Peppered moths, a true history
Richard S. Norman
Of Moths and Men. An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story
Judith Hooper
WW Norton, New York.
It is reviewed in today's (Sunday, Aug. 25, 2002) NY Times at
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/25/books/review/25RAEBURN.html
You might have to register to access this, but registration is free.
(I don't make copies of copyrighted material.)
The book is not just a story about the moths and what they show (or
fail to show) about evolution but rather about the people behind the
moths. The review concludes -- " 'At its core lay flawed science,
dubious methodology and wishful thinking,' Hooper writes. 'Clustered
around the peppered moth is a swarm of human ambitions, and
self-delusions shared among some of the most renowned evolutionary
biologists of our era.' "
It is an important story about the difference between the content of
science and the practice of science. Science is done by people who
have the same ambitions, the same troubles, the same flaws as everyone
else. Still, the content of science rises above the petty errors of
individual scientists. Science is self-correcting; errors will out.
That indivuduals scientists may be flawed does not demonstrate that
evolution, itself is flawed.
SOGGYNETNUT
Your link wont conect me .
There has been a lot written on this subject lately.
sds
"SOGGYNETNUT" <soggy...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:20020825151518...@mb-mo.news.cs.com...
> I'm scratching my head wondering is this a creationist book .
>
> Your link wont conect me .
> There has been a lot written on this subject lately.
>
Why not get (or borrow) the book, read and scrutinize it, then make a call
on whether or not it's nonsense before you categorize the author?
That's what I'm planning to do. I admit that I did inquire about this
author first (I'm ignorant - I've never heard of her before), but nobody
offered anything much to go on, so I'm going to try to take my own advice
and pass my personal judgment on the book before I learn more about the
author's history.
I think it will be an interesting exercise in objectivity.
KCdgw
researcher Bruce Grant's review:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol297/issue5583/#books
Science 297, 940-941 (2002)
EVOLUTION:
Sour Grapes of Wrath
A review by Bruce S. Grant
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of Moths and Men: Intrigue, Tragedy and the Peppered Moth
Judith Hooper
Fourth Estate, London, 2002. 397 pp. £15.99. ISBN 1-84115-392-3.
Of Moths and Men The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth
Norton, New York, 2002. 397 pp. $26.95, C$38.99. ISBN 0-393-05121-8.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Twain once quipped that reports of his death had been exaggerated.
Recent reports exaggerate the death of industrial melanism as an exemplar of
natural selection. The latest is Judith Hooper's Of Moths and Men, which
promises "the untold story of science and the peppered moth." What it
delivers is a quasi-scientific assessment of the evidence for natural
selection in the peppered moth (Biston betularia), much of which is cast in
doubt by the author's relentless suspicion of fraud. This is unfortunate.
Hooper is a gifted writer. In places, her prose is quite enjoyable, even
brilliant. But, sadly, the book is marred by numerous factual errors and by
misrepresentations of concepts and controversies.
The fundamental problem is Hooper's failure to clearly distinguish the
evidence for natural selection and the mechanism of selection. A dead body
with a knife in its back is evidence that a murder has been committed. An
inability to establish beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the leading
suspect does not mean that the murder did not occur.
Population geneticists define evolution as a change in allele (gene)
frequency. Adult peppered moths come in a range of shades from mottled gray
(pale) to jet black (melanic). We know from extensive genetic analysis that
these phenotypes result from combinations of multiple alleles at a single
locus. Changes in the percentages of the phenotypes in wild populations are
well documented. The changes continue and are observable even now. The
steady trajectory and speed of changes in allele frequencies indicate that
this evolution results primarily from natural selection. J. B. S. Haldane's
original calculation of a selection coefficient was estimated from the
number of generations it took for the melanic phenotype to effectively
replace the pale phenotype during the 19th century. More detailed records
document recent changes. For example, near Liverpool, England, the melanic
phenotype declined from 93 to 18% in 37 generations (one generation per
year); this change is consistent with a 15% selective disadvantage to
genotypes with the dominant (melanic) allele.
We have amassed enormous records of changes in allele frequency in peppered
moth populations that cannot be explained in the absence of natural
selection. But what is the mechanism of selection? Even the answer "we have
no clue" would not invalidate the conclusion that selection has occurred.
Fortunately, the circumstances have left clues.
Geographic and temporal variations in the incidence of melanism correlate
with atmospheric levels of SO2 and suspended particles. (The correlations
are not perfect; gene flow by migration spreads alleles, even into
populations where they are deleterious.) Light reflectance from tree bark
declines as suspended particles increase. Across a range of backgrounds, the
pale and melanic phenotypes are differently conspicuous to the human eye. As
early as 1896, J. W. Tutt suspected that birds were selectively eating
conspicuous phenotypes in habitats variously modified by industrial fallout;
H. B. D. Kettlewell first tested Tutt's idea in the 1950s.
It is on Kettlewell and his experiments that Hooper focuses her attention.
In a biography more akin to character assassination than to objective
disclosure, she portrays Kettlewell as an insecure misfit so driven to
please his "boss," E. B. Ford, that he is suspected (by Hooper) of fudging
his data. She bases her case on experimental design changes that Kettlewell
himself described in his papers and on a sudden increase in the recapture
rate of marked moths released in polluted woodlands. Several obvious things
that Hooper left unexamined affect the size of moth catches, and her case is
unconvincing. In addition, she presents it as if the very evidence for
natural selection in peppered moths depends on the validity of Kettlewell's
experiments. But even the evidence for bird predation does not depend on
them.
