Wells' Icons of Evolution - Peppered Moths

Its not so much a case of a hoax,it’s the way the pictures were used to promote the tenet of evolution.Kettlewells experiments were not a deliberate hoax either,however they were badly flawed and these poor examples have been used as evidence for the mechanism used to select these variants as one of natural selection.Are the observations made by Majerus really any better?The 20 page chapter from Jonathan Wells book The icons of evolution touch on many other aspects used to back up his assertions.However he has made a sweeping statement,but he is not far off the mark.In this book Wells makes the statement on page 140 >> What the text books don’t explain,however,is that biologists have known since 1980’s that the classical story has some serious flaws-The peppered moths in the wild do not even rest on tree trunks. <<
Later on,on page 149, Wells admits that there is only scant evidence that peppered moths do land on tree trunks..Quote from page 149... >>Since 1980,however,evidence has accumulated,showing that peppered moths do not NORMALLY rest on tree trunks.<< In this latter case he was referring to other experiments and mainly work from the Finnish zoologist Kauri Mikkolas,his experimentations with caged peppered moths and his observations of peppered moths in the wild.What does Michael Majerus,the leading light on peppered moths say about this matter.(The links are given by Paul K and Jon F).Majerus observed the peppered moth over a period of 32 years.If you look at his pie chart for peppered moths found in the wild,you will notice that he only observed 47 moths resting on various points of the trees.Only 12 of these in this period rested on various appropriate parts of the tree trunks.This is equivalent to around 1 moth every three years.More like the law of averages than the law of mechanics of evolution through natural selection.These moths were not pinned to the tree.At the very best you have only got scant representations.Wells also points out that the Finnish zoologist Kauri Mikkola (mentioned above)that he only saw one peppered moth resting on a tree trunk in 25 years.
There seems to be no indication of the time periods of observation and more importantly,for how long the peppered moths actually rested on the tree trunks.A factor that would determine wether nifty birds would pick the peppered moths off of the trunks or not within a set resting time.Only a fraction of the peppered moths are going to be picked off by predators.Many contributary factors are missing.The peppered moths spotted in the Wirral area near Manchester during the industrial revolution were noticed to be melanically different within a span of only approx 100 years light dominant to dark dominant and then back to light dominance.The industrially pollutant areas are small,so you have to consider the number of lichen free trees within that area.
How can you get a clear indication of industrial melanic natural selection due to camouflage,with such remote pickings for the predator over such a relatively small area and within a relatively short period of time? Generally speaking the peppered moths do not land on tree trunks.Not enough to base evolutionary ideas on.In his article Wells mentions industrial melanism in ladybird beetles.Birds generally find ladybirds distasteful The bold colouring is a warning to most predators.Camouflage and predation played no part in the melanism of these insects.He also mentions the presence of other melanics in non polluted areas.Wells go’s on to say that several other factors could be involved,including possible differences in the tolerances of larvae to pollutants e.t.c. and The complex of factors that might play a role in the increase (or decrease) of melanism in moths has barely been tapped.Kettlewells experiments were unnatural.They involved moths being released in unnaturally large quantities within a small area.They are normally mobile and spread out. The predation of these peppered moths were observed during the day.Peppered moths are night flyers and only usually land on various parts of trees at dawn.Kettlewell released them directly onto the tree trunks in broad daylight.The peppered moths are torpid during the day,so generally they would have stayed put on the trunks thus becoming easy predatory victims.Why this is called an icon of evolution is bizarre.Because Majerus chooses to call it melanic evolution in his book,doesn’t mean that it is.Only choice words,as absurd as Wells statement first appears to be.It is merely one variant of a moth,Biston Betularia typica..light coloured peppered moth in a changing environment with,Biston betularia carbonaria..dark coloured moth. All that has happened is a fluctuation of two variants of pre-existing moths,one becoming more dominant over the other in a given period of time and then reverting back to the original dominant variation through yet unknown means.Not natural selection.There is obviously something at work here,as there is too much evidence pointing to melanic changes within polluted areas.What it is,in reality remains a mystery.

