DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1

[text=black]After decades of moth-watching, Majerus is convinced that Kettlewell was right and that bird predation is the primary agent of natural selection on the peppered moth. "But that can never be enough," he says, "because I'm also a scientist. ... We're miles beyond reasonable doubt, but it's not scientific proof."Majerus's experiment is designed to avoid the mistakes Kettlewell made when comparing the proportion of typical and melanic peppered moths that escape the attention of predatory birds. He's releasing a small number of moths, at night, and letting them choose their own hiding places within specially designed mesh sleeves, which he removes at dawn. Like Kettlewell, he's using a mixture of lab-reared and wild-caught moths, but his design allows him to test for potential differences between the two. Majerus is determined to get "a definite answer" on the bird predation issue.Although Majerus expects to confirm Kettlewell's conclusions, he claims not to care which way the results go: Any findings, he thinks, would make a splash by settling the controversy. But peppered moth expert and evolutionary geneticist Bruce Grant of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, doubts that Majerus will silence the critics. "To do the job the right way is going to be too labor-intensive and it's just not worth it. ... Right now, I think there are other things that need doing more."[/text]