Describe one of Whewell’s major criticisms of Lyell’s account of organic origins
ID: 235790 • Letter: D
Question
Describe one of Whewell’s major criticisms of Lyell’s account of organic origins.What is the difference between a special homology and a general homology?
How did Spencer propose that Malthus’ conclusions about the struggle for existence would be avoided? Describe one of Whewell’s major criticisms of Lyell’s account of organic origins.
What is the difference between a special homology and a general homology?
How did Spencer propose that Malthus’ conclusions about the struggle for existence would be avoided? Describe one of Whewell’s major criticisms of Lyell’s account of organic origins.
What is the difference between a special homology and a general homology?
How did Spencer propose that Malthus’ conclusions about the struggle for existence would be avoided?
Explanation / Answer
William Whewell one of the most prominent figure in nineteenth century. He wrote on various subjects like mechanics, geology, minerology, astronomy, political economy, theology, educational reform, philosphy etc. Hewas one of the founding member as well as president of the British Association for Advancement of Science. He was also the president of Geological society, master of Trinity college, Cambridge as well as fellow of royal society. He also coined various scientific terms like anode, cathode, ion, catastrophism and uniformatism.
In geology Lyell give the principle of uniformatism that the earth is formed by minute changes which are occuring at a steady rate over the considerable period of time in the past based on his observations. But Whewell disagreed on this and criticised the evolutionary theory or uniformatism. According to him this was governed by the divine power and is catastrophic. The earth is formed of abrupt changes like Noah's flood mentioned in BIble.
Homology: it is the similarity in the parts of an organism having similar functions like arms and leg in man, fin of fish and wing of a bird. This is a modification of one type of structures
Special homology: It is designed for a particular purpose and is characteristics of that species.
Struggle of existence is the competition among organisms for food, mate etc. Malthus explained on the principal of population and argued that a population will increase exponentially while resources arithmetically. SInce with limited resources the population tends to struggle in order to survive and exist. According to him, the factor which control population is food. During high availablity of food population will increase and hence struggle for existence can be decreased and while during food shortage it will decrease.