There is not enough time and material involved for the melanic changes to have occurred whatever data you want to look at.If you want to be pedantic,then i agree that Wells should not have used the words Peppered moths do not land on tree trunks,as they do (extremely rarely.)But the sparsity of moths landing on tree trunks shown in the data within the short time period does not show that melanic camouflage is why the peppered moth variant numbers fluctuated.Majerus pictures were not staged he simply had more patience than most!
Pictures of pinned moths,or those found to be resting on tree trunks,it really doesn’t matter.The point is is,that there is not enough weight of evidence to indicate that the peppered moths are prevalent enough in exposed cryptic positions to have been predatory victims within the short period of time of 100 years of the industrial revolution.(Only 50 odd years for one variant to become more dominant.)
Whatever data you look at,it is not substantial enough to have caused the changes.At the bare minimum of 12 moths seen on open points of the tree trunks or the amount caught in mercury vapour light traps 156 (approx percentage seen or caught in all open points,deducted from the 203.) This is not a significant enough amount of moths over a period of 32 year...One moth spotted every 74 days (or one moth every 974 days for the lower figure) and would this moth become a predatory victim?
Incidently these form of traps do not give a fair indication of predation of peppered moths in the wild,as moths are obviously attracted to light sources they are going to appear more often and you will get a higher figure than the moths seen naturally which.Those that could be predated upon.Realistically the figure is a lot lower.So many very important factors are missing on this data,as mentioned before.How long did the moths rest for? Estimates and observations of predators? Tree colouration and its visual colouration at different times of the day? Time of day of the observations.What other types of moths and insects were seen on tree trunks at the same time,and if of a more distinctive shade they are going to become the victim and not the peppered moth.
The observations are just observations full of holes and used to try to prove that the peppered moths land on tree trunks. So what!They land on tree trunks once in a blue moon.This fact proves nothing given the other facts.The melanic changes happened in small pockets of industrially polluted areas over a period of approx 100 years during the industrial revolution.In fact you have to take into consideration a measure of time for the lichen to whittle away and the possible 50% of 100 years for the dark melanic variant to have become dominant and then the reversion back to light dominant variant,found to have been the case midway through this century because the pollution was gradually controlled.You only have around 50 years to play with.
The amount of peppered moths seen on open tree points where they could have been predatory victims is therefore around 112 in a period of only 45-50 years of change.
The areas around Birmingham and the Manchester contained small pockets of woodlands nearest to the industrial smog were the moths were said to be mostly affected.Taking the figures shown and expanding the amount a little,you can get an idea of the amount of peppered moths within the woodlands.Not many,and then looking at how many very rarely land on the trees and the rarity of being victims due to the camouflage,it is easy to see that there isn’t enough substantial material to formulate conclusions that camouflage is the answer to melanic changes.Thus natural selection has only been selected naturally to promote the idealism of evolution by only speculating that the mechanism is natural selection without the true weight of evidence.

>>Cromwell,I am unsure exactly what point you are making.You seem to be saying that there is not enough time for the changes to occur.<<Not enough time for the changes to occur by the definition of natural selection because of cryptic camouflage predation.Peppered moths resting on trees and becoming the victims of predation are extremely rare,given the observations by Majerus.Changes in a period of 50 years can not be made to fit within such a time period,as the predation in the wild is almost non existant.Not enough "material" and causes to give rise to natural selection taking place.If you read my first thread,you will see that i don't deny that something has caused the change over of dominant variants.This fact is undeniable.Wells points to it being something yet undiscovered,but due to pollutants.I am saying that it is not happening through the mechanism of natural selection.I am not saying its a fake.but i'm merely saying that the data does not prove that it can be natural selection and that other contributory factors have not been considered.
What you have quoted above illustrates the problem.Its not concrete.How birds see the prey is also something else to take into consideration.What are your views on these matters?

