Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

I am very familiar as to Wells' so called 'responses' to his critics,
which most often fail to address, as is the case with so many of the
ID proponents, the arguments raised.

I suggest that people read the reviews, read the relevant papers, read
the attempts by Wells to explain his flawed arguments and everyone can
come to their own conclusion.

However, Icons of Evolution, PIGDID are examples of poorly written
descriptions of science. Of course, from a perspective which seeks to
destroy Darwinism, I'd say that the books can be understood best.

Until people stop taking the Discovery Institute seriously as a
reliable source of scientific information, we will continue to see how
people will inevitably be confused, and disappointed when confronted
with the facts.

If you are interested in discussing a particular claim or example
cited by Wells, please present it and we can explore how well his
claim holds up in light of the evidence?

Peppered Moth, Cambrian, Haeckel, Archaeopteryx... I'll let you chose.
It may be a very educational exercise to explore the depth of the
scientific vacuity of Intelligent Design arguments. As Christians, we
should then determine if we are willing to support a movement which
seems to be by all credible accounts, lacking in scientific relevance
and which seems to be theologically risky.

Wells would make for an excellent example as I am quite familiar with
many of musings as well as with the actual status of scientific
knowledge and research in these area. Especially, the peppered moth...

Does anyone remember that Wells used to claim that the peppered moth
does not rest on tree trunks? Later, Wells corrected his flaw by
adding do not normally rest on tree trunks, even though again, the
data did not support his thesis.

<quote> Wells:

BUT EVERYONE, INCLUDING MAJERUS, HAS KNOWN SINCE THE 1980'S THAT
PEPPERED MOTHS DO NOT REST ON TREE TRUNKS IN THE WILD. This means that
every time those staged photographs have been re-published since the
1980's constitutes a case of deliberate scientific fraud. Michael
Majerus is being dishonest, and textbook-writers are lying to biology
students. The behavior of these people is downright scandalous.

I know what I'm talking about. I spent much of last summer reading the
primary literature (email me if you want the references). Frankly, I
was shocked by what I found -- not only that the evidence for the
moths' true resting-places has been known since the 1980's, but also
that people like Majerus and Miller continue to deceive the public.

Fraud is fraud. It's time to tell it like it is.
</quote>

Indeed... Ironically, these were the messages Wells posted to ASA a while ago...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/iconob.html

Has Wells retracted his claims of 'fraud'? Does Wells indeed know what
he is talking about? The primary literature does not seem to agree
with him much, certainly most of the experts on the peppered moth have
argued that Wells does not know what he is talking about (Majerus,
Bruce Grant)

Bruce Grant

<quote>
To put them in context, the material quoted below is a copy of the
correspondence between Grant and a professional colleague who had
requested Grant's views on Wells' chapter, originally written February
7, 2001.

    Subject: Wells's Chapter on Peppered Moths

    Wells's Chapter 7 is pretty similar to his earlier ms. "Second
thoughts about peppered moths" that he posted on the web, and
published in abridged form in The Scientist. I sent you my comments
about that version about two weeks ago. My general reaction to this
latest version is about the same. He distorts the picture, but
unfortunately he is probably pretty convincing to people who really
don't know the primary literature in this field. He uses two tactics.
One is the selective omission of relevant work. The other is to
scramble together separate points so doubts about one carry over to
the other. Basically, he is dishonest.

    He immediately launches the claim "that peppered moths in the wild
don't even rest on tree trunks" (p. 138). This is just plain wrong! Of
course they rest on tree trunks, but it's not their exclusive resting
site. He quotes Cyril Clarke's lack of success in finding the moths in
natural settings, but he omits mentioning Majerus' data which reports
just where on trees (exposed trunks, unexposed trunks, trunk/branch
joints, branches) Majerus has found moths over his 34 years of looking
for them. Of the 47 moths he located away from moth traps, 12 were on
trunks (that's &gt;25%). Of the 203 he found in the vicinities of
traps, 70 were on trunks (that's 34%). Based on his observations,
Majerus argued that the most common resting site appears to be at the
trunk/branch juncture. What is clear from his data is that they sit
all over the trees, INCLUDING the trunks. So what? Kettlewell's
complementary experiments in polluted and unpolluted woods compared
the relative success of different colored moths on the same parts of
trees in different areas, not different parts of trees in the same
area. It is true that the photos showing the moths on trunks are posed
(just like practically all wildlife pictures of insects are) but they
are not fakes. No one who reads Kettlewell's paper in which the
original photos appeared would get the impression from the text that
these were anything but posed pictures. He was attempting to compare
the differences in conspicuousness of the pale and dark moths on
different backgrounds. Nobody thought he encountered those moths like
that in the wild. At their normal densities, you'd be hard pressed
ever to find two together unless they were copulating. I have always
made a point of stating in photo captions that the moths are posed,
and I think textbook writers have been careless about this. But they
are not frauds.

