Re: Peppered Moths again
Kevin O'Brien (Cuchulaine@worldnet.att.net)
Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:08:59 -0700>
>Mark Kluge wrote:
>
>>While I have your attention, and since you gave an eloquent defense of
>>Wells' credentials and qualifications to opine on this subject to this
>>forum, and since you and he share institutional affiliation, might I ask
>>your opinion of Wells' suggestion, of dishonesty on the part of textbook
>>writers and publishers using peppered-moth photos? Your remarks suggest
>>that
>>you view the question of the cause of the shift in relative frequencies of
>>carbonaria and familiar to be rather murky. Is it not reckless, then, for
>>Jonathan Wells to toss out "dishonesty" grenades? I think that such
>>recklessness does not enhance The Discovery Institute's reputation among
>>thinking people when such "over-the-top" remarks both originate from a
>>Discovery Institute Fellow, and their author and source are subsequently
>>enthusiastically defended by another Fellow from the same institution as
>>you have done here?
>
>You make the call. (Forget about the Discovery Institute.) Is it
>really honest, in 1999, for biology textbooks to include photographs
>of peppered moths resting in daylight on tree trunks?
>
It is if the purpose is to illustrate the contrast of body color with
background color and not to illustrate the behavior of the moths. The
textbooks I have seen take the former approach rather than the latter.
Kevin L. O'Brien