Fortunately, science assesses the correctness of work by testing its
repeatability. Kettlewell's conclusions have been considered in eight
separate field studies, of various designs, performed between 1966 and 1987.
Some of the design changes--such as reducing the density of moths, randomly
assigning moths to trees, altering locations on trees where moths were
positioned, and positioning killed moths to control for differences in
viability and dispersal--were made to correct deficiencies identified in his
original experiments. L. M. Cook's regression analysis of fitness estimates
from these experiments plotted against phenotype frequencies at their
various locations shows the studies to be remarkably consistent (1).
Other mechanisms of selection have been proposed. An inherent physiological
advantage of melanic over pale phenotypes is consistent with the rise and
spread of melanism, but the widespread decline in melanism that followed the
Clean Air Acts obviates that interpretation. Although the possibility
remains that physiological differences might be facultative (changing with
conditions), so far no experimental work supports this idea. To date, only
selective predation by birds is backed by experiment.
Hooper's book turns bizarre when she showcases American biologist T. D.
Sargent as a wounded iconoclast whose career was stultified because
Kettlewell dismissed his work. She argues that Sargent is now under attack
because he questions the "classical explanation" for industrial melanism.
Hooper garbles the controversy regarding background selection by moths, and
she entertains Sargent's protracted speculation about phenotypic induction.
(He has offered no evidence that melanism is an induced character in adult
peppered moths.) But most egregious is Sargent's assertion that studies in
North America falsify the classical explanation. The history of melanism in
American peppered moths--which are conspecific with Kettlewell's moths, not
a separate species as Hooper indicates--closely parallels what has occurred
in Britain, and melanism is correlated in like manner with levels of
atmospheric pollution (2). The American studies corroborate rather than
contradict the classical explanation.
The case for natural selection in the evolution of melanism in peppered
moths is actually much stronger today than it was during Kettlewell's time.
Textbook accounts should be expanded to reflect this newer information, and
they should not cite Of Moths and Men as a credible resource.
References
1. L. M. Cook, Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 69, 431 (2000).
2. B. S. Grant, L. L. Wiseman, J. Hered. 93, 86 (2002).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author is in the Department of Biology, College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA. E-mail: Geom...@aol.com
Cheers,
KC
Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it - Confucius.
Richard S. Norman
I indicated you may have to register, first, to access the site.
According to the review, the book is most definitely NOT a creationist
or debunker type of work. Rather it is a "history of science" type of
work for a non-technical audience about the people and events
surrounding, especially, Ford and Kettlewell and their research into
the peppered moth. As the review says "Hooper's aptly title book (Of
Moths and Men) is about the men as much as about the moths. .. Hooper
shows us their failings, but with gentleness and respect, creating a
moving and compassionate portrait of Ford, Kettlewell and the others
in this decades-long drama."
Charlie Wagner
Richard S. Norman wrote:
I would have stated that last sentence differently. That individual
scientists may be flawed does not demonstrate that *science* itself is
flawed.
Darwinism, on the other hand, is a fatally flawed theory that has
been promoted by ambitious people who knew from the start that it was
nothing more than a good story. Dubious methodology, wishful thinking
and deliberate obfuscation combined with the self-delusion and fear of
disapproval by the main body of scientists have combined to create one
of the greatest scientific hoaxes of the past two centuries. Anyone who
believes in science and has any respect for the scientific method should
do everything in their poweer to put an end to this embarrassing sham.
Regards, Charlie Wagner
http://www.charliewagner.com
>
>
>
>
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 18:29:49 +0000 (UTC), "Richard S. Norman"
<rno...@umich.edu> wrote:
>There is a new book on the story of the peppered moth:
>
> Of Moths and Men. An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story
> Judith Hooper
> WW Norton, New York.
>
>It is reviewed in today's (Sunday, Aug. 25, 2002) NY Times at
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/25/books/review/25RAEBURN.html
>
>You might have to register to access this, but registration is free.
>(I don't make copies of copyrighted material.)
>
>The book is not just a story about the moths and what they show (or
>fail to show) about evolution but rather about the people behind the
>moths. The review concludes -- " 'At its core lay flawed science,
>dubious methodology and wishful thinking,' Hooper writes. 'Clustered
>around the peppered moth is a swarm of human ambitions, and
>self-delusions shared among some of the most renowned evolutionary
>biologists of our era.' "
Sadly, the book is wrong on almost all major points of the peppered
moth story, although it provides a fascinating picture of the
personalities involved. It repeats the "moths don't rest on tree
trunks" nonsense, even though it has been shown they do, and
Kettlewell put his moths on trunks AND branches. Worse, the author
concocts a tale of fraud due to her basic innumeracy (and a letter
that mysteriously influences moth counts before it arrives). This
entire book is meant to be a vindication of Theodore Seargent, a moth
researcher with rather singular views, and is somewhat less than
critical of his claims, and somewhat dismissive of the major peppered
moth researchers.