    On the subject of lichens, no one has questioned their importance
more than I have. But what does Wells do with this? He quotes me, but
he doesn't include what else I said has happened on the Wirral (p.
147) with respect to the tremendous expansion of birch stands since
the enactment of the smokeless zones. Kettlewell, too, argued that
peppered moths are well concealed on birch bark (even without
lichens). Wells continues (p. 148) to quote my reservations about
lichens in Michigan, but, again, he omits any reference to the data I
presented in that paper showing the decline, not only in SO2, but in
atmospheric particles (soot) which has been established as a factor
altering reflectance from the surface of tree bark. So, while I have
questioned the importance of lichens, I have not taken this as
evidence that crypsis is unimportant. Wells omits this entirely.

    Wells continues to bring up the same old arguments about
mysterious other factors (yet to be identified) that account for the
persistence of typicals in polluted regions, and the presence of
melanics in unpolluted locales. He cites papers written back in the
70s about these puzzles. He omits discussing in any sophisticated way
the role of migration other than to say "Theoretical models could
account for the discrepancies only by invoking migration...." (p.146),
as if in desperation we are forced to grasp at straws. Of course
migration is important. Majerus actually reviews this point fairly
well by comparing the smoothness of clines in melanism between species
that are highly mobile (as is Biston), and species that are relatively
sedentary. Instead of showing his meaningless map of the UK (Fig. 7-2)
to illustrate what he regards as anomalies in the distribution of
melanism and lichens, why doesn't he show the before and after
comparison from the national surveys by Kettlewell in 1956, and the
survey by Grant et al. in 1996. (If you'd like, I can send you a jpg
file of the maps I mean.)

    Wells also inappropriately uses thermal melanism in ladybirds to
suggest, that while no one has shown this in peppered moths (p. 152),
industrial melanism can have other causes besides predation. It's not
just that there is no evidence for thermal melanism in peppered moths,
there is evidence AGAINST thermal melanism based on the geographic
incidence of melanism in the UK, the USA, and Europe. There are no
latitudinal clines, and no altitudinal clines as one might expect with
thermal melanism. Wells knows this, if he actually read my papers. (He
cites them, so I should assume he read them.) He also raises the
question of larval tolerance to pollutants. There is no evidence for
this, either. I have a paper out on this point, but in fairness to
Wells, it came out just this past year.

    Wells clouds discussions with irrelevancies. For examples he
brings up Heslop Harrison (p. 141 and again on p. 151) and the
question of phenotypic induction. Wells makes it sound as if most
biologists discount induction based on their belief in natural
selection (as if it were a popular religious question). The evidence
for the Mendelian inheritance of melanism in peppered moths has
nothing to do with evolutionary theory; it is based on old fashioned
crosses involving over 12 thousand progeny from 83 broods. The
Mendelian basis for this character in this species is as well
established as is any character in any species. Wells doesn't mention
this, yet he cites my review paper where I do bring this up in my
criticism of Sargent et al. Induction has nothing to do with
industrial melanism, and Wells knows it. Again, selective omissions on
the part of Wells.

    On page 151 Wells claims Kettlewell's evidence has been impeached.
This is nonsense. It has not. But I have argued, that even if it were
entirely thrown out, the evidence for natural selection comes from the
changes in the percentages of pale and melanic moths. It is this
record of change in allele frequency over time that is unimpeachable.
It is a massive record by any standard. (I can send a jpg file with
graphs, if you'd like.) I have pointed out, and he quotes me, that no
force known to science can account for these changes except for
natural selection. Yet, he scrambles the ingredients here. He claims
(top of p. 153) "...it is clear that the compelling evidence for
natural selection that biologists once thought they had in peppered
moths no longer exists." Of course the evidence for natural selection
exists! That evidence is overwhelming. Wells, by attempting to
discredit Ketttlewell's experiments about predation (and clearly there
are things wrong with Kettlewell's experiments) doesn't stop at saying
we can't be altogether sure about bird predation because of problems
with Kettlewell's experiments. No. He says, instead, that the evidence
for natural selection no longer exists. This is just plain wrong. He
cannot support this sweeping statement, but he spins it into his
conclusion by building a case against Kettlewell. This is what I mean
about his tactic of scrambling arguments. He wields non sequiturs
relentlessly.

