What Influence Did the Writings of Thomas Malthus Have on Darwin's

question 39

Multiple Choice

What influence did the writings of Thomas Malthus have on Darwin's ideas of natural selection?

• A) Malthus described the reproduction of elephants to Darwin.
• B) Malthus explained how variation was maintained within populations.
• C) Malthus illustrated that some individuals possessed favorable traits while others did not.
• D) Malthus wrote a detailed history of artificial selection examples.
• E) Malthus showed how the human population grows faster than the food supply and that death and famine were inevitable.

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Definitions:

Significance Level

A threshold chosen by the researcher to determine the cutoff at which an observed test statistic is considered statistically significant.

Slope

The rate of change in the y-variable per unit change in the x-variable in a linear equation; measures the steepness of a line.

Regression Line

A straight line that best approximates the relationship between two variables in regression analysis, indicating the expected value of the dependent variable for a given value of the independent variable.

Confidence Interval

A range of values, derived from sample statistics, that is likely to contain the value of an unknown population parameter.