Not a good book overall.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis and Michael James Musgrave
reyn...@werple.mira.net.au http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
Charlie Wagner
KCdgw wrote:
This whole business about the "peppered moth" is nothing but a red herring.
No one that I know argues that natural selection does not occur. I saw it myself
with my own eyes in college when you put one red-eyed fruit fly in a
population of white-eyed flies. This is not the central issue. These are
real effects, although they are trivial. What darwinian evolutionists
have failed to demonstrate is a nexus between these observed changes in
allele frequency and the appearance of new processes, structures and
adaptations. This is where the failure of darwinism lies, not in the
pepper moth issue. There is nothing to bridge the gaps between the
trivial allelic frequency changes (that are oscillatory) and the
appearance on new major adaptations, structures, processes and organisms
but wishful thinking and a giant "leap of faith".
wf...@ptdnospam.com
<cewa...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Darwinism, on the other hand, is a fatally flawed theory that has
>been promoted by ambitious people who knew from the start that it was
>nothing more than a good story.
charlie adds to his UFO fetish with a mel gibson like 'paranoia' view
of the world's scientists. funny that charlie's wisdom seems lost on
everyone but him.
--------------------
To find out who 'wf3h' is, go to 'qrz.com'
and enter 'wf3h' in the field.
my email is wf...@ptd.net
wf...@ptdnospam.com
<cewa...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>
This is where the failure of darwinism lies, not in the
>pepper moth issue. There is nothing to bridge the gaps between the
>trivial allelic frequency changes (that are oscillatory) and the
>appearance on new major adaptations, structures, processes and organisms
>but wishful thinking and a giant "leap of faith".
>
>Regards, Charlie Wagner
>http://www.charliewagner.com
>
>
>
of course, charlie's kinda forgotten that speciation has been
observed. oh well, his UFO fetish is going full bore...and he's the
bore to do it.
Mike Dunford
news:akbc0t$1u$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net:
[snip]
> Why not get (or borrow) the book, read and scrutinize it, then
> make a call on whether or not it's nonsense before you
> categorize the author?
>
> That's what I'm planning to do. I admit that I did inquire
> about this author first (I'm ignorant - I've never heard of her
> before), but nobody offered anything much to go on, so I'm going
> to try to take my own advice and pass my personal judgment on
> the book before I learn more about the author's history.
>
> I think it will be an interesting exercise in objectivity.
With a book like this, which discusses a fairly complex scientific
topic, you might want to read more material than just the book
itself. A book might be well-written, and sound very convincing, but
its arguments may rest on an incorrect premise, an incomplete survey
of the scientific information, or some other type of poor data. If
you are not very familiar with the background, it can be hard to
figure out just how accurate such a book might be.
--Mike Dunford
--
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to
consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the
family anatidae on our hands.
--Douglas Adams
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 21:53:09 +0000 (UTC), Charlie Wagner
<cewa...@optonline.net> wrote:
[snip Grant's less than flattering review of "Of Moths and Men]
> This whole business about the "peppered moth" is nothing but a red herring.
>
>No one that I know argues that natural selection does not occur. I saw it myself
>with my own eyes in college when you put one red-eyed fruit fly in a
>population of white-eyed flies. This is not the central issue. These are
>real effects, although they are trivial. What darwinian evolutionists
>have failed to demonstrate is a nexus between these observed changes in
>allele frequency and the appearance of new processes, structures and
>adaptations. This is where the failure of darwinism lies, not in the
>pepper moth issue. There is nothing to bridge the gaps between the
>trivial allelic frequency changes (that are oscillatory) and the
>appearance on new major adaptations, structures, processes and organisms
>but wishful thinking and a giant "leap of faith".
On the contrary, we have given you a whole range of fundamental new
processes and adaptions, from thermal resistance in bacteriophages to
nylon hydrolysis to PCP degradation to development of regulated
operons and you have waved them aside.
zosdad
> There is a new book on the story of the peppered moth:
>
> Of Moths and Men. An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story
> Judith Hooper
> WW Norton, New York.
>
> It is reviewed in today's (Sunday, Aug. 25, 2002) NY Times at
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/25/books/review/25RAEBURN.html
I am quoting the review below for the sake of posterity.
Unfortunatley, the author "Paul Raeburn, a senior writer at Business
Week, is president of the National Association of Science Writers",
needs to take a lesson from the report on the book in the science
section of the NYT a month or two ago, online here:
Nicholas Wade
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/science/life/18MOTH.html
...which was the only press review of Hooper's book that has had
anything approaching an informed assessment of the scientific
conclusions made by Hooper -- probably because Wade actually bothered
to get up off his tush and call Bruce Grant and Michael Majerus, two
of the scientists who, unlike Sargent (Hooper's tragic hero) have
actually done field research on the evolution of melanism in peppered
moths.
The two reviews by scientists that I've read have both pretty much
panned Hooper's science. Bruce Grant's review last week in Science
has just been quoted by KC and speaks for itself. And Jerry Coyne's
review in Nature (search google, it was quoted on t.o. I think) a
month or two ago gave it thumbs-down also -- *even though* it was
Jerry Coyne's 1998 review of Michael Majerus' book _Industrial
Melanism_ (a severely flawed review IMO, but I digress -- see the
Wells FAQ) that pretty much opened the season on Kettlewell and the
traditional peppered moth thesis of bird predation. Hooper quotes
Coyne as the top of the crescendo proclaiming the downfall for the
bird predation theory in her book.