I haven’t got time to reply to all of the questions fired at me (I should be working.)However you have formulated some good ideas,calculations and something substantial to work on.I was though basing my ideas on far lower figures than yours.I was thinking of pocketedlarge amounts of trees around polluted areas affected by the pollution that cut down the lichen cover on the trees,but not trees in the millions.
The trees used in experimentation were near industrial areas,observed for obvious reasons.Outside of these areas trees were generally unaffected,so there was no need to use them in the experiments.Some of the maps on the informative website links indicate this,but there doesn't seem to be any indepth details.So would you say that polluted trees are isolated along with the cities and large towns? When you look at aerial photo’s they are like islands amongst the greenery.I ask these questions for your view and not to be argumentative
If we look at a time period around the turn of the century as a point of time to work on.Would you agree that dark dominant peppered moths were in a sense,restricted within these polluted wooded areas because outside more light dominant moths were prevalent? Do you think that moths limited within an isolated woodland area would hinder the rate of progression to obtain large amounts of peppered moths? Do you think that peppered moths being active during,approx,half a year will affect the figures?
The predation ratio of moths seen and those that actually become prey is a "grey" area and i'm not in total agreement with the average of 1 moth seen resting or trapped every 74 days,(based on mercury vapour light traps) as a reasonable average.I tend to think that nature as seen in the wild without unatural intervention is not indicative of true nature,especially if we are assuming "natural selection" as the mechanism to select naturally.I think a lot of this comes down to the amount of lichen covered trees affected by pollutants and how many trees had lichen in the first place.I’ll look on the net to see if there was any studies on this matter.Maybe looking at the early part of this century.

>>Nature as seen in the wild without unatural intervention.<<.... should read as >> Nature as seen in the wild with unatural intervention.<<

What conclusion have we come to?Majerus and the studies in the U.S (Michigan,Pennsylvania e.t.c.)of the peppered moths are only observations of quantity sightings of the peppered moths.I was asked earlier to provide calculations on my assumptions that there wasn't enough "material" evidence... Quantity of moths predated upon,known number of polluted trees e.t.c.To show my reasons as to why i believe that natural selection was not the mechanism behind the melanic dominance due to a cryptic background.Resulting in one proliferation of a variant over another.I have no substantial calculations,because my assumptions were based on the observations of the Majerus,U.S. data and other data mentioned by Wells.They have not provided calculations either.
I have admittedly surmised that this does not look like natural selection,but i'm not the only one surmising.Without indepth evidence is not everyone else surmising?The data by the scientists consists of only the number of observations and a pie chart by Majerus.There are NO calculations provided by these observers giving an indication of how many moths were victims of predation,amount of polluted trees,and yes the moths landed on the open parts of the trees(very rarely),but a major factor would be for how long they rested on the trees,time of day,weather conditions,observations of predators present and other insects seen on the tree trunks at the time and many other factors.This is hardly an indepth study.
Surely as intelligent scientists you would want to know the whole picture before assuming that this is natural selection at work?I originally contested that this was not an icon of evolution.Is it really an icon? Is there really evidence that the mechanism behind variant changes in the peppered moth is by natural selection? Do the field studies truly bare this out?

I only glanced over that site.I'll read it properly.>>There certainly is (NS). It may not be conclusive enough for you or Wells, but it's conclusive enough for most people (and, of course, Wells wouldn't believe it unless God or Sun Myung Moon told him it was so). When a better alternative theory arises, or when NS is disproven, or even when somebody proposes a viable alternative hypothesis, scientists will listen.<<In your opinion,did you find the the calculations thorough enough,taking into consideration all aspects that i mentioned before,those that should be involved in correct experimentation on predation of the peppered moth?

