What is the real deal with the peppered moth?

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Relates

The meaning of survival of the fittest and Social Darwinism are clear.

The meaning of survival/reproduction of the fittest (natural selection favoring beneficial adaptations) in nature is not related to social Darwinism. Why are you conflating these concepts?

@Relates

Then too the basis for this struggle is well documented, a struggle for scarce resources caused because the growth of population tends to outstrip the growth of food resources.

But it’s not just the struggle for scarce food resources that affects populations according to ToE. “Competition” encompasses the struggle against predators (Being faster or harder to spot than the next guy has nothing to do with competing for food) and success in courtship (It’s not just eating and individual survival that matters, it’s successful reproduction.). So it doesn’t matter if dark coloration doesn’t help a moth find food. If it gives a moth an advantage in avoiding predation, or in successfully mating, it is a beneficial adaptation and it’s still an example of natural selection at work.

I wasn’t asking about politics or the meaning of life according to Roger. I was asking about science.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

You’re more than welcome to read the book and show exactly where Wells misunderstands or misuses the technical literature.

He never adds up the megabases of junk DNA (no known function) that have been shown to have function, nor does he calculate the fraction of junk DNA that has been removed from that classification (it’s tiny).

He conflates junk DNA (no known function) with noncoding DNA (does not encode proteins, includes plenty of functional DNA such as promoters, enhancers, etc.)

My point still stands. The number of citations says nothing about the quality of the work or whether those citations support the citer’s conclusion. It’s a common pseudoscientific practice.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

The writers of the popular articles on the peppered moth (I mean the ones who use “evolution” rather than “natural selection” to label what the moth case “proves”) know full well that the lay audience they are trying to persuade of the truth of “evolution” is not thinking of evolution as “any change in the gene pool” but rather as “bacterium to man.”

Hello Eddie,

Would you mind presenting a few of these quotes from popular articles that actually use the term “proves”? I suspect that is a figment of your imagination.

I would hope that none of these writers falsely present evolution as a ladder (bacterium to man) as you do, as I’m very confident that the common ancestor of you and a bacterium would not be classified as a bacterium.

[DennisVenema]

Not that I have time to get into it in detail, but Wells’ book is standard anti-evolution ID fare. It avoids the strongest data - in some cases, most of the relevant data - and is seriously misleading to those who don’t know better. That said I’m not sure it’s worth the time and effort to go point by point on it. A book that claims that humans and chimps are not related but doesn’t deal with the genetics evidence is probably not worth the effort. Your mileage may vary…

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells CRITICAL REVIEWS, LETTERS, AND ESSAYS

Icons of Evolution - J. Wells - Critique of Peppered Moths segments, by working scientists…

Letters to the Pratt (KS) Tribune, from Dr. Jerry Coyne and Dr. Bruce Grant [More available in the Pratt archives]:

Letter from Jerry Coyne: December 06, 2000 Criticism of moth study no challenge to evolution, according to evolutionary biologist:

I have learned that the Pratt school board, apparently responding to creationist pressure, has recently revised its tenth-grade biology curriculum to include material that encourages students to question the theory of evolution. In reading the standards, I see that one of my articles - an article constantly misrepresented by creationists - is included as a supplementary reading used to cast doubt on evolution.

Creationists such as Jonathan Wells claim that my criticism of these experiments casts strong doubt on Darwinism. But this characterization is false. All of us in the peppered moth debate agree that the moth story is a sound example of evolution produced by natural selection. My call for additional research on the moths has been wrongly characterized by creationists as revealing some fatal flaw in the theory of evolution.

[DennisVenema]

And a Merry Christmas to you & yours as well, Eddie.

I was thinking about Icons, not MoJD. I suppose that my critique could apply to both, actually, though I have not read the entirety of MoJD (and it’s been some time since I read Icons). I recall feeling strongly that Icons was misleading at the time I read it.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

"Critique: “Icons of Evolution”

Discovery Institute fellow Jonathan Wells is a major purveyor of misleading, inaccurate, and incorrect statements about evolution. His book Icons of Evolution (2000) is notorious for its distortions and false claims about evolution.

Here are resources to help you understand and respond to the misleading claims made by Wells, especially in Icons."

https://ncse.com/book/export/html/11785

https://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/10-answers-to-jonathan-wellss-10-questions

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/wells-april-2002.html

https://ncse.com/files/pub/creationism/Padian_Gishlick_QRB_2002.pdf

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

[quote=“Christy, post:22, topic:26141”]
The meaning of survival/reproduction of the fittest (natural selection favoring beneficial adaptations) in nature is not related to social Darwinism.
[/quote]

That is not true. First of all, your definition of natural selection as favoring beneficial adaptations is not the standard definition of NS which is survival of the fittest based on the Malthus theory of conflict.

Second, humans are evolved natural creatures, so evolution applies to us just as it applies to others.

Third, Darwin took Malthus’ human population theories as the basis for his understanding of NS and applied them to all other living beings. If they do not apply to humans, what evidence is there that they apply to other living beings.

So it doesn’t matter if dark coloration doesn’t help a moth find food. If it gives a moth an advantage in avoiding predation, or in successfully mating, it is a beneficial adaptation and it’s still an example of natural selection at work.

Maybe we are getting some place here. You take several changes, such as the ability to hunt for food, to hide from predators, to find a good mate, to avoid disease, and put them together as beneficial adaptions. Thus changes that help the organism are beneficial adaptions and are the product of Natural Selection.