    I hope this is helpful to you in your review.

    Bruce Grant, Professor of Biology, College of William & Mary. February 2001
</quote>

Hope this helps.

Note to Alexanian, I am very careful with my posts, thank you for caring.

On 9/1/07, Peter Loose <peterwloose@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> PvM writes
>
> "Silly was meant as a mild term to describe the nature of Rev Wells'
> musings. If you are interested in how scientists have described Rev
> Wells' work, see the following..."
>
> Here's some of Jonathan Wells on his critics...
>
> " I limit myself here to seven critical reviews written by biologists and
> published in periodicals:
>
> Larry D. Martin, "An Iconoclast for Evolution?" The World & I (February,
> 2001): 241-246.
>
> Jerry A. Coyne, "Creationism by Stealth," Nature 410 (April 12, 2001):
> 745-746.
>
> Massimo Pigliucci, "Intelligent Design Theory," BioScience 51:5 (May, 2001):
> 411-414.
>
> Eugenie C. Scott, "Fatally Flawed Iconoclasm," Science 292 (June 22, 2001):
> 2257-2258.
>
> David Ussery, "The Stealth Creationists," Skeptic 8:4 (2001): 72-74.
>
> Rudolf A. Raff, "The Creationist Abuse of Evo-Devo," Evolution & Development
> 3:6 (November-December, 2001): 373-374.
>
> Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick, "The Talented Mr. Wells," The Quarterly
> Review of Biology 77:1 (March, 2002): 33-37.
>
> Anyone reading (and believing) these reviews would judge me ignorant, and
> stupid, and wicked. Let's look at each of these charges in turn.
> - - - - - - -
>
> Extracted from:
>
> Critics Rave Over Icons of Evolution:
> A Response to Published Reviews
> By: Jonathan Wells
> Discovery Institute
> June 12, 2002
>
> Go here for the extensive discussion of Jonathan Wells' critics. It's a
> long 'read' and though you may not agree with him, it is unbecoming of a
> scientist to call it 'silly'.
>
> http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1180
>
> Blessings
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pvm.pandas@gmail.com [mailto:pvm.pandas@gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 6:45 PM
> To: Peter Loose
> Cc: Gregory Arago; Janice Matchett; George Murphy; Alexanian, Moorad;
> AmericanScientificAffiliation
> Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
>
>
> On 9/1/07, Peter Loose <peterwloose@compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Wow, I am quite surprised at this response re Dr Jonathan Wells and The
> > Peppered Moth. I haven't seen many papers in Scientific Journals that
> > describe the work of others to be 'silly'.
>
> Silly was meant as a mild term to describe the nature of Rev Wells'
> musings. If you are interested in how scientists have described Rev
> Wells' work, see the following
> http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/icons_of_evolution.html
>
> Scientists disagree:
>
> * Nic Tamzek has a chapter-by-chapter critique. He concludes that
> Wells is deceptive and devious.
> * Dave Ussery thinks that Wells hasn't successfully attacked any
> of the Icons. He gives the book an "F".
> * Several authors collaborated on a joint rebuttal.
> * Jerry Coyne says Wells has misrepresented him. For example, in
> this interview Wells implies that Coyne agrees with him. Apparently he
> doesn't.
> * Coyne subsequently reviewed this book in Nature. He accused
> Wells of selective omission and deliberate misquotation.
> * Bruce Grant says that Wells has intentionally misquoted him
> about peppered moths, and that Wells is dishonest.
> * Bruce Grant argues that the peppered moth evidence is
> indisputable evidence for natural selection.
> * Richard Weisenberg gives an "F" to Wells' essay in the
> Philadelphia Inquirer.
> * Massimo Pigliucci has debated Dr. Wells. He has a review of the
> book, and also has a short point-by-point rebuttal of the book.
> * Jim Dawson thinks the book is poorly reasoned. [Warning:
> BioMedNet requires free registration]
> * Kevin O'Brien has some answers for the questions Wells wants
> students to ask.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
>
> >
> > I wonder if we could elevate the level of discussion by reverting to well
> > tried methods that are factual/evidence based in response to Wells' paper
> on
> > The Peppered Moth?
>
> Let's explore some of Wells' silly notions, such as the accusation
> that Majerus is abusing statistics, one which Wells has used before.
> Mike Dunford has described some excellent (sic) examples at
> http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/08/wells_on_moths.html
>
> So let's step back in time and marvel at the history of the peppered
> moth. Oh did I mention that the powerpoint is also avalaible at
> Majerus' lab? http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/Research/majerus.htm
>
> It started with Rev Wells making some irresponsible accusations and
> assertions about the peppered moth, combined with some 'silly'
> rhetoric that led many creationists to come to a flawed conclusion
> that the peppered moth was not really a good example of natural