Ediacaran uses my quote.......>> The 20 page chapter from Jonathan Wells book The icons of evolution touch on many other aspects used to back up his assertions.However he has made a sweeping statement,but he is not far off the mark. In this book Wells makes the statement on page 140 What the text books don’t explain,however,is that biologists have known since 1980’s that the classical story has some serious flaws-The peppered moths in the wild do not even rest on tree trunks. <<You have omitted my follow on statement: "However Wells admits that the peppered moths do not NORMALLY land on tree trunks".
This is an admission that he recognised that they actually do land on tree trunks if not rarely ,more so if they are thrown on to them,pinned or enticed by light from mercury vapour traps.However by Majerus's observations, in the wild, the peppered moths land on tree trunks or exposed parts of the tree extremely rarely.Ediacaran writes...>>So, according to Majerus' data, when moths are observed to rest in trees in the wild, under normal conditions, they rest on the trunks about 25% of the time, a substantial percentage.
- and you assert that Wells was "not far off the mark"?!?
Clearly, Wells is a bald-faced liar.<<25%!!! Twenty five percent of peppered moths land on tree trunks in the wild. This is a "load of mothballs". I think that you've got your ratios mixed up. And you insult Jonathan Wells!Its not the percentage of the moths having been seen by Majerus landing on exposed parts of the tree trunks. Not the percentage of 47 seen in 32 years on observations by Majerus that indicates your 25% figure relevant to a "substantial amount".The true figure is the percentage of all of the moths that would have been seen to be fluttering around in the woodland over the period of 32 years, possibly thousands upon thousands of moths.Its not a case 25% of thousands.A tiny fraction landed on the exposed tree trunks out of this amount. Your 25% figure in reality is more like 0.00025%.A very remote amount.12 out of thousands is not substantial.The amount of peppered moths landing on exposed parts of the trees in the wild was around 12 over a period of 32 years! What amount was predated upon? Enough to have natural selection work its magic over a very short period of time? Not enough data is given. It can only be concluded without conclusive evidence that it is natural selection.Looking at the Majerus studies these are only observations on the ratio of moths seen to land on exposed parts of the tree.
They are not experimentations.No complete or extensive data on predation of the moths is given. No indications of how long the moths rested on the tree trunks. No indication of quantity of predators present. Points that are surely required if we are to recognise a mechanism at work.That of natural selection.The observations are noted.The rest is assumption.Having no experimentation comes as no suprise, as sitting out waiting for the peppered moth to actually land on a tree trunk must have been tedious enough, but to wait for one to be predated upon would have finished off the observer.The only colour change observed from black to white would have been seen on the observers hair.On these observations and previously on Kettlewells forced experimentations, natural selection is said to be an Icon.The misconception of Jonathan Wells book "Icons of evolution,science or myth" is that he is trying to disprove evolutionary factors altogether.Points such as homology,tree of life and of course natural selection.What he is actually disputing is the fact that there is not enough "weight" to call these factors Icons, with regards to natural selection of the peppered moth,he gives valid reasons to contest the Iconic status.>>"Clearly, Wells is a bald-faced liar."<<Jonathan wells uses sensationalism..."Peppered moths do not even land on tree trunks" He's selling his material ,as newspapers and product advertisers do. Although not an entirely true statement he is close.Its better than saying "Peppered moths hardly ever land on tree trunks",or more precisely... "Peppered moths are never found to be pinned on tree trunks in the wild unless someone wants to give the impression that they land on tree trunks all of the time."