I hope that we are agreed upon the fact that Natural Selection selects in new beneficial adaptions and selects out adaptions, which are not beneficial. There are many traits which are neutral, in that they do not affect the overall fitness of the organism. These are selected in.

The primary question which is not properly answered is what makes an adaption beneficial or not. When we use the traditional understanding of evolution to answer this question, we have circular, non-falsifiable thinking. Change is caused by conflict. If the adaption caused the lifeform to win the4 conflict, it is beneficial, if not it is not.

On the other hand ecology and symbiosis says that change is cause by ecological changes which take many forms, but primarily climate change. A beneficial adaption is therefore a change that allows the organism to better adapt or live in its environmental niche. Conflict therefore is not an issue and indeed most adaptions result in the mutual benefits for the organisms involved.

The Peppered Moth story clearly illustrates this. A change in the environment cause the moth to be more vulnerable to predation. A color change fixed this for the effected moths. Another environmental change reversed this process.

Climate change slowly caused the habitat of the dinosaurs to disappear and finally become extinct. An asteroid hit hasted the process that still took many years, not by mass slaughter or suffering beyond that common to life. This opened many new niches for mammals and the bird dinosaurs, which gradually filled them and diversified life on the planet.

There was a big study that confirmed this process which took place a few years ago. Punctuated equilibrium is punctuated by important ecological changes. Ecology guides evolution and explains the changes from relatively simple single cell organisms to the complexity and diversity of today.

This is the science and the science also confirms that life is unified and not random, haphazard, and nasty.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

Roger, it seems to me that you read science through your predetermined philosophy. I just don’t buy that all the details always fit so tidily into your “it’s this,not this” paradigm.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Eddie

Right; since both “species” (if they are species, and not mere varieties) already existed before the Industrial Revolution and its soot, and continue to exist now in our cleaner world, there has been no “speciation” caused by the selection for camouflage.

No, they’re not species, and I don’t think anyone has suggested that they are. But what makes you say that both forms existed prior to the industrial revolution? As far as I know, the genetic evidence suggests positive selection acting on a single new mutation, not selection on standing variation.

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

@Christy

Thank you for your response.

First, everyone views the world based on his or her philosophical world view. I am very aware of this.

Second, You and I as Christians are committed to looking at the world from the Christian point of view, which for me is the Logos, Jesus Christ.

Third, Richard Dawkins, who is the best read and known popularizer of Darwinian evolutionary science has also made his materialist world view quite clear.

Fourth, what I have done in my book, Darwin’s Myth, which is about Natural Selection, is to see how Darwinian NS works in the Selfish Gene and in Dawkins’ monistic world view and to compare this with the relational world view of ecology, which I find much more compatible with the Logos.

Fifth, I have tried through my writing and my research and my discussions on the internet and off to keep a mind open to alternatives, but have found none acceptable. Your dismissal of many years of thought without basis is not helpful.

Sixth, if you are serious you need to be as thorough as I have been.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

My point was merely that Wells reads the technical literature assiduously and cites it.

You have presented nothing to suggest the former on Wells’s part. All you did was point out the number of citations, then you agreed that what you did is a common pseudoscientific practice.

Who is this Catholic Darwinist to whom you refer in your deflection?

[beaglelady]

@benkirk

Who is this Catholic Darwinist to whom you refer in your deflection?

I believe he means “Unapologetic Catholic” who was active here back when Eddie was posting as “Rich.” Rich posted often about internal whale testicles, seeing them as a sign of intelligent design. But cryptorchidism is common among terrestrial mammals, including humans.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@beaglelady

Rich posted often about internal whale testicles, seeing them as a sign of intelligent design.

I can’t even.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

I’m not saying that on my own authority. I haven’t studied the case. I’m reporting what I’ve read elsewhere.

That’s not the way you presented it. Where did you read this?[quote=“Eddie, post:35, topic:26141”]
I cannot think of a source where it is claimed that the dark variety only came into existence for the first time during the Industrial Revolution.[/quote]
And I cannot think of a source in which the opposite was claimed. What is the source for your claim?

There is one important fact we do know, and that is the ratio of new mutations to existing polymorphisms.

[quote]If I’m wrong about this, I’ll gladly accept correction.
[/quote]So you throw out hearsay without a source and demand that others show that you are wrong?

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Eddie

I’m not saying that on my own authority. I haven’t studied the case. I’m reporting what I’ve read elsewhere. I cannot think of a source where it is claimed that the dark variety only came into existence for the first time during the Industrial Revolution. If I’m wrong about this, I’ll gladly accept correction. It makes no difference to my argument, since my argument isn’t against natural selection in such cases. But it’s of course a question for natural historians, not geneticists. If we have contemporary reports of both varieties existing before the Industrial Revolution from competent observers of moths, then that would settle the question. That the variation is the result of a mutation could of course be entirely true, but we are here discussing the timing. That’s a matter for observational biology, not genetic theory

That’s just about perfectly backwards. If you happen to be dealing with a well-studied species, observational history may be able to tell whether a phenotype was common, but if it was uncommon, it can’t tell you whether any occurrences were the result of recurrent mutations which were then lost to purifying selection, or persistent variants that happened to be at low frequency. DNA, on the other hand, preserves the actual history of the variant(s) that increased in frequency, and can tell you whether selection was acting on a recent mutation or old, standing variation.

In the case of peppered moths, the first dark form was reportedly observed in 1848. The genetic evidence is that the dark phenotype was almost entirely the result of a single recent mutation. The evidence I was thinking of was that described here, but I see that another paper on the subject came out this year (well summarized here). The latter places the most likely time of the causal mutation in the early 19th century, although with substantial uncertainty.