The next review to watch out for is that of Michael Majerus (somebody
post it if they come across it, I have no idea what journal it will be
in, but I'm sure he's going to write one). I am quite sure that his
opinion will be very similar to Bruce Grant's (search the google
archives for quotes of Majerus' 2002 book Moths where he expresses
mystification at the press feeding frenzy on the alleged downfall of
the peppered moths, and defends the bird predation theory in no
uncertain terms).
The whole sordid affair of the assassination of the peppered moth
deserves quite a long FAQ (it's in progress, email me if you want to
see it) and probably a review article in a journal (can anyone suggest
one? I'm serious; perhaps, "The Journal of Science Journalism" if
there were such a thing), tracing how Majerus' 1998 book Industrial
Melanism -- which updated but endorsed the traditional bird predation
theory -- somehow touched off an avalanche of "the peppered moth is
falling" hysteria through a bizarre combination of Sargent's
campaigning, Coyne's short but vivid review of Majerus, an uncritical
science press, and lots of creationists like Wells throwing wood on
the fire. Hooper's book is just the latest event; she evidently has a
*fictional* book coming out in 2003 entitled "The Moth Conspiracy"; I
expect that the fraud allegations that are implied on the flimsiest of
grounds in Of Moths and Men will be given full voice in that work.
Some extraordinarily long google links:
Comments on Majerus' (2002) book "Moths":
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=peppered+moths+group:talk.origins&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=74227462.0206212048.47780960%40posting.google.com&rnum=13
...or...
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=74227462.0205170429.35e506c6%40posting.google.com&output=gplain
Article below. Irate comments that I couldn't contain in brackets.
=======
'Of Moths and Men': The Moth That Failed
By PAUL RAEBURN
It was the story that was supposed to prove Darwin right. It began in
England, during the Industrial Revolution, when foul black smoke began
to pour from factory chimneys. The air grew so thick with soot and
grime that mothers, it was said, ''could barely make out the outlines
of their children across the street.'' Acid rain soaked nearby
woodlands, stripping tree trunks of their speckled lichens, leaving
them bare and nearly black.
At the same time, British lepidopterists, mostly a pack of woodsy
amateurs, noticed a change in the peppered moth. The typical speckled
variety was quickly being replaced by an unusual black form,
especially in the polluted industrial Midlands. As the forests
darkened under the grimy skies, the moths grew darker. The typical
peppered moths -- which had been nearly invisible on the trunks of
unpolluted, lichen-covered trees -- were now becoming easy for hungry
birds to spot on stripped, dark tree trunks. Perhaps the darker moths,
less visible in polluted forests, were an adaptation, evidence of
natural selection at work. Ever since Darwin, biologists had been
looking for an example of evolution in action. Now they thought they
had it.
The idea that natural selection might explain the rise of the dark
moths was suggested in the late 19th century. But it wasn't tested
until 1953, when E. B. Ford, an Oxford biologist, recruited an amateur
lepidopterist, H. B. D. Kettlewell, to get out into the field and find
out what was happening. Kettlewell, a doctor, and a moth collector
since he was a boy, jumped at the opportunity to abandon his medical
practice and pursue his hobby full time.
He lugged mercury-vapor lamps and moth traps into the English
countryside, where he released thousands of moths and monitored their
survival. The experiments were difficult, but within two years
Kettlewell had the evidence Ford was looking for. In industrial areas,
birds gobbled up the typical peppered moths, leaving the dark moths
behind to reproduce. That explained why the population of dark moths
was increasing. And the opposite happened in undisturbed forests --
the dark moths were eaten, and the typicals survived.
''It is the slam-dunk of natural selection,'' Judith Hooper writes in
''Of Moths and Men.'' The experiments made their way into all the
evolution textbooks, many of which reproduced a now famous pair of
seemingly indisputable black-and-white photographs. In one, a dark
moth is strikingly obvious on a lichen-covered tree trunk, while an
arrow points to a nearly invisible speckled moth nearby. In the other,
the speckled moth stands like a beacon on a dark, stripped trunk, and
the dark moth is neatly concealed.
There it was: natural selection in action. Darwin was right. End of
story. Sadly, as Hooper shows, that wasn't the end of the story. In
recent years it has become clear that the evidence on which the story
hangs is as flimsy as a butterfly's wing. Kettlewell's experiments
proved nothing. The most famous example of evolution in action must
now become the most infamous.
Kettlewell went into the woods knowing the results he wanted, and he
didn't quit until he got them. The experiment was done under highly
artificial conditions.
['course, experiments are by their very nature highly artificial]
Laboratory-bred moths were put on trees in unnatural positions, at the
wrong time of day. Kettlewell himself decided which moths were safely
concealed from birds and which were not. He was so adept in the field
that even his critics might say he could think like a moth. But nobody
believed he could see like a bird.
[It's not even clear what experiments Raeburn is talking about here,
but then Hooper makes it confusing too. It's true that birds see in
the UV, but it's also true that most of their visual spectrum overlaps
ours. One of Kettlewell's experiments showed that, in general, birds
pick first the moths that humans also judge most conspicuous. So K.
wasn't just assuming similarity in perception. Recent work by Majerus
with UV cameras has confirmed that moths are better camoflagued in the
UV on crustose lichens, which are most common under branches, which is
where most most commonly (but not always) rest, which makes sense if
peppered moths *are hiding from friggin' birds*!!]