Ediacaran quotes:>>"So, according to Majerus' data, when moths are observed to rest in trees in the wild, under normal conditions, they rest on the trunks about 25% of the time, a substantial percentage. On p. 260 of Wells' book, one of Wells' suggested "warning labels for biology textbooks" reads:"WARNING: Peppered moths do not rest on tree trunks in the wild, and photos showing them on tree trunks have been staged; Kettlewell's experiments are now being questioned."- and you assert that Wells was "not far off the mark"?!?<<With the above in mind...
Maybe we are talking at cross purposes. I think that the gist of what you are saying is that Wells is out of kilter when it comes to the observations of the scant amount of moths that were actually observed to land on the exposed areas of the tree, within the 32 years of observations (12 out of 47. ) Whereas i'm referring to the amount of moths as a whole. The possible thousands that did not land on exposed areas of the tree, where 25% is not applicable but 0.00025% is more likely.In the latter case Wells is not far off the mark. In the case of looking at a scant amount of moths landing on the trees, then Wells is off the mark. But is this "off the mark percentage" important? Is it giving a true indication of a ratio of moths landing on tree trunks?The important percentage to note is the meagre ratio of moths that landed on exposed areas where they were likely to be predated upon, in line with the actual larger quantities of moths to be found in a given area. 25% of 47 moths observed is neither here nor there. A far far lower fractional percentage is more realistic.It is undeniable that peppered moths rarely land on exposed areas of the tree, but scant amounts of moths seen and then to become predatory victims was in a race against time. The domination of a colour variant happened within a very short period of time during the industrial revolution.
I'm sure that some of the smart brains on these forums will come up with calculations, backed up with evidence of peppered moth predation through cryptic camouflage.Is Jonathan Wells still in the Unification church? I am of a religion myself and can relate to where he's coming from. If Jonathan Wells looks at Darwinism from a different standpoint and puts God first, then thats up to him.His chapter in his book is logical. With the nitpicking put to one side, he is merely showing that natural selection is not proven to be the mechanism causing the peppered moth variants.

John F Writes...">>You are assuming (without justification) that there were thousands of moths not resting on tree trunks that Majerus could have observed but did not observe. Your "12 out of thousands" betrays a lack of knowledge of statistical sampling."<<I believe that you are ever hopeful in raising the amounts of moths to levels that suit your theory of natural selection of the peppered moth. Look at the Majerus statistics again and forget about raising the resting peppered moths to sky high amounts.To do this is tampering with the evidence.If Majerus was fiddling with bi-focals or simply sat there reading Lepidoptera monthly mag instead of looking out for the peppered moths, then are we to believe any of his observations as accurate?Do you believe that nearly every peppered moth in the woodland ended up posing on the tree trunk in front of Majerus?The majority of these mainly nocturnal,torpid by day moths would have given there self exposing to predators a miss.
It is absurd to expand the Majerus figures to large amounts of peppered moths flying by day and landing on exposed parts of trees.As no indication of the amount of moths is given, we have to assume amounts.Thousands throughout 32 years is not illogical.I continued on with the 25% of 47 (12) amounts in answer to Ediacarans thread.The amount is so scant that it doesn't matter if it is more...50% then if you want to play with the figures.Do you have exact evidence of the amounts of moths that could have been in the area of Majerus observations? If you do not have these figures, then you are only assuming also.Are you assuming that there was less than thousands of moths at the times of observation? How do you know? Can you back up your assertions?Whatever hundreds, or thousands of moths, it makes no difference. What is known was shown through Majerus observations. The amounts of observed moths landing on the exposed areas is extremely sparse.
If you take a higher figure of 50% of 47 moths over 32 years observed to land on an exposed area of just one tree.This is just 1 moth every 1.5 years on one tree. Spread this over a large woodland.Multiply the amount of moths seen by five, if you want to tamper with the figures. Then think about how many moths were predatory victims.And think about how long the moths rested on the trees for.
Take approx half of the 100 years of pollution of the industrial revolution. Within approx 50 years the changes of one predominant variant to another. The moth population resting on and predated upon is not substantial enough within the alloted time to give the dominance of one type over another.Jon F writes...
">>And you have promulgated the tired old creationist misdirection of counting only resting on tree trunks. Peppered moths resting on branches and peppered moths resting on branch-trunk junctions are subject to differential predation.
"And why should he ignore resting on branches, trunk-branch junctions, and leaves?"<<I have not just said "tree trunks".I stated exposed parts of the trees many times,but as it is cryptic predation that is part of the natural selection mechanism that we are debating, then the shade of the background is appropriate.The dark variant domination is said to have occured through the light coloured lichen decreasing. So the shade of the background is important and being picked off of green leaves or areas that were not originally affected by the lichen is not relevant.Jon f writes....">>Majerus's observations are experiments"<<Some experiment. Where are the results of predation of the peppered moths? You seem to know that this is an experiment. It would be appropriate that you give the conclusive statistical results of peppered moth predation of this experiment.It is amazing that you consider this conclusive, yet there are no hard facts of the predation of the peppered moth to be shown. Where is your proof that the mechanism of natural selection was at work through cryptic camouflage and predation selecting one shade of variant above another?Jon f writes..">>Now, that's outright false. Your claim of thousands of unobserved moths is just a fairy tale."<<Your claim that thousands of moths "could" have been missed is assumption also. Seems that we are both telling tales.Or could it be that we have no choice but to assume?

