I really don’t have time to get into the rest of this–but I’ll take this one idiotic comment from the many hysterical comments from the man in the bathtub–since he’s completely off his rocker in terms of self control at this point. He quotes me:
The peppered moth doesn’t even sit on tree trunks; they were placed there for a photo op.
Lysenko from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub says: Well, that’s wrong. Think about this hard: A tree has bark and leaves. Do the moths rest on leaves? Almost never. What’s left?
Ok, Lysenko, here are the facts:
The fairytale of England’s famous peppered moths (Biston betularia) goes like this.
The moth comes in light and dark (melanic) forms. The assumption was that pollution from the Industrial Revolution darkened the tree trunks, mostly by killing the light-coloured covering lichen (plus darkening it with soot).
The lighter moths, which were well-camouflaged against the light background, now ‘stood out,’ and so the birds ate them at a higher ratio to the dark-colored moths, so the proportion of dark moths increased dramatically. Later, as pollution was cleaned up, the light moth became predominant again.
H.B. Kettlewell, who performed these classic experiments, said that if Darwin had seen this, ‘He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life’s work.’
This is a far-fetched and exaggerated claim, LOL…(but so was Carson’s claim that the American Robin was on the verge of extinction! Or that swallows were decreasing!) The textbook story of the peppered moths achieves little more than pointing out gene frequency shifting back and forth, within one species. This shifting doesn’t add the sort of complex design information needed for amoeba-to-man evolution.
The other problem with it is that peppered moths don’t even rest on tree trunks during the day. Kettlewell attracted the moths into traps either with light, or with female pheromones—in each case, they only flew at night. Now think about that. When do you see any moths flying? You see them mostly at night, attracted to the light of streetlights or streetlamps. They fly to the interior light when you open your car door at night. They are nocturnal, and active mostly at night. The question is, where are all these moths (Biston betularia) during the daytime?
Cyril Clarke, a British biologist who investigated the peppered moth, wrote:
‘But the problem is that we do not know the resting sites of the moth during the day time. … In 25 years we have found only two betularia on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background and one not), and none elsewhere.’
The moths filmed being eaten by birds were laboratory-bred, which Kettlewell placed on the tree trunks; they were so languid, in fact, that he once had to warm them up on his car bonnet (hood).
What about the infamous still photos of the moths on the tree trunks? One paper described how it was done—dead moths were glued to the tree. University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured ‘a lot of fraudulent photographs.’
Kettlewell assumed (1) that the main defect of his release method was an unnaturally high density of moths, affecting merely the tempo of predation; and (2) that he could disregard the observation that many moths would have preferred to take up positions higher in the trees. Before the 1980’s most investigators shared Kettlewell’s second assumption, and many of them found it convenient to conduct predation experiments using dead specimens glued or pinned to tree trunks (e.g., Clarke and Sheppard 1966, Bishop 1972, Lees and Creed 1975, Bishop and Cook 1975, Steward 1977b, Murray et al. 1980). (Wells)
There is a very poor correlation between the lichen covering and respective moth populations. When one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trunks in an unpolluted forest, the birds took more of the dark (less camouflaged) ones, as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones—the opposite of textbook predictions.
University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne agrees that the peppered moth story, which was ‘the prize horse in our stable,’ has to be thrown out.
He says the realization gave him the same feeling as when he found out that Santa Claus was not real.
When biologists looked beyond Birmingham and Dorset, where Kettlewell had conducted his experiments, they found discrepancies between Kettlewell’s theory and the actual geographical distribution of melanic moths. For example, if melanic moths in polluted woodlands enjoyed as much of a selective advantage as Kettlewell’s experiments seemed to indicate, then they should have completely replaced typicals in heavily polluted areas such as Manchester (Bishop and Cook 1980, Mani 1990). This never happened, however, indicating that factors other than selective predation must be affecting melanic frequencies. Some investigators attributed the discrepancy to heterozygote advantage (Clarke and Sheppard 1966, Lees and Creed 1975), but it has since been established that there is no evidence for this (Creed et al. 1980, Lees 1981, Mani 1982, Cook et al. 1986). (Wells)
Regrettably, students have been indoctrinated by supposed ‘proof’ of evolution which is fraudulent, just as the 30-year period of Lysenko’s biologists suggests. But fervently feverishly and blindly clinging to the Lysenkoist ideology seems to me to be an example of ‘you can’t parody scientific illiteracy’…LOL
- Kettlewell, H. (1959), ‘Darwin’s missing evidence’ in Evolution and the fossil record, readings from Scientific American, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, p. 23, 1978.
