Wells' Icons of Evolution - Peppered Moths

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."

Either Cromwell is deliberately building a strawman, or he didn't comprehend what I wrote. At least he understood the aspersion on Wells' character. I didn't say it was. Cromwell, how about addressing what I actually wrote, instead of your strawman version of it? Oh, the thoughts you'd be thinkin', you could be another Lincoln, if .... Indeed, he is. Or as I put it quite succinctly in my previous post, "Clearly, Wells is a bald-faced liar." Nice to see you recognize that Wells' claim is "not an entirely true statement". A bald-faced "not entirely true statement". Now, if you could only understand Majerus' data, you'd see that Wells wasn't even close.Now, why is Wells selling sensationalism instead of doing science? Here are his motives, from a sermon Wells wrote for the Unification Church (colloquially known as the 'Moonies' after their spiritual leader, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whom they refer to as their "True Father"): Are you buying what Wells is selling?

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.

You are making a totally unwarranted assumption.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.Majerus sampled a set of observations from the set of all possible observations. There are well-established techniques for assessing the reliability of extrapolating the set of actual observations to the set of all possible observations. By those techniques Majerus' observations are "significant", meaning that the probability of a major error in assuming that about 25% of all peppered moths rest on tree trunks in the wild is insignificant. Combining this result with others by Grant and other researchers indicates without any doubt that a significant percentage of peppered moths rest on tree trunks in the wild.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 possibly peppered moths resting on leaves are subject to differential predation. The moths resting on branches and branch-trunk junctions must be counted in the percentage subject to selection by differential predation, and we must bear in mind that the percentage we get by counting them is probably an underestimate. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

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Experiment
1. a. A test under controlled conditions that is made to demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy of something previously untried.
b. The process of conducting such a test; experimentation

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Majerus's observations are experiments.You also missed looking at Grant's and others studies. IOW, he's not a scientist, and he's lying. Why is it better? And why should he ignore resting on branches, trunk-branch junctions, and leaves? Now, that's outright false. Your claim of thousands of unobserved moths is just a fairy tale.

This is an unsupported assertion. You need to present evidence, and statistical analysis of that evidence, before you can make such a claim. Yes. And according to Majerus' measurements and the statistical analysis of those measurements, the best estimate of the percentage of the entire population of moths that landed on exposed areas where they were likely to be predated upon is well over 50%. Repeating your unsupported assertion. Where's your evidence? Where's your statistical analysis of what is or is not likely? It is absolutely deniable; the evidence collected by many researchers indicates that your claim is false. Let's see your evidence and analysis that supports your claim. Yup. And if he wants to claim that his viewpoint is scientific and should be considered by scientists and/or taught in U.S. public schools as science, then he'd better start acting like a scientist and stop telling lies.Apropos of nothing whatsoever in your posts, but relevant to this thread, Grant has published a review of "Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" which opens with a lambasting of Wells, including:

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His ‘errors’ tend to be of selective omission and appear to be consistently crafted to support his arguments. I think this tactic is more common in the field of law in which the objective is to win the argument rather than to find the truth. To readers not intimately familiar with the primary literature in this field it might appear that [he] has assembled a strong indictment against the widely held view that natural selection is chiefly responsible for the temporal and geographic variations observed in peppered moth populations. [The] list of references cited in his essay is both long and impressive. But based on his account of this work in his essay, I am left wondering whether he has actually read the papers and books he cites, or whether he has read them carefully. Perhaps my impression is wrong; perhaps he has mastered the literature in this field. If so, then I am forced to entertain the disquieting notion that [his] distortions of the controversies in this field have been deliberate. Whatever the cause, ignorance or dishonesty, [his] essay certainly does not qualify as objective scholarship.

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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?

I don't really understand why you guys are disputing this. Help me?It appears that both studies show that the species evolved from primarily light to mostly dark. The question is "why did they change?"But there are also some other things that would be nice to know. How do the two varieties appear under ultraviolet light?Was there predation of the lighter moths that opened a nitch that could be filled by immigration of a dark population from surrounding areas?Is there some difference in susceptibility to pollutants in the urban environment between the two varieties?I don't think we really have the HOW down yet. But both studies seem to support the what happened portion of the question.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Argumentum ad hominem. Address the facts, please. Of course not. If you believe that it is necessary to count every moth, or even a large percentage of all moths, in order to get an accurate estimate of the behavior of all moths, then you are sadly mistaken and need to learn some statistics and sampling theory before proceeding. Sorry, the exact size of the population is not required to do the statistics. We know that the population is much larger than Majerus's sample, and that's all we need to know. No. That is not one of the assumptions of the analysis. It's pretty likely that there were thousands of moths in the general area. Hand-waving. Present your statistical anlayis of the significance or lack thereof, or admit you have no idea what you are talking about. The number is sparse, yes, but statistically significant. You are still assuming, without evidence, that the moths Majerus did not observe act tremendously differently from the moths that Majerus did observe; whereas we have evidence (statistical analyses of Majerus' observations and others) that the percentages Majerus found are reasonably representative of the activities of the population at large.Yuo need evidence and analysis to support your claims, not just hand-waving. Perhaps; I'm not going to bother to look back. You said "25%" many times, and that's the number for moths resting on tree trunks. If you meant exposed part of the trees, the number should have been much larger. It was an experiment, one that was not intended to (and could not, by design) measure the results of predation of the peppered moths. I posted the definition of "experiment", and Majerus' actions fit that definition, therefore what Majerus did was an experiment. The evidence for differential predation is very strong. Other factors might also be significant, and research is continuing. The evidence for natural selection affecting the distribution of dark and light varieties through differential predation and/or other mechanisms is conclusive. You're the only one that's assuming, because you don't know statistics and sampling theory.I never claimed that thousands of moths could have been missed. It's virtually certain that Majerus did miss observing thousands of moths that he possibly could have observed. However, the statistical anlysis tells us that the small number of moths that he did observe are certainly close to being representative of all moths. Maybe only 20% of all moths rest on tree trunks, maybe 30% of all moths rest on tree trunks; but it is not possible that less than 5% of so of moths rest on tree trunks. Even if 5% of moths rest on places where their camouflage or lack thereof affect predation, that's plenty for natural selection to operate; those calculations have been done too.If you want to claim that an insignificant percentage of moths rest on exposed portions of trees, stop hand-waving and present observations and statistical analyses to support your claim.