This is not hand waving. The statistics i give are based on Majerus observations as a foundation and i'm not making up amounts that have been "picked out of the air". That would be make believe. They may not be wholey accurate.I don't claim that they are.Jon f writes..
>>"He's certainly claiming that Majerus' statistics on moth resting places are wildly wrong as estimates of the behavior of the population at large, and in that he himself is wildy wrong."<<I don't think this at all.I believe that Majerus observations are fairly accurate.The percentages everyones giving around his figures are misinterpreted and hyped.He has given us the starting point to formulate some idea of the quantities of moths landing on exposed parts of the tree. However all of this wording, saying that 50%, 25% or 5% is misrepresenting the truer percentage, when you take into consideration all of the moths that would have been around,the percentage is well under 5%.Jon f writes...
">>I may be misinterpreting, but it appears to me that Cromwell is arguing that we can't conclude what happened (natural selection) because we haven't observed every moth and we don't know every detail of the process."<<We cannot conclude yet.We cannot observe every moth we don't need to. Reasoning that 50% of 47 moths seen over a period of 32 years gives an indication how many moths did actually show up on exposed parts of the tree.
This is not even taking into consideration an earlier post where i mentioned one scientists study of peppered moths, in that he saw only one peppered moth land on the exposed part of a tree in 25 years.Even if many were missed through human error the Majerus pie chart showing those trapped by mercury light traps would be more definate on the peppered moth resting on the exposed parts of the tree. This would counter some of the human error to some degree. However even this amount is very low, not much higher than those actually observed. Statistics of those observed is reflective of those enticed by light traps and would be expected to be slightly lower.It is fairly accurate.No record of predation and other important factors.Something has happened, but is it natural selection in this case ?
I can't see that this is an icon.