- Clarke, C.A. & G.S. Mani & G. Wynne, Evolution in reverse: clean air and the peppered moth, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:189–199, 1985; quote on p. 197.
- Calgary Herald, p. D3, 21 March 1999.
- Lees,D.R. & Creed, E.R. Industrial melanism in Biston betularia: the role of selective predation, Journal of Animal Ecology 44:67–83, 1975.
- Coyne, Nature 396(6706):35–36.
- The Washington Times, p. D8, 17 January 1999.
- Lees, D.R. & Creed, E.R. ref. 4.
- Unfettered by evolutionary fantasies, researchers can now look for the real causes of these population shifts. Could the dark moth variation actually have a function, like absorbing more warmth? Could it reflect conditions in the caterpillar stage? In a different nocturnal moth species, Sargent has found that the plants eaten by the larvae may induce or repress the expression of such ‘melanism’ in adult moths (see Sargent T.R. et al. in M.K. Hecht et al, Evolutionary Biology 30:299–322, Plenum Press, New York, 1998).
- Weiland, C. (December, 2002) Goodbye, peppered moths-A classic evolutionary story comes unstuck; first published Creation 21(3):56; June 1999
- Jonathan Wells, Ph.D (1999) Second Thoughts about Peppered Moths-This classical story of evolution by natural selection needs revising
- Berry RJ. 1990. Industrial melanism and peppered moths (Biston betularia (L.). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 39: 301-322.
- Bishop JA. 1972. An experimental study of the cline of industrial melanism in Biston betularia (L.) (Lepidoptera) between urban Liverpool and rural North Wales. Journal of Animal Ecology 41: 209-243.
- Bishop JA, Cook LM. 1975. Moths, melanism and clean air. Scientific American 232(1): 90-99.
- Bishop JA, Cook LM. 1980. Industrial melanism and the urban environment. Advances in Ecological Research 11: 373-404.
- Brakefield PM. 1985. Polymorphic Muellerian mimicry and interactions with thermal melanism in ladybirds and a soldier beetle: a hypothesis. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26: 243-267.
- Brakefield PM. 1990. A decline of melanism in the peppered moth Biston betularia in The Netherlands. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 39: 327-334.
- Clarke CA, Sheppard PM. 1966. A local survey of the distribution of industrial melanic forms in the moth Biston betularia and estimates of the selective values of these in an industrial environment. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 165: 424-439.
- Clarke CA, Mani GS, Wynne G. 1985. Evolution in reverse: clean air and the peppered moth. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26: 189- 199.
- Cook LM, Mani GS, Varley ME. 1986. Postindustrial melanism in the peppered moth. Science 231: 611-613.
- Creed ER. 1966. Geographic variation in the two-spot ladybird in England and Wales. Heredity 21: 57-72.
- Creed ER, Lees DR, Bulmer MG. 1980. Pre-adult viability differences of melanic Biston betularia (L.) (Lepidoptera). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 13: 251-262.
- Ford EB. 1937. Problems of heredity in the Lepidoptera. Biological Reviews 12: 461-503.
- Ford EB. 1975. Ecological Genetics. 4th ed. London: Chapman and Hall.
- Grant BS, Howlett RJ. 1988. Background selection by the peppered moth (Biston betularia Linn.): individual differences. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 33: 217-232.
- Grant BS, Owen DF, Clarke CA. 1995. Decline of melanic moths. Nature 373: 565.
- Grant BS, Owen DF, Clarke CA. 1996. Parallel rise and fall of melanic peppered moths in America and Britain. Journal of Heredity 87: 351- 357.
- Grant BS, Cook AD, Clarke CA, Owen DF. 1998. Geographic and temporal variation in the incidence of melanism in peppered moth populations in America and Britain. Journal of Heredity 89: 465-471.
- Harrison JWH. 1920. Genetical studies in the moths of the geometrid genus Oporabia (Oporinia) with a special consideration of melanism in the Lepidoptera. Journal of Genetics 9: 195-280.
- Howlett RJ, Majerus MEN. 1987. The understanding of industrial melanism in the peppered moth (Biston betularia) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 30: 31-44.
- Jones JS. 1982. More to melanism than meets the eye. Nature 300: 109-110.
