AP BIOLOGY

EVOLUTION

MODERN THEORY OF EVOLUTION

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
____ reasoned that if the human population continued to grow unchecked, sooner or later there would be insufficient living space and food for everyone.
A
Malthus
B
Hutton
C
Lyell
D
Darwin
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -Malthus believed that through preventative checks and positive checks, the population would be controlled to balance the food supply with the population level. These checks would lead to the Malthusian catastrophe .

Detailed explanation-2: -Malthus’ most famous work was his Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in 1798 and enlarged in later editions. This work contained his famous argument that human populations tend to grow faster than agricultural output, resulting in famines or crises.

Detailed explanation-3: -Thomas Malthus warned that without any checks, population would theoretically grow at an exponential rate, rapidly exceeding its ability to produce resources to support itself. Malthus argued that an exponentially growing population will self-correct through war, famine, and disease.

Detailed explanation-4: -He argued that population, tending to grow at a geometric rate, will ever press against the food supply, which at best increases only arithmetically, and thus poverty and misery are forever inescapable.

Detailed explanation-5: -According to Malthusian theory, three factors would control human population that exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity, or how many people can live in a given area considering the amount of available resources. Malthus identified these factors as war, famine, and disease (Malthus 1798).

There is 1 question to complete.