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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:19 2006 |
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===================== HES POSTING ====================
I have placed the following essay on my web site:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/index.html
There are a number of other essays and a couple of books on matters
Darwinian and Malthusian at the site, as well.
Feedback very welcome.
Best, Bob Young
'Malthus on Man - In Animals no Moral Restraint' 59K Thirty years ago I
wrote an article on the common context of biological and social theory,
using Malthus as a key text and exploring how various writers had read him
and had come up with very different conclusions: William Paley, Thomas
Chalmers, Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, Marx and Engels. This article generated
a number of commentaries and refutations, primarily seeking to disprove my
conclusions about the connection between Darwin and Malthus and the role of
Malthus in the origination of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural
selection. I have stood my ground and have argued that quite a lot hangs on
the connection. On the occasion of the first invitation I have ever had to
deliver a paper to a conference of the Wellcome Institute for the History
of Medicine (an ideologically and personally antagonistic director having
been forcibly retired), I took the opportinity to reflect on this
controversy, bring in some new evidence and draw philosophical conclusions
about the role of praxis in human nature, as sanctioned by the first
professional social scientist and the founder of modern evolutionary
theory. I urge modern Darwinians to emulate these eminent forbearers in
granting a role for praxis in human nature. I also touch on the wider role
of Malthus and Malthusianism in the history of thought. The paper was
presented to a conference on 'Malthus, Medicine and Science' organised by
Roy Porter at the Wellcome Institute, London, on 20 March 1998.
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