In addition to Grant's paper I would recommend Matt Young's analysis (refuation) of Hooper's allegation of fraud against Kettlewell at Talk Reason http://www.talkreason.org/articles/moonshine.cfm
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 > > > >