JonF writes..
>>Are you really that ignorant of statistics?
Majerus' figures are our best estimate of the percentages of moths that land on various places in the entire population.<<You’ve come to the point of skirting round the true facts and making out Majerus figures to be mere generalizations.
His observations are hard facts not averages.You are blind to, or have a want to tamper with the data on basic observations.You may know about statistics, but you don’t know how to apply them. You are talking about statistics, probabilities, samples e.t.c. on one set of data found by Majerus.If you want to apply statistics, then you need other observational datasets, then you may get mean averages of the moths seen on exposed parts of the trees. If you do this, you will only find the same results... Peppered moths very rarely land on exposed parts of the tree.
Majerus is the leading light on this matter and I’m trying to stick to his data, and even he is concerned about the lack of exposed moths.Read below from the "anti Wells" site that you advised us to view on your post no. 4. These are hard facts on observations made by MajerusQuote from the 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 and branches.
>> MAJERUS HAS FOUND THAT IN 34 YEARS OF LOOKING FOR THEM. OF THE 47 THAT HE LOCATED AWAY FROM THE MOTH TRAPS,12 OF THEM WERE ON TREE TRUNKS. (that's >25%). Of the 203 he found in the vicinities of traps, 70 were on trunks (that's 34%). Based on his observations.<<He looked for 34 years and came across only 47 moths. Now you are attempting to read different amounts into this,expanding to suit. making out that the observations are generalizations.
Evidence from other rare sightings on observational studies Coyne e.t.c. and the fact that moths are inactive during the day, (and whilst the predators are active) bare out the scarcity of moths resting on exposed parts of the tree as almost non existant.Without substantial prey to select from a cryptic background, the predation levels are almost non existant.Jonf writes">>When you take into consideration all of the moths that would have been around, the percentage that landed on exposed tree trunks is almost certainly between 15% and 35%, with 25% being the most likely number. It is essentially impossible that the percentage of all moths that land on exposed tree trunks is less than 5%. This is a result of standard and well-understood statistics and sampling theory."<<More hype.It is not impossible to have a low percentage especially considering the facts that the sightings are extremely rare..You say sampling theory as opposed to sampling facts that Majerus has produced.This is a contradiction. Majerus data was not theory.
The evidence you ask for, and where i make my assertions,come from the data produced by Majerus himself.From Majerus own data 47 moths only seen to land on exposed parts of the tree within 34 years..
Not 470,000 moths in 34 years.
Not 47 moths in 34 days.
Not 25 % of an unknown quantity of moths that existed in a period of 34 years.
More moths obviously existed. The percentage resting on exposed parts of the tree is a fraction of any amount of moths that you can come up with.Majerus data states this as fact.Take the light trapped moths as an indication. This could be said to be more experimental and definate than mere observations. In 34 years only 203 were seen 34% (70) of these were seen on exposed parts of the trees.This is hard evidence, although its not indicative of actual moths becoming predatory victims during the day when birds are active, and it is not natural. However it clearly shows that pepered moths appearance even when enticed with light are extremely scarce.The data is not a generalization.With the absolute scarcity of the victims of predation.There is no naturally occuring selection within the time span given to say that the peppered moth saga is an icon of evolution.Jonf writes .
>> On predation... "Ah, I see that you haven't consulted the primary literature or any of several review papers. I bet you're relying on Wells as your source of informaton. You should look at <"http://abacus.gene.ucl.ac.uk/jim/pap/malletgensoc03.pdf> ;, especially Figure 3. Read <<http://mason.gmu.edu/>~jlawrey/biol471/melanism.pdf>. Read some of the major references listed in those papers.<<There is nothing here of substance.I’ve searched many sites and there is not a thing that is conclusive on natural peppered moth predation. A lot of thrashing about in the water harping on about Kettlewells unnatural experiments, calculations on predation through observations and staged predation with lab reared moths. Nothing that ties in with actual observed naturally occurring predation of peppered moths in the wild, one that also encompasses the time span required for the changes to occur.There is a plethora of information about observed moths, melanic types, e.t.c.But there is next to nothing on natural predation of peppered moths.You can make the whole selection rate seem feasable by artificially speeding up the process.Cramming an unnatural amount of moths as prey before the predator, but because the appropriate sightings of the moths are so rare, true predation experimentation cannot be verified. Selective moth predation will obviously be seen to occur under condensed artificial conditions, but it is not indicative of melanic variant dominance of one type within the short time span in which the changes are said to occur.

I will reply later.It depends on how long this thread remains open.I've had some bad news so i'm not in the right frame of mind, however, i'm not arguing against natural selection, because i don't know enough about it to argue against it.In my religion our printed material agrees with micro evolution.Although to me it all seems dubious.I find that there is a need to learn more by reading up on these forums.I am debating that natural selection was not evidenced or proved with the current observations, assumptions and calculations thereof on the peppered moths.My whole argument is wether this is an icon or not.It hangs on how we see the percentages of the moths seen on the exposed parts of the trees.I believe it to be fractional.
As i only know the basics on statistical matters. I have contacted Aig on this point to see what they say about the peppered moth observations, and wether Majerus observations are to be taken at face value or as statistical averages.Apparently they can take a while to reply.

JonF writes...
">>You can believe what you want, but in science we look for the evidence."<<The evidence is in Majerus data.You have chosen to generalize on the data.I believe that they are straight amounts, giving evidence of the scarcity of moths landing on exposed parts of the tree.Jonf writes...
">>Since AIG is an obviously biased source, I suggest that you contact a statistician with no axe to grind."<<I'm sure that they can tell what Majerus data really says about the peppered moths.With this in mind i will contact several pro-evolution and pro creation sites and ask the same question.