''We don't allow experiments like this any more,'' says Ted Sargent,
an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and Kettlewell's severest critic.
[Armchair critic. He is having a field day, though.]
Sargent doesn't suggest that Kettlewell lied or cheated.
[Hooper does, though. Unfortunately she didn't try using the advanced
statistical technique of linear regression to test her fraud
hypothesis.]
In Kettlewell's desperation to succeed, and to please Ford, he might
simply have seen what he wanted to see. ''There are subtle ways to
seduce yourself,'' Sargent says. Hooper's aptly titled book is about
the men as much as about the moths. The characters in this tragic tale
were among Britain's most brilliant scientists. But that brilliance
was undermined by cold ambition that led them to turn on one another
and perhaps even tamper with results of experiments. Hooper shows us
their failings, but with gentleness and respect, creating a moving and
compassionate portrait of Ford, Kettlewell and the others in this
decades-long drama.
['Course, it's only a tragedy if you assume they were wrong. If they
were right, then Hooper's book and surrounding hoopla (sorry) is the
tragedy]
The most sympathetic figure here is Kettlewell. Ford brought him to
Oxford because he was the best field lepidopterist Ford knew. Ford was
on a mission, to demonstrate the importance of natural selection in
Darwin's theory. But Kettlewell was never accepted at Oxford. He did
not have the requisite academic degrees, nor could he compete in the
often cruel intellectual jousting common in college dining halls. ''He
was the best naturalist I have ever met, and almost the worst
professional scientist I have ever known,'' said one colleague.
[in an article, by RJ Berry 1990, in Biol. J. Linn. Soc., that also
(1) bashes the critics (Lambert, Millar & Hughes, 1986 -- Lambert and
Millar were coauthors in Sargent's 1998 review BTW) and (2) confirms
that multiple experiments by different researchers have confirmed
Kettlewell's results, and that mathematical modelling of the
geographic distribution, based on Kettlewell's theory, has also been
largely successful]
Kettlewell's personal life crumbled as he struggled to meet the
increasing demands placed upon him by Ford, whose reputation owed much
to his analysis of Kettlewell's experiments. Ford used him up.
Kettlewell, a hypochondriac, increasingly began to suffer from real
diseases: recurring bouts of bronchitis, pneumonia, pleurisy and flu,
along with heart problems. In 1978, he fell out of a birch tree on a
collecting expedition, breaking his back. He never recovered. More
than anything, Kettlewell wanted to be accepted as a fellow of the
Royal Society. Ford nominated him three times, but did so in a way
that made sure Kettlewell would not be accepted.
Kettlewell died on May 11, 1979. The Dictionary of Scientific
Biography says he ''apparently'' overdosed on a painkiller. But
Kettlewell's colleagues knew his death was no accident, Hooper says.
Many obituaries expressed enormous affection; ''everyone loved him,''
one said. Everyone except Ford, that is. Told that Kettlewell had
committed suicide, Ford called him a coward.
The story of the peppered moth, as Hooper shows, is not what it
seemed. Nor is it settled. The dark moths have now nearly disappeared,
but the debate continues. ''At its core lay flawed science, dubious
methodology and wishful thinking,'' Hooper writes. ''Clustered around
the peppered moth is a swam of human ambitions, and self-delusions
shared among some of the most renowned evolutionary biologists of our
era.''
Paul Raeburn, a senior writer at Business Week, is president of the
National Association of Science Writers.
=======
Sigh. My opinion of science writers has taken quite a few hits since
I started looking into this peppered moth issue...
nic
Jason Burnett
> I mean, what wrong with Darwins theory?
In a nutshell, it's an affront to the Christian god. Other than that, there's
nothing wrong with it that's not wrong with any valid scientific theory.
--
Jason
Jim Upchurch
> Chris Street
> > I mean, what wrong with Darwins theory?
> In a nutshell, it's an affront to the Christian god. Other than that, there's
> nothing wrong with it that's not wrong with any valid scientific theory.
> Jason
Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the theory
after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the problem.
"....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation and every
stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps
is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory".
CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.
jim
Adam Marczyk
news:umkkq1j...@corp.supernews.com...
Uh, you are aware that we've found at least a few new fossils since Darwin's
time, right? Personally, I find it pretty funny how you claim we haven't found
any transitional fossils in the past 150 years and bolster your case with a
quote from 150 years ago.
--
a.a. #2001
"Blasphemy is a victimless crime."
Director, EAC Black Monolith Division - "My God, it's full of stars"
Operative: EAC Electronic Warfare Division
EAC Subversive Fiction Division
http://www.ebonmusings.org ICQ: 8777843 PGP Key ID: 0x5C66F737
Mike Dunford
> "Jason Burnett"
[snip]
>> In a nutshell, it's an affront to the Christian god. Other
>> than that, there's nothing wrong with it that's not wrong with
>> any valid scientific theory.
>
>> Jason
>
> Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the
> theory after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the
> problem.
Quoting someone, even Darwin, from the start of the "150 years of
digging" does absolutely nothing to discuss the state of current
knowledge.
