Elizabeth and others, One of the criticisms that I have heard is that more-or-less simultaneous changes in color morph frequency occurred in North America, presumably before industrialization and the concomitant increase in air pollution. Does anyone know anything about the validity of this claim? This criticism relates more to the generality of the conclusions of Kettlewell's experiments, and not so much to his methods.
Also, there have been other well-designed selection studies involving other taxa, which have come to similar conclusions as Kettlewell's. As far as I know, they have not received similar criticism. Antonovics' studies of mine spoil plants come to mind, to give one example. Steve Brewer At 11:23 AM -0400 9/1/06, Elizabeth Hane wrote: >The story is even more complex than that, I think, in that some of the = >criticisms of Kettlewell's original experiments are legitimate. No = >reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, and more = >recent, more robust experiments have upheld Kettlewell's findings, = >thought his methods were flawed. >=20 >I use this story as an example of how science is done in my ecology = >class. Someone publishes something, people accept it, but years later, = >problems are discovered, and people repeat experiments to fine-tune the = >knowledge. It doesn't mean the original science was necessarily wrong, = >but that our methods have improved and there are better ways of testing = >the hypothesis. I think teaching students how to evaluate whether a = >website is credible can also be an important lesson. Far better if they = >can learn to debunk these websites on their own that for us to tell them = >it's wrong. >=20 >I highly recommend Bruce S. Grant's paper, "Fine Tuning the Peppered = >Moth Paradigm" as a teaching tool and discussion of this problem. >=20 >Grant, Bruce S. 1999. Fine Tuning the Peppered Moth Paradigm. = >Evolution 53 (3) 980-984. > >________________________________ > >From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of = >Leslie Mertz >Sent: Fri 9/1/2006 9:07 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Google and peppered moths > > > >Something is wrong here. When I typed "peppered moths" into Google,=20 >up popped a listing of pages claiming to expose the famed study as=20 >faulty science. Anyone with an understanding of natural selection and=20 >evolution can quickly see through the pages' creationist=20 >underpinnings and find the myriad mistakes in their claims. To the=20 >many people who are still forming opinions about the topics, however,=20 >the sheer number of these web pages -- even though they are mainly=20 >repeats of the same purposely erroneous information -- may lead them=20 >to the wrong conclusion. This includes college students, who will=20 >"google" just about anything and everything. Perhaps we need to use=20 >the same tactics to ensure that the scientifically accurate story is=20 >told. > >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >Leslie Mertz, Ph.D. >educator >Wayne State University -- Department of Biology PO Box 1848 University of Mississippi University, Mississippi 38677-1848 Brewer web page - http://home.olemiss.edu/~jbrewer/ FAX - 662-915-5144 Phone - 662-915-1077
