower ground in drier months (3). In terms of mating, the female presents her swollen rump to the male as an invitation to mate.  Although males often can mate with whichever female they choose, often they attempt to almost ‘woo’ the female by bringing her food and helping her care for her offspring. 

Gibbons have long been thought to be monogamous, with the male and female pairing up for life and the female giving birth to a single offspring at a time which the parents raise together for the first year, although the child remains under the mother’s care for another 6-7 years.  This pair and their offspring are called a troop. However, recent research has shown that this is not necessarily the case.  According to a study by Brockelman, et al., they observed young adult males of one “troop” moving to a neighboring troop and dispersing the adult male, to pair up with the female to form a new troop. In most instances, these dispersals were not done with force and the new troop adapted fairly quickly to the new structure (7). 

Chimpanzees form fusion-fission social groups much like Spider Monkeys do, however their groups begin with a large community that socializes together as a group and can include as many as a few hundred.  The small sub groups (also called parties) that break off are very fluid, with members of the group changing quickly and they can stay away for multiple days before returning to the group.  The size and make-up of these break-away groups varies and is driven by several factors including mating and resource availability.  For instance, if more food is available the party size will increase dramatically.  While parties can sometimes contain all males groups, all female groups, and parent-child only groups, the party size also increases dramatically if ovulating females are present in the group (8). Another similarity between the Spider Monkey and the Chimpanzee is that it is the female who leaves the natal home upon reaching adolescence (9-14 yrs) as opposed to the male. It is interesting to note that the typical transition period for a female who leaves her home to join a new group is about 2 years, and during this time she is often going back and forth between her new home and her natal home as she tries to assimilate. (8)

After evaluating the the sociality and mating behaviors of Lemurs, Spider Monkeys, Baboons, Gibbons, and Chimpanzees there were several insights I gained. First, I was intrigued by the similarities between the Chimpanzee and the Spider Monkey in two key socialization practices: their fusion-fission socialization process and the fact that both of these primates have the female leave the home as opposed to the male. This was especially interesting in light of recent research showing that Gibbons may not be monogamous, but that in fact the young males are being observed leaving home to take over new troops and disperse the adult male. I have to wonder if there are environmental factors at play among Gibbons that is causing this new phenomenon, although the researchers have not found any indication of this as of yet. To some degree, all of these primates roam in groups, or have a community environment.  It was interesting to note that environmental and reproductive factors play such a big role in the size of Baboons' groups. Especially because the biggest thing that resonates throughout all research is that each of these species is facing serious threats due to things like deforestation and other man-made destruction of their natural habitats. The Baboons appear to show the most promise in the face of this with their ability to do things like move to high ground during heavy rain, and change dietary habits to account for changes in the environment, including being able to digest new foods like human garbage.  Maybe this group size adaptation is another example of that.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemurs

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_monkey

3. http://www.imfene.org/baboon-biology/baboon-ecology 

4. http://a-z-animals.com/animals/gibbon/

5. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/chimpanzee/

6. http://www.worldanimalfoundation.net/f/SpiderMonkey.pdf

7. Brockelman, W. Y., Reichard, U., Treesucon, U., Raemaekers, J. J. (1998). Dispersal, pair formation and social structure in gibbons (Hylobates lar). Behav Ecol Sociobiol, 42. 329-339.

8. http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/behav

Proof that my dog is part of the family!

1.  I love my dog, Petey, and so it was a great surprise to find out that we have homogolous traits linked to a recent common ancestor.  The most obvious is our forelimb, which on me is my human arm and on Petey is his front leg. Now, even though Petey loves to smack me in the face with his "arm" when I stop petting him, his forelimb is quite different than mine because it is developed so that he can walk on all fours, with the upper bone curving back, and the "finger" bones bending forward to support his weight and help with balance. My arm has an opposable thumb, hangs straight, and is perfectly suited to pet my sweet doggie for hours! While both Petey and I are members of the Anamalia Kingdom, it is our subphylum, Vertebrata, which accounts for the emergence of our shared forelimb trait.  I believe this would be where our most common ancestor might be found, although we are both members of the Mammalia class, and are also in the subclass of Eutheria which is placentials.

2. Both the dolphin and the herring, predators in the water, have streamlined bodies with a dorsal fin on top which helps them survive and thrive as they search for food in the water.  However, these are analogous traits because while the herring is a species of Osteichthyes (bony fish), the dolphin is a mammal from the Cetecea order. Dolphins are actually mammalian carnivores which eat fish.  If we look back in the ancestry tree we can see that both the dolphin and the herring are vertebrates, which would be where they share the vertebral column which eventually developed into their streamlined bodies and top fins, but there does not seem to be a shared ancestor possessing the specific traits of streamlined body and top fin (although other Osteichtyes have these traits).  Other species in the Dolphin's Cetacea class are the porpoises and whales and neither of these species possess both the streamlined bodies and top dorsal fin (porpoises have the fin but are not streamlined) of the dolphin. This is perhaps because it was unnecessary until it evolved independently as a means of survival for these two species who needed to moved quickly and turn adeptly to ward of predators and find food.

Protein Synthesis Blog

 AAA ACC TAT TAC CAT AGT CAA GAG AGC AAC GGA CTC AAT CAC GGC CGC TTG ATC GTG GTT GTC

 I believe that Thomas Malthus had the greatest influence over Charles Darwin’s development of the theory of Natural Selection.  In An Essay on the Principle of Population , Malthus wrote “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.” (http://communitybooks.ebooklibrary.org/members/blackmask_online/popu.pdf, )

Malthus’ essay on population control being driven by availability of resources and ability to acquire them is the foundation of “survival of the fittest” .  In particular, his point that resources are limited.  As our book points out, after Darwin read Malthus’ essay he was able to explain how new species came about.  Malthus shed light on the fact that populations grew faster than resources could accommodate and this led Darwin to reflect upon the nonhuman population, which seems to be naturally regulated by supply of limited resources and ability to acquire them.  This, in turn led him to consider the constant struggle for survival that must occur as a result of this phenomenon, and that struggle is the very essence of natural selection because it is the impetus for being or becoming the fittest, or having the greatest reproductive success.  I believe that Darwin probably would have gotten to this eventuality without Malthus, but it possibly would have taken longer and, because Alfred Russell Wallace was nipping at Darwin’s heals in discovering and publishing the keys to evolution, had it not been for Malthus we may have all learned Wallace’s Theory of Evolution.

It took Charles Darwin over 20 years to publish On the Origin of Species. When it came to the origin of mankind, the prevailing belief of the day was a literal translation of the creation story in the Book of Genesis in the Bible.  Darwin, who had actually studied theology at Cambridge, was at risk of losing his position in society, and even within some circles of the scientific community by publishing his findings which were at such odds with the majority opinion of the day.  Fortunately, with science on his side, he had the courage to go against the norm, and in doing so forever changed the ‘norm’ with regard to evolutionary theory.