> "....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
> do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
> of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation and
> every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly
> does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and
> this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged
> against my theory". CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.
If you must quote Darwin, do so properly. The title of the book is
"On the Origin of Species..." not "Origin of THE Species". You should
also indicate which edition you are quoting from, since later
editions are significantly different from the first edition. Also,
you omitted a word. The original reads "...why THEN is not...".
This quote is so far out of context that it is almost funny. The two
portions of this quote -- the one ending with "...crust of the
earth?" and the one starting with "why is not" -- do not appear
immediately together in the original, as the ellipsis indicates.
While the elipsis does show that some material is omitted between the
two sentences, it does not do justice to the sheer volume of material
spanned in this case.
The two portions of the quote do not appear in the same paragraph of
the original. They do not appear on the same page. They do not even
appear in the same chapter. In fact, the first part of the quote
appears in my copy (1st edition) near the start of Chapter Six, on
page 172, while the second part appears near the start of Chapter
Nine, on page 280. (I must compliment you on your economy -- it would
seem that you have managed to make each individual "." in your
elipsis represent over 25 pages of text.) The omitted pages include
the majority of Chapter 6, where Darwin answered the _rhetorical_
question he opened the section with, and which begins your quote. In
the pages in Chapter 9 which follow the end of your quote, Darwin
goes on to answer the second rhetorical question which you quoted,
and to explain why he did not think that the lack of transitional
problems was necessarily the big problem it might appear to some to
be.
I have taken the time to explain this to you because I am guessing
that you did not know it. This out of context quote, including the
omitted "then", appears on a number of creationist websites. I assume
that you found it on one of those, since the text is an exact match.
You should be aware, if you are not already, that a number of
creationists have a very bad habit of using deceptive quotes to
support their position. (see: http://talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/)
for a far more detailed discussion of creationist misquotes.) It's
probably a good idea not to take quotes like the one you used at face
value unless you have read the original source yourself.
If you want to look at how Darwin answered the questions which you
quoted, the full text of "Origin of Species" is available online at
the Talk.Origins archive. I've included the links to the two chapters
involved in your quote below.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter6.html
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter9.html
--Mike Dunford
--
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of
science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.
--Charles Darwin
Jason Burnett
> Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the theory
> after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the problem.
> "....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
> do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
> of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation and every
> stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
> reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps
> is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory".
> CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.
Until one of you quacks writes a paper that's published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal, you have zero chance of causing the theory of evolution
to fall out of favor. You're automatically arguing at a disadvantage simply
by posting to this group.
And it's funny, I just posted a note in another thread today that's rather
apropos here: It never ceases to amaze me how a creationist can, in good faith,
use a quote from Darwin to support creationism and refute evolution.
I was about to say the lack of honesty in such a tactic is ironic, but given
the history of the religion, it's really not.
--
Jason
Jason Burnett
> It's not an affront to my Christian God.
Noted and amended: It's an affront to the god of Christian fundamentalists.
:)
--
Jason
Noelie S. Alito
news:Xns927652086A...@66.75.162.196...
<cut to the chase...>
> If you must quote Darwin, do so properly. The title of the book is
> "On the Origin of Species..." not "Origin of THE Species".
In many places it is referred to by its later title:
The_Origin_of_Species
as in
<http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/>
> You should
> also indicate which edition you are quoting from, since later
> editions are significantly different from the first edition.
Yeah, that's a pain: For many books, new editions only have
minor changes (correction of errata, additional commentary,
change in print parameters), so there's little reason to keep
track of editions for changes in text. For others, it's like keeping
track of software version numbers.
<snip rest of quote-specific commentary>
Noelie
--
A couple of months of debugging can save you *days* of up-front design.
Jim Upchurch
> Jim Upchurch
> > "Jason Burnett"
> > > Chris Street
> > > > I mean, what wrong with Darwins theory?
> > > In a nutshell, it's an affront to the Christian god. Other than that,
there's nothing wrong with it that's not wrong with any valid scientific theory.
> > Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the theory
> > after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the problem.
> > "....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
> > do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
> > of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation and every
> > stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
> > reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps
> > is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory".
> > CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.
> Uh, you are aware that we've found at least a few new fossils since Darwin's
> time, right? Personally, I find it pretty funny how you claim we haven't found
> any transitional fossils in the past 150 years and bolster your case with a
> quote from 150 years ago.
I find it pretty funny that you believe a quote from Charles Darwin
is out of place in discussing Darwinian theory. If the fossil record
were as you imply there would be no dispute. A mind is a terrible
thing to waste.
jim
sds
"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message
news:umklvst...@corp.supernews.com...
What do you think Darwin meant by that pieced-together and
imperfectly-reproduced "quote"?
Adam Marczyk
> "Adam Marczyk"
>
> > > Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the theory
> > > after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the problem.
> > > "....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
> > > do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
> > > of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation and every
> > > stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
> > > reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps
> > > is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory".
> > > CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES.
>
>
> > Uh, you are aware that we've found at least a few new fossils since Darwin's
> > time, right? Personally, I find it pretty funny how you claim we haven't
found
> > any transitional fossils in the past 150 years and bolster your case with a
> > quote from 150 years ago.