- Kettlewell HBD. 1955. Selection experiments on industrial melanism in the Lepidoptera. Heredity 9: 323-342.
- Kettlewell HBD. 1956. Further selection experiments on industrial melanism in the Lepidoptera. Heredity 10: 287-301.
- Kettlewell HBD. 1973. The Evolution of Melanism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Lees DR. 1981. Industrial melanism: genetic adaptation of animals to air pollution. Pages 129-176 in Bishop JA, Cook LM, eds. Genetic Consequences of Man-made Change. London: Academic Press.
- Lees DR, Creed ER. 1975. Industrial melanism in Biston betularia: the role of selective predation. Journal of Animal Ecology 44: 67-83.
- Lees DR, Creed ER, Duckett LG. 1973. Atmospheric pollution and industrial melanism. Heredity 30: 227-232.
- Liebert TG, Brakefield PM. 1987. Behavioural studies on the peppered moth Biston betularia and a discussion of the role of pollution and lichens in industrial melanism. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 31: 129- 150.
- Majerus MEN. 1998. Melanism: Evolution in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Mani GS. 1982. A theoretical analysis of the morph frequency variation in the peppered moth over England and Wales. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 17: 259-267.
- Mani GS. 1990. Theoretical models of melanism in Biston betularia — a review. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 39: 355-371.
- Manley TR. 1981. Frequencies of the melanic morph of Biston cognataria (Geometridae) in a low-pollution area of Pennsylvania from 1971 to 1978. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 35: 257-265.
- Mikkola K. 1984. On the selective forces acting in the industrial melanism of Biston and Oligia moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae and Noctuidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 21: 409-421.
- Murray ND, Bishop JA, MacNair MR. 1980. Melanism and predation by birds in the moths Biston betularia and Phigalia pilosauria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 210: 277-283.
- Owen DF. 1962. The evolution of melanism in six species of North American geometrid moths. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 55: 695-703.
- Ridley M. 1996. Evolution. 2nd ed. Cambridge (MA): Blackwell Science.
- Sargent TD. 1974. Melanism in moths of central Massachusetts (Noctuidae, Geometridae). Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 28: 145-152.
- Sargent TD, Millar CD, Lambert DM. 1998. The “classical” explanation of industrial melanism: assessing the evidence. Evolutionary Biology 30: 299-322.
- Sheppard PM. 1975. Natural Selection and Heredity. 4th ed. London: Hutchinson University Library.
- Steward RC. 1977a. Industrial and non-industrial melanism in the peppered moth, Biston betularia (L.). Ecological Entomology 2: 231-243.
- Steward RC. 1977b. Melanism and selective predation in three species of moths. Journal of Animal Ecology 46: 483-496.
- Treat AE. 1979. Biston cognataria (Geometridae): frequency of melanic males in Tyringham, Massachusetts, 1958-1977. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 33: 148-149.
- Tutt JW. 1896. British Moths. London: George Routledge.
- West DA. 1977. Melanism in Biston (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) in the rural central Appalachians. Heredity 39: 75-81.
- Wright S. 1978. Evolution and the Genetics of Populations. Volume 4: Variability Within and Among Natural Populations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
It’s fascinating how you can take a simple fact and distort is so far from home.
And had he used live moths in the photos, what would that have changed?
The photos were purported to show moths on tree trunks. You claim that the photo, which showed moths on tree trunks, is a fraud.
How?
What was fraudulent? There was a moth, there was a tree trunk.
Only your charge is fraudulent.
Here, go to one of the sources. Here’s where Michael Majerus notes your claims are false:
Click to access Swedentalk220807.pdf
When I told you Majerus noted Wells was making it up whole cloth, I wasn’t kidding.
Now you follow Wells. Why?
Admit it Cao, you’ve not bothered to look at one of those sources. Had you done so, you’d know how silly you look.
Cao said:
Coyne?
You’re joking, right? You know Coyne said that Wells version, which you relate above, is false.
You’re not even reading the posts on your own blog.
Cao, just out of curiosity, are you a member of the Unification Church? That would explain your ardent defense of Wells’ scientific and academic errors.
Cao uses some odd citations; most of them deny her case exactly; all the science citations deny her case. A few examples:
1. Kettlewell, H. (1959), ‘Darwin’s missing evidence’ in Evolution and the fossil record, readings from Scientific American, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, p. 23, 1978.