We have a goodly portion of the how, maybe not most of it and certainly not all of it.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.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.

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.

Sigh.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. When you take into consideration all of the moths that would have been around, the percetnatge 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 percentqage of all moths that land on exposd tree trunks is less than 5%. THis is a result of standard and well-understood statistics and smapling theory.Your claim '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%" is an unsupported asserion that is contradicted by Majerus' and Grant's and other'c measurements. If yuo want to make that claim you need to present postivie evidence for it. All you have done so far is wave yuor hands. Yes, and it also gives us an indication of what percentage of all moths rest on exposed parts of trees; the same percetnage as majerus observed. plus or minus 10% or thereabouts. Yup. And there's lots that could be discused about that. What were his observstion mathods? Where were his observations made? Waht total nubmer of moths did he observe? And on and on ... 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.

Wells, yes....I have read his propaganda tome and several essays and such by him. He seems to think that, among othert things, since moths are sometimes glued on tree trunks for photo ops, the entire example (of natsel in action) is rebutted.
That is, because moths are not normally glued to tree trunks in the wild, the whole thing is a hoax.Interesting that.Especially when we consider the experiments done that resulted in Wells' 2 co-authored original research papers in his 10+ years at Berkeley.He removed the nuclei from frog eggs.Now, maybe it is just me, but I don't think that nuclei leave frog eggs in nature.Therefore, Wells engaged in a big hoax in gfrad school.Oh, the shame of it all!

I decided to do some Internet research on this claim: It appears that Mikkola never said any such thing; he studied moths in cages. In the on-line versions of Wells' articles, he explicitly attributes this observation to Clarke. I don't have the book; please post the quote from the book nd the reference from which the claim comes.It appears that Wells is lying, although it's not a big lie and isn't very important other than to show his lack of integrity. Several sources (http://www.phatnav.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Peppered_moth, Missing Link | Answers in Genesis , http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199904/0102.html) agree that Clarke saw two moths, not one, on trunks and none elsewhere; IOW, 100% of a very small set of observations were of moths in positions where they were subject to differential predation.So, unless you can come up with some more evidence, it appears that the "saw one peppered moth resting on a tree trunk" claim is erroneous and irrelevant.

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.

Yes, sadly, you really are that ignorant of statistics. No, I am (and the various researchers in this field are) using standard statistical methods to infer the characteristics of the population from observations of a sample.Majerus' observations are the best data we have on the percentages of peppered moths naturally rest in various places. They are also our best estimates of the population characteristics, with error estimates produced by standard methods. Well, I must admit that it is sort of possible that a low percentage of moths rest where they would be subject to differential predation, but only in the same sense that it is possible that you will win the grand prize in the lottery for the next 50 weeks in a row; it's physically possible, but it ain't gonna happen."Sampling theory" does not refer to Majerus' observations, it refers to a well-developed sub-field of statistics that tells us what we can do with such observations and what inferences we can draw about the characteristics of the population from such observations.If you want to argue that a low percentage of all moths rest where they are not subject to differential predation, present your statistical calculations! Anything other than calculations is arm-waving. {Sigh} you really shouldn't make such firm pronouncements about a subject in which you are so ignorant.You are attempting to mix raw sample numbers (the number of moths that Majerus observed) with inferred raw population numbers (the number of moths that exist in the wild). That's not kosher; standard statistics tells us the result is meaningless.Majerus' data does not contain any facts beyond the reported numbers and the percentages that can be derived from those numbers and no others. From those facts, statistics and sampling theory tells us that those percentages are good estimates of the percentages that we would see if we were able to observe the entire population. Statistics and sampling theory also tell us that the probability of the percentages of the entire population being greatly different from the percentages of Majerus' observations is negligible. It could be said to be less definite, since the moths were studied in artificial situations. But it also clearly shows that the percentage of moths that rest in areas where they are subject to differential predation is in the range that I quoted before. Under 5% is not possible. Yup, you haven't done your homework. You make charges about what has or has not been done without having actually studied what has beeen done. Combined with your ignorance of statistics, that makes you completely unqualified to debate this matter.This message has been edited by JonF, 06-10-2004 01:58 PM