>
>
> I find it pretty funny that you believe a quote from Charles Darwin
> is out of place in discussing Darwinian theory.
As a matter of fact, it is. Charles Darwin lived 150 years ago, and therefore
through no fault of his own lacked our modern understanding in topics directly
relevant to evolution, such as genetics. The theory of evolution has been
updated to incorporate this new knowledge, and has moved on beyond him. While he
is recognized as the originator of the theory, science is not like religion,
where one prophet lays down the law and everyone who comes afterward just
studies and reinterprets what he said - in science, the accepted theories are
constantly being revised and modified, and soon become independent of any one
person, even the person who first proposed them. In sum, quoting Darwin now, as
if anything he said back then still bore on the modern theory of evolution, is
ridiculous. You're a century and a half out of date. And this is especially
relevant in a fast-moving field like paleontology, where new discoveries can
make statements from a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, ten, five - or even
last year - irrelevant. Even if what Darwin said about a lack of transitional
fossils was true when he said it, it's not even close to true now. We have many
excellent transitional series representing just about all the major vertebrate
groups.
> If the fossil record
> were as you imply there would be no dispute.
There *is* no dispute - among scientists. The dispute only exists among those
with preconceived religious biases, who will find a way to ignore even the most
compelling evidence if they feel it conflicts with their theology.
> A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
No kidding.
Eric Gill
I find it very telling that you ignore the meat of that argument.
Have there or have there not been significant finds since that quote was
penned a century and a half ago?
> If the fossil record
> were as you imply there would be no dispute.
Hardly. There is no amount of evidence immune from unreasonable doubt.
Perhaps you would like to take the Transitional Forms Challenge and
demonstrate your familiarity with what you presume to criticize?
> A mind is a terrible
> thing to waste.
Indeed. Cognitive dissonance should be a crime.
John Latter
I use a similar argument when people try and associate Lamarck with
the possibility of an internal evolutionary mechanism:
An Error In Associating Lamarck With 'Adaptive Mutations'?
http://members.aol.com/jorolat/laam.html
"Words frozen in time should be differentiated from those carved in
stone"
--
John Latter
Model of an Internal Evolutionary Mechanism (based on an extension to homeostasis) linking Stationary-Phase Mutations to the Baldwin Effect.
http://members.aol.com/jorolat/TEM.html
'Where Darwin meets Lamarck?' Discussion Egroup
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evomech
Mike Dunford
news:akf253$vjs$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net:
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message
> news:umklvst...@corp.supernews.com...
>> Jim Upchurch <fl...@snip.net> wrote in message
>> news:umkkq1j...@corp.supernews.com...
[snip]
>> > "....innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why
>> > do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the
>> > crust of the earth? ....why is not every geological formation
>> > and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology
>> > assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic
>> > chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can
>> > be urged against my theory". CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF THE
>> > SPECIES.
>>
>> Uh, you are aware that we've found at least a few new fossils
>> since Darwin's time, right? Personally, I find it pretty funny
>> how you claim we haven't found any transitional fossils in the
>> past 150 years and bolster your case with a quote from 150
>> years ago.
>
> What do you think Darwin meant by that pieced-together and
> imperfectly-reproduced "quote"?
In both portion of the "quote", the questions are rhetorical. Darwin
asks a question at the beginning of a section or chapter, then goes
on to answer the question at some length. The two examples siezed
here are hardly the only examples of this in the book. Whoever
cobbled that quote together simply took the questions and left the
answers behind, giving the impression that Darwin both knew that this
was a very serious problem, and that it was one which he did not have
an answer for.
To illustrate this, I am going to continue the first (Ch 6) portion
of the quote just to the end of the paragraph. The material included
in the quote will be in caps.
But, as by this theory INNUMERABLE TRANSITIONAL FORMS
MUST HAVE EXISTED, WHY DO WE NOT FIND THEM EMBEDDED IN
COUNTLESS NUMBERS IN THE CRUST OF THE EARTH? It will
be much more convenient to discuss this question in
the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological
record [chapter 9 -MD]; and I will here only state
that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record
being incomparably less perfect than is generally
supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly
due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths
of the sea, and to their remains being embedded and
preserved to a future age only in masses of sediment
sufficiently thick and extensive to withstand an
enormous amount of future degradation; and such
fossiliferous masses can be accumulated only where much
sediment is deposited on the shallow bed of the sea,
whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies will
concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals.
Whilst the bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or
when very little sediment is being deposited, there will
be blanks in our geological history. The crust of the
earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have
been made only at intervals of time immensely remote.
Origin of Species, 1st ed. p.172-173
Darwin then goes on to provide a number of other, non-geological
reasons for transitional forms to be rare in the remainder of chapter
six. It should be clear just from the material that I included that
Darwin asked that question simply as a rhetorical device, to open the
section where he provided the answer to it -- nothing more.
In fact, Darwin spent essentially an entire chapter addressing each
of the two questions included in the patchwork "quote". He clearly
thought that they were obvious questions, and points worth
discussing. He also clearly thought that neither question was
unanswerable, and that neither was a real difficulty for his theory.
--Mike Dunford
--
You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer
with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's
mind?
--Freeman Dyson
maff
> There is a new book on the story of the peppered moth:
>
> Of Moths and Men. An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story
> Judith Hooper
> WW Norton, New York.