In this article, the case is made that the peppered moths provide a classic example of natural selection. Cao argues otherwise, but offers nothing that contradicts anything in this article.
2. Clarke, C.A. & G.S. Mani & G. Wynne, Evolution in reverse: clean air and the peppered moth, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:189–199, 1985; quote on p. 197.
In this article, Clarke and Mani note that peppered moths provide the classic case of natural selection, and that the proof is in the fact that when the air was cleaned and the tree trunks got lighter, so did the moths — proving that Kettlewell was right about something preying on the moths on the basis of their color, and proving the point Kettlewell made that it still is a classic example of natural selection. This is contrary to Cao’s point.
39. Mani GS. 1982. A theoretical analysis of the morph frequency variation in the peppered moth over England and Wales. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 17: 259-267.
Read the abstract and the first page of the article here, showing that Cao’s conclusions are exactly wrong:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0962-8452%2819990207%29266%3A1416%3C293%3AMMFITP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
Cao lists 54 footnotes, from where she borrowed them she does not say.
But we can be certain of this: Cao has not read one of the publications.
I find it hard to believe that you have nothing better to do on Christmas Day than this? Are you OCD??? Incredible. Do scientific studies, and research mean nothing unless it goes along with “your view point”??? This just looks obsessive and out of control to me.
Yes, that’s precisely the point, Mom. To people like “Ed”, “truth” has another meaning…and “facts” mean nothing.
Dead moths were glued to the tree trunks…placed there for a photo op.
And even some evolutionary scientists have admitted such.
The fact that Ed can’t face it is a sad reminder of how myopic and closed-minded his ideology is, which is why he continues to carry the torch for Rachel Carson long after her book has been debunked and refuted based on REAL SCIENCE.
LOL
Cao, she was talking to you. After all, it’s your “view point” which which the research and researchers disagree.
Dead moths were glued to a tree trunk. Amazingly, that was admitted at the start. They were glued there to take a photo, to show that they contrast with the tree.
And Cao thinks this is fraud somehow. Not sure how — the caption said they were moths glued to a tree trunk to show how the moths contrast with the tree trunk.
Just trying to make the world safe for accuracy on Christmas Day, waiting for the bread pudding to steam . . . sad that there is so much work of that sort to be done on Christmas, eh, HoosierArmyMom?
And notice, of course, that when we cite the REAL research results, Cao has no response.
Actually, doofus, she and I have been communicating through email, and she was definitely talking about YOU.
You are not only blind, it seems you are equally as stupid as you are blind.
Truth — used herein refers to one of Habermas’ validity claims. Operating within the domain of the “external” world of reality, truth herein refers to a basic objectifying attitude of communication from a cognitive level. I am representing facts (as assertions, contesting, descriptions, explanations) in a constantive manner, and present grounds to support the validity claim (Habermas, 1979b, p. 68; Held, 1980, p. 338).
Whereas you, like Karl Marx, reject that definition.
No response to the science, eh?
If accusing me of being like Karl Marx floats your boat, you got a shallow draft vessel there.
Stick with the facts: In science especially, the truth will set you free.
But Michael Majerus, the “critic” Cao cited, the Cambridge mothe researcher, reported in September (link above, the Sweden slides):
And his concluding slide:
Is that why you didn’t respond, Cao? It bugs you when your own sources turn against your views?
Stick to the facts. It’s a lot easier.
(Here’s the link again, in case you missed it — notice that Majerus rebuts each problem you claim with the Kettlewell research, specifically:
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/Research/Majerus/Swedentalk220807.pdf )
Who the hell is this twit, Cao? And what are you doing allowing him to foul your comments section?
this chap is flagging desperate…
Don’t feed the trolls, Cao; that is my recommendation; life is too short than to waste your time on a slimey ligger.
What science? You haven’t shown me any.
And I’m about to cut you off, because you’re doing as CN said; fouling my comments section.
Thanks, for dropping in, CN.
Bathtub boy, honestly, I have a LIFE; I don’t spend every day all day trolling the blogs. Plus, I don’t have time to read your MARXIST TRASH, and I honestly have better things to do than to argue with someone who is beyond reason…intelligence…a sentient thought…
But when leftists behave this way and we tire of them, they declare victory when all they’ve succeeded in doing is acting like malignant tumors that need to be removed. Or flies that got past the screendoor.
Unfortunately for this ligger, “the truth eventually emerges, however determined the mandarins of science and culture are to protect an illusion that supports their authority.”