For more than a century it has been cited as the quintessential example of Darwinism in action. It was the story of the peppered moth and how its two forms had struggled for supremacy in the polluted woodlands of industrial Britain. Every biology textbook on evolution included the example of the black and peppered forms of the moth, Biston betularia. The relative numbers of these two forms were supposed to be affected by predatory birds being able to pick off selectively either the black or peppered variety, depending on whether they rested on polluted or unpolluted trees.It became the most widely cited example of Darwinian natural selection and how it affected the balance between two competing genes controlling the coloration of an organism. Then the doubts began to emerge.Critics suggested that the key experiments on the peppered moth in the 1950s were flawed. Some went as far as to suggest the research was fraudulent, with the implication that the school textbooks were feeding children a lie.Creationists smelt blood. The story of the peppered moth became a story of how Darwinism itself was flawed - with its best known example being based on fiddled data.

Now a Cambridge professor has repeated the key predation experiments with the peppered moth, only this time he has taken into account the criticisms and apparent flaws in the original research conducted 50 years ago. Michael Majerus, a professor of genetics at Cambridge University, has spent the past seven years collecting data from a series of experiments he has carried out in his own rambling back garden. It has involved him getting up each day before dawn and then spending several hours looking out of his study window armed with a telescope and notepad.He wanted a definitive test of the idea that selective predation by birds really was responsible for the differences in the chances of survival among black and peppered varieties of B. betularia. His garden outside Cambridge is in an unpolluted area so in this setting it should be the typical or peppered variety of the moth that has a better chance of survival than that of the black or carbonaria form; it is unlikely to be seen by birds against the mottled background of the lichen-covered trees.

View: Full Article | Source: Independent

another creationists argument bits the dust

No... here's the situation.

Key: Peppered moth color gene's are similar to A = Black, a = white.

Black peppered moth would therefore be AA.
Typical peppered moth would be Aa or aA.
White peppered moth would be aa.
(in reality it's probably a multiple so that the genes we're talking about would be AaBbCC to get 'pepper' or something like that, similar to hair color in humans, but not having studied the reproductive results I can't be any more accurate than simply using it as one gene)

Now, we assume we have a mixed population. Many are Aa or aA (can't really tell ) and some will be AA or aa.

Given two parents who are both heterozygous (Aa), you would have equal chance of Aa, aA, AA, and aa.

With parents AA and aa, all children would be Aa.
With parents AA and Aa, children would be either AA or Aa, 50% probability.

So... we start with heterozygous parents...

And we have equal numbers of kids of the different genetic patterns. 1/2 of the kids are truly 'peppered'.
Assume that for whatever reason, white suddenly becomes a better target for predators, and half the whites are eaten while blacks remain virtually untouched.
Second breeding would have closer to 50% black, 30% peppered and 20% white (note: I didn't work out the specific numbers... just throwing some out for example)
Again, white is the prime target and half are devoured.
Third round would have more like 65% black, 25% peppered and 10% white.
In a very few more rounds, all the white and peppered would disappear, leaving only black.

This is actually pretty basic Mendelian genetics. You have no 'gain' of information in the process, and in fact much has been lost. It's a tremendous loss in genetic diversity, and it actually weakens the species as a whole. This type of 'selection' is really quite common, though, particularly when a foreign animal is introduced into an environment, it will likely cause some existing diversity to disappear. On the whole, this shows that we have observable loss of diversity (what I affectionately lump together with DNA corruption and call devolution). The results are negative, and if the situation reverses, the species stays handicapped.

So, if by Darwinism you mean Natural Selection, then yes... it's Darwinism in action. If you mean by Darwinism Evolution, then No, it's clearly just enforced selective breeding

JS

Edited for spelling... it's getting late here.