>
> It is reviewed in today's (Sunday, Aug. 25, 2002) NY Times at
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/25/books/review/25RAEBURN.html
>
> (I don't make copies of copyrighted material.)
>
> The book is not just a story about the moths and what they show (or
> fail to show) about evolution but rather about the people behind the
> dubious methodology and wishful thinking,' Hooper writes. 'Clustered
> self-delusions shared among some of the most renowned evolutionary
> biologists of our era.' "
>
> science and the practice of science. Science is done by people who
> have the same ambitions, the same troubles, the same flaws as everyone
> else. Still, the content of science rises above the petty errors of
> individual scientists. Science is self-correcting; errors will out.
> That indivuduals scientists may be flawed does not demonstrate that
> evolution, itself is flawed.
Darwinism in a flutter
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&selm=18510aff.0205110048.398680f2%40posting.google.com
Peppered moths
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3293750913d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=3d0f51eb.1850361%40news-server.optonline.net
and thread
sds
Mike, I couldn't agree with you more about this. The "quote" offered by
Upchurch is an excellent example of deception by this means. All that has to
be pointed out is that Darwin actually isn't asking the question himself -
he's stating what he thinks *someone else* would be likely to ask. (You
called it a "rhetorical question", which is correct, but not specific
enough, IMO. E.g., "Don't you think I know this?" is a rhetorical question,
but one with a different purpose.) To present it as a question in Darwin's
own mind is completely dishonest. Jim Upchurch, did you come up with this
yourself, or did you, as Mike suspects, find this "quote" somewhere? Would
you tell me where? Mike, you said you had some ideas as to where he may have
gotten it - or at least where somebody might get it. Do you remember where
that was?
Jim, I personally agree with you that the fossil record is sorely lacking in
it's "transitional forms". I've pursued this topic here on t.o with no
adequate answers - basically only those that Darwin offered himself (like
the "fossilization is a rare event" sort of answer). The problem with all
this is that Darwin did *not* think this was evidence against his theory -
he was stating his prediction that *others* would consider it to be evidence
against his theories. The quote as presented is obviously intended to
distort this and mislead the unsuspecting reader. I'm sorry to see such a
blatant example of this, and hope its source is not one of the main stream
outlets such as AiG or ICR. Whoever resorts to this sort of tactic
obviously doesn't understand the real significance of the "debate" on
origins, and is simply playing games instead of seeking the truth about it a
ll.
wf...@ptdnospam.com
<fl...@snip.net> wrote:
>"Jason Burnett"
>> Chris Street
>
>> > I mean, what wrong with Darwins theory?
>
>> In a nutshell, it's an affront to the Christian god. Other than that, there's
>> nothing wrong with it that's not wrong with any valid scientific theory.
>
>> Jason
>
>
>Outside of the fact that the fossil record doesn't quite fit the theory
>after 150 years of digging. Don't blame religion for the problem.
>
i guess jim, being a creationist, just ignores the fact that very few
theories are fitted 100% by the data.
that's the beauty of being a creationist. you can pick and choose what
you like about reality, making up what doesnt suite you.
Ferrous Patella
<mdun...@hawaii.rr.com>:
> The title of the book is
> "On the Origin of Species..." not "Origin of THE Species".
Is this the new "fox terrier" for creationists? Dick was using "Origin of
THE Species" and now Jim Upchurch.
At least fox terriers are the right size.
--
Ferrous Patella
"I love the wry motto of the Paleontological Society
(meant both literally and figuratively, for hammers are the main tool
of our trade): Frango ut patefaciam — I break in order to reveal."
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
Mike Dunford
news:akftua$g5t$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net:
[snip]
> Mike, I couldn't agree with you more about this. The "quote"
> offered by Upchurch is an excellent example of deception by this
> means. All that has to be pointed out is that Darwin actually
> isn't asking the question himself - he's stating what he thinks
> *someone else* would be likely to ask. (You called it a
> "rhetorical question", which is correct, but not specific
> enough, IMO. E.g., "Don't you think I know this?" is a
> rhetorical question, but one with a different purpose.) To
> present it as a question in Darwin's own mind is completely
> dishonest. Jim Upchurch, did you come up with this yourself, or
> did you, as Mike suspects, find this "quote" somewhere? Would
> you tell me where? Mike, you said you had some ideas as to where
> he may have gotten it - or at least where somebody might get it.
> Do you remember where that was?
I just took the second part of the question -- the part with the
omitted word -- and googled on the exact phrase. Here's a link that
should give you the same results:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?U27C120A1
> Jim, I personally agree with you that the fossil record is
> sorely lacking in it's "transitional forms".
While that is a common feeling among anti-evolutionists, it is not
shared by most paleontologists.
> I've pursued this
> topic here on t.o with no adequate answers - basically only
> those that Darwin offered himself (like the "fossilization is a
> rare event" sort of answer).
Actually, Darwin was pretty much on the money with that answer. After
working for a paleontologist for a year, I wound up surprised that
the number of known transitionals is as high as it is. You have to be
really, really, really lucky (actually, since death is involved,
unlucky might be a better word) to get fossilized.
[rest snipped]
--Mike Dunford
--
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small,
persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations,
encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who
convincingly disprove established beliefs.
--Carl Sagan