The Deceitful Jonathan Wells

Peppered moths.

Peppered moths are a classic evolutionary example of how a previously unknown trait can appear in a population and then come to dominate it due to a particular environmental change. That, of course, has also made them a major target for creationists, such as Discovery Institute fellow Dr. Jonathan Wells. He has spent much of his career trying to discredit the example, most famously by trying to claim that a posed example picture used in introductory textbooks somehow invalidated the detailed statistical results they were used to illustrate. Today, Mike Dunford does a fantastic job explaining exactly how Wells is still grossly misrepresenting both the original classic study as well as a recent definitive re-testing of the key predation results.

References:

• Majerus, Michael. “The Peppered Moth: The Proof of Darwinian Evolution” [talk delivered at ESEB2007; 11th Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, 20-25 August 2007, Uppsala, Sweden] Text of the talk and Powerpoint presentation (PDF)
• Majerus, Michael.  (2009)  “Industrial melanism in the peppered moth, Biston betularia: an excellent teaching example of Darwinian evolution in action” Evolution: Education and Outreach 2(1):63-74 doi:10.1007/s12052-008-0107-y