Download Evolutionists and the Moth Myth

No. 176 “. . . keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding . . . oppositions of science falsely so called” (I Timothy 6:20).

August 2003 EVOLUTIONISTS AND THE MOTH MYTH by Henry M. Morris* Most creationists and most evolutionists The prolific scientist writer Isaac are well aware by now of the fall of the Asimov once noted that: “One of the ar- evolutionist’s icon, the peppered moth, guments of the creationists is that no one which for many years had adorned the has ever seen the forces of evolution at pages of introductory biology textbooks work. That would seem the most nearly as the prime example of “evolution in irrefutable of their arguments, and yet it, action.” Its removal has also been accom- too, is wrong.” (Asimov’s New Guide to panied by a sad exposure of the world of Science, Basic Books, 1984; as quoted scientific academia as often a world of by Hooper, op. cit., p. 309.) pettiness, inordinate rivalry, and tender Asimov then proceeded to recount the egos, sometimes tempting to near-fraud evidence of the peppered moth “evolv- in the “tweaking” of reported results. ing” into the carbonaria variety of the The story has been told in a wonder- species Biston betularia by a process that fully researched book recently published had been called industrial melanism. This by Judith Hooper entitled, Of Moths and had indeed become the main popular Men (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., “proof” of natural selection, convincing 2002, 377 pp.), She notes in her prologue countless innocent students of the “fact” that “I am not a creationist” (p. xix). She of evolution. The idea was that the “pep- evidently felt she had to provide this as- pered” moth had evolved somehow into surance because, as she said about the the “melanic moth” as a defense against reaction to the developing moth scandal: bird predation during the industrial revo- “Behind the story, like a monster lurking lution in England and the resultant black- under a five-year-old’s bed, is the bogey- ened tree trunks. man of creationism.” The two names most closely associ- Apparently, the creationist revival has ated with the evolutionary myth of the been impacting the evolutionary estab- peppered moth were two renowned Ox- lishment more than its leaders admit pub- ford university biologists, Dr. E. B. Ford licly. In fact, the major impetus behind and Dr. H. B. D. Kettlewell. Judith the drive to document the evolution of the Hooper called Ford the “megalomaniac peppered moth in the first place may well founder of the Oxford School of Ecologi- have been due to the need to show that cal Genetics.” Who “By his own lights evolution by natural selection was actu- . . . had almost single-handedly rescued ally happening now. natural selection from oblivion in the *Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR. a 1920s and 1930s . . .” (Hooper, op. cit., had become an admirer of Ford and p. xvi). Bernard Kettlewell was a medi- Kettlewell, was the keynote speaker, and cal doctor and amateur entomologist who he enthusiastically proclaimed the tri- was recruited by Ford when he recog- umph of Darwinism and death of God. nized Kettlewell’s unusual abilities in the The then recent studies on the peppered field as a student and collector of moths. moth were frequently cited by speakers The black (melanic) moths had first there. Though Kettlewell was not present, turned up in England around 1858 and Ford did present a paper on polymor- soon were multiplying, especially in the phism. industrial areas. It was reasonable to at- Interestingly, Judith Hooper’s com- tribute this rise in melanism to natural ment on this great convocation is as fol- selection. But this was only speculative lows: “Huxley’s atheism and the general until it could actually be proved in the Darwinist pep rally were noted darkly by field. a small group of outraged evangelicals. Dr. Ford had become an ardent de- A stream of anti-evolution literature fol- fender of natural selection in the Darwin- lowed, notably John C. Whitcomb and ian sense, as opposed to other evolution- Henry Morris’s The Genesis Flood, the ary mechanisms being promoted at the forerunner of the ‘scientific creationism’ time. Eventually, he became convinced movement. . .” (p. 167). that a relatively rapid natural selection Furthermore, the whole neo-Darwin- had occurred in the peppered moth and ian paradigm was beginning to be ques- could actually be demonstrated by sys- tioned as well. Kettlewell was invited to tematic field studies. the 1966 Wistar Institute symposium on For this fieldwork, Bernard Kettlewell “Mathematical Challenges to the Neo- was selected, and he did perform the well- Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution” in known field studies which resulted in the Philadelphia, where he heard a number to-be-much-publicized proof of “evolu- of key mathematicians and biologists tion in action.” As Hooper notes: “By the show that the standard theory could not close of the 1950s, the peppered moth possibly account for the world of living would be the poster child for evolution” creatures in any finite time. In 1967, his (Hooper, op. cit., p. 146, emphasis hers). friend and supporter, Julian Huxley, “was As the noted evolutionary historian in a nursing home receiving electroshock William Provine told Judith Hooper in a treatments for one of his periodic depres- personal interview: “. . . It’s fun to look sions” (p. 186). through all the textbooks and always this After laboring on it for many years, example—and I mean always—is hauled Kettlewell finally published his magnum out” (Ibid., p. 149, emphasis his). As opus, The Evolution of Melanism, in Hooper says: “The peppered moth was 1973, but the reviews were lukewarm. becoming evolution’s number one icon Furthermore, Stephen Jay Gould, who just in time for the big Darwin centen- would soon become the chief antagonist nial” (p. 165). of the British neo-Darwinists of the ris- That event took place in Chicago in ing generation (most notably Maynard 1959, which Hooper called a “super- Smith and Richard Dawkins, as well as charged extravaganza, which encom- the followers of Dr. Ford), had just pub- passed five days of pageantry, televised lished his first influential paper in 1965. debate, Darwin worship and theatrical His Harvard colleague, Richard Lewontin spectacle” (p. 166). Julian Huxley, who (who was, like Gould, a Marxist), pub- b lished a book in 1974 