> selection in action.
>
> Amongst the assertions was the claim that the peppered moth
> never/seldomly/not preferentially rests on tree trunks, even though
> Majerus himself had sufficient data that would contradict such a
> claim.
>
> Based on Rev Wells' 'claims', the Discovery Institute and ID
> proponents have been arguing that books used to teach need to also
> teach the 'controversy', codewords for teaching the vacuity of ID.
> Much has been made by ID proponents to argue this based on a
> perception of flaws in Darwinian theory.
>
> While most real scientists were quick to explain the Kettlewell
> experiments accurately, a few questions remained, such as one raised
> by Hooper in her 'silly' book Of moths and Men. Majerus decided to
> address and test the relevance of these claimed flaws. Note that Wells
> never performed any real experiments to test his claims. ID does not
> seem to be in the business of doing the hard work that is typically
> associated with science.
>
> While perhaps silly may be a rather unscientific term to describe
> Wells' musings, it seemed appropriate given the nature of his claims.
> I have studied Kettlewells' original writings, as well as the various
> 'critiques', including Wells and Judith Hooper and I have read the
> fascinating books by Majerus on moths. While it may not be clear to
> those unfamiliar with the facts that Wells' assertions deserve a label
> of 'silly', I believe that in the end, they will come to the
> conclusion that silly is a rather mild conclusion.
>
> What part of Wells' claims would you like to discuss first?
>
>
>
> > To the person who asked me if I was in some way connected with the
> > Unification Church may I say that the discussion here is not about
> > personalities: the debate is, or should be, centred on relevant evidence.
> In
> > my opinion it should remain so.
>
> <quote author=Wells>Father's words, my studies, and my prayers
> convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism,
> just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their
> lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a
> dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I
> welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.</quote>
>
> Sufficient evidence?
>
> I have no Idea what Alexanian is musing about here.
>
> > Blessings
> >
> > Peter
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> > Behalf Of PvM
> > Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 5:56 PM
> > To: Peter Loose
> > Cc: Gregory Arago; Janice Matchett; George Murphy; Alexanian, Moorad;
> > AmericanScientificAffiliation
> > Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
> >
> >
> > Read more here
> >
> http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/08/wells_on_moths_a_case_study_in.php
> > and note in the comments how people react to Wells' claims.
> >
> > I have been closely following the peppered moth debates and found that
> > Wells' claims were at best silly and at worst running afoul of St
> > Augustine's warnings.
> >
> > Remember how the ID movement made much of what they considered to be
> > 'flawed experiments' and Darwinian myths. Of course they were wrong in
> > most instances, but in this case, it took seven years to gather the
> > data to fill in some of the gaps.
> > Imagine if science had taken seriously ID's position, we would never
> > have gathered the knowledge that shows the link between bird predation
> > and the decline of the peppered moth.
> >
> > Notice how more recently Behe's court appearances (yes plural, more on
> > that one later) have show how irrelevant ID's position has become and
> > how disconnected from science ID has to be to make its claims.
> > Imagine a world of science in which scientists follow ID's
> > proposals... Shudder. Imagine a world where Christians would take ID's
> > claims seriously and then run into these gaps that are filled, time
> > after time. What an unnecessary risky approach to faith not to mention
> > what a vacuous approach to doing science.
> > Is this what we as Christians should support, encourage or expose? And
> > as Christians and scientists?
> >
> >
> > On 8/31/07, PvM <pvm.pandas@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Yes, Wells is not happy since he had previously and erroneously made
> > > many assertions about the peppered moth which were plainly wrong. Now
> > > that science has once again closed another gap of our ignorance, ID
> > > has to retreat, so what does it do? It makes silly and irrelevant
> > > accusations rather than to focus on the science.
> > >
> > > Use references to Wells at your own risk but remember St Augustine. Do
> > > we as Christians want to be associated with such obvious scientific
> > > nonsense?
> > >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
> >
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> > 18:05
> >
> >
> >
>
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> 17:21
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Received on Sat Sep 1 18:55:42 2007