The Hoax of the Peppered Moth

The following is quoted directly from Creation Magazine, June - August, 1999.
Goodbye,
Peppered Moths
A classic evolutionary story comes unstuck.

By Carl Wieland

The 'Textbook story' of England's peppered moths (Biston
betularia) goes like this. The moth comes in light and dark
(melanic) forms. Pollution from the Industrial Revolution
darkened the tree trunks, mostly by killing the light - coloured
covering lichen (plus soot).

The lighter forms, which had been well camouflaged against the
light background, now 'stood out', and so birds more readily ate
them. Therefore, the proportion of dark moths increased
dramatically. Later, as pollution was cleaned up, the light moth
became predominant again.

The shift in moth numbers was carefully documented through
catching them in traps. Release - recapture experiments confirmed
that in polluted forests, more of the dark survived for recapture,
and vice versa. In addition, birds were filmed preferentially
eating the less camouflaged moths off tree trunks. (Italics mine)

The story has generated boundless evolutionary enthusiasm. H.
B. Kettlewell, who performed most of the classic experiments, said
that if Darwin had seen this, 'He would have witnessed the
consummation and confirmation of his life's work.'

Actually, even as it stands, the textbook story demonstrates
nothing more than gene frequencies back and forth, by natural
selection, within one created kind. It offers nothing which, even
given millions of years, could add the sort of complex design
information needed for ameba - to - man evolution.

Even L. Harrison Matthews, a biologist so distinguished he was
asked to write the forward for the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin
of species, said therein that the peppered moth example showed
natural selection, but not 'evolution in action'.

However, it turns out that this classic story is full of holes
anyway. Peppered moths don't even rest on tree trunks during
the day.

British scientist Cyril Clarke investigated the peppered moth for
25 years, and saw only two in their natural habitat by day - no other
researchers have seen any. Kettlewell and others attracted the
moths into traps in the forest either with light, or by releasing
female pheromones - in each case, they only flew in at night. So
where do they spend the day? Clarke writes, 'The latest story is that
they rest on the leaves in the top of trees, but it's not really known
... either way, they're very good at hiding.'

The moths filmed by the birds were laboratory - bred ones placed
onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once
had to warm them up on his car bonnet (hood)

And all those still photos of moths on 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'.

Other studies have shown a very poor correlation between the
lichen covering and the respective moth populations. And 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.

Regrettably, hundreds of millions of students have once more
been indoctrinated with a 'proof' of evolution which is riddled with
error, fraud and half - truths.

All statements are documented and references are furnished in the original
document. Dr. Carl Wieland is editor of Creation Magazine.