which would “por- And so does Judith Hooper, for that tray the Oxford School crowd as silly matter. In her last chapter, she says that toffs with butterfly nets” (Hooper, op. cit., the fact that the peppered moth story was p. 216). Even in England, younger scien- all wrong “does not disprove the theory tists were finding they could not repli- of evolution. . . . It is reasonable to as- cate Kettlewell’s field results, and were sume that natural selection operates in the raising questions as to why. evolution of the peppered moth” (p. 312). Kettlewell himself was having serious It may be surprising to her and other health problems. When he was denied evolutionists that creationists have never election as a Fellow of the Royal Society had a problem with the traditional story, for the third time in 1976, he became except with the claim that it was “evolu- completely disheartened. He died in tion in action.” It was really only “varia- 1979, reputedly by suicide. tion and conservation in action.” It could Since his death, many researchers hardly even be called microevolution, have been raising doubts about various because the moth remained the same spe- aspects of his research, and even those cies throughout the process. of his boss, E. B. Ford. One of the main The words of this writer, in a book questioners has been Ted Sargent, emeri- published almost 30 years ago, are still tus professor of Biology at the Univer- relevant. “The classic example of the pep- sity of Massachusetts, who insists that the pered moth. . . . was not evolution in the famous photographs of moths on tree true sense at all but only variation. Natu- trunks published by Kettlewell were all ral selection is a conservative force, op- fakes. erating to keep kinds from becoming ex- Sargent’s first paper expressing these tinct when the environment changes” doubts was published in 1976, but few (Scientific Creationism, 1974, p. 51). seemed to notice. Eventually, however, Most creationists, believe it or not, many others also began finding flaws in have never questioned the basic story of Kettlewell’s work. In the process, some the peppered moth. After all, a leading of these critics have been accused of British zoologist, L. Harrison Matthews, “giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in his Introduction to the 1971 edition of the creationists” (Hooper, p. 286). We Darwin’s Origin of Species had already cannot discuss all these criticisms here, said: “The peppered moth experiments but the conclusion was, as Hooper says: beautifully demonstrate natural selec- “. . . at its core lay flawed science, dubi- tion—or survival of the fittest—in action, ous methodology, and wishful thinking” but they do not show evolution in (p. xx). Some went so far as to accuse progress, for . . . all the moths remain Ford and Kettlewell of actual fraud, but from beginning to end Biston betularia.” most thought it was just poor science. No creationist today questions the Cambridge lepidopterist, Michael Maj- phenomena of variation and natural se- erus, in his book, Melanism: Evolution lection; most would not even question in Action “left no doubt that the classic speciation. But, there is still no evidence story was wrong in almost every detail” whatever for macroevolution or the in- (Hooper, p. 283). Yet, amazingly, he still troduction of new information into the believed the basic story of the shift in genetic system of any basic kind of or- coloration of the peppered moth as ganism, including the famous moth. caused by bird predation and natural Evolution has always been nothing but selection. a pagan myth. c DID MODERN COAL SEAMS FORM IN A PEAT SWAMP? by John D. Morris Most geologists are trained to think from The coal matrix is typically very fine a uniformitarian perspective—that “the grained, but surrounds abundant sheets of present is the key to the past”—that altered bark, recognizably different from the present uniform processes operating rest, giving coal a layered look. Seldom are throughout the past account for all present roots present. Thin “clay partings” are al- rock units. This concept considers coal most always seen within the coal, often lat- to be the altered remains of plant mate- erally extensive. They can be traced and rial accumulated in a peat swamp. Let’s correlated—some for miles. The seams are look at modern peat swamps and the peat usually of rather constant thickness, and the accumulating in their brackish waters and now-flat bark sheets are consistent with the see if they would make a good coal. width and height of a tree. Although some Today’s peat swamps sport extensive variation does exist in all these parameters, vegetation growing in shallow water or everything about a coal seems different on saturated high ground. Nowhere can from a modern swamp peat, except it’s high a laterally extensive flat surface be found. organic makeup. The decaying organic material collects in The accompanying photograph shows the stagnant, acidic water and takes on a two coal seams visible in a road cut near rather “coffee grounds” texture with the Price, Utah. Observe the sharp contacts be- wood and bark quite decayed, thoroughly tween the coal and the adjacent layers. If a penetrated by roots and animal burrows. swamp existed above sea level, but then was Let’s compare this with a typical coal inundated by the sea to receive overlying found in the geologic record. Although tec- marine sediments, then uplifted to become tonics subsequent to deposition may have a swamp again, and the cycle repeated, one tilted or faulted the coal, would think there would modern coal seams usu- be some erosional chan- ally show an extremely nels or variation in peat regular geometry. Often thickness? How could a knife-edge contact be- they be so flat and of con- tween the coal and the stant thickness, and how layers above and below could there be such pre- can be seen. Most often cise contacts above and the adjacent layers are below? shale or limestone, both Modern-day peats do “marine” deposits which not seem to be of the necessitate a quite differ- same character as mod- ent environment of dep- ern-day coals. Perhaps osition from a terrestrial the creation model of de- swamp. This involves Coal seams near Price, Utah. caying plant material The lower seam is about 3' thick. repeated down warping collecting under a large and subsequent uplift in uniformitarian floating mat during the Great Flood of thinking. Noah’s day provides a better answer.