Keith
Surely you are saying Wells is fraudulent. If so I agree with you.
I cannot remember when I first heard about Haeckel's fancy pictures, it was
at least 20 years ago.did not SJGould expose them inOntogeny and
hylogeny - 1977?
Further SJGould has long critcised Biology textbooks' mistakes. But what's
new about that? Many science texts have lots of mistakes.
Is there anyone who is willing to check books from Disc Inst Fellows to see
if they contain misrepresentations. Others have done it for YECs.
I searched Peppered Moth on a websearch and am concerned how garbled
misinterpretations are fuelling anti-evolutionary apologetics.
I am sure this kind of false allegation does the cause of Jesus Christ or Mr
Moon no good at all.
Lastly has anyone seen more Pepepred Moths than me. I have seen about 3.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith B Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Cc: <kbmill@ksu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 2:32 AM
Subject: Re: Johnson and "Icons"
>
> >The issue is not whether the use of drawings, per se, or the
simplification
> >of them is legitimate. The issue is whether they are accurate. Wells
shows
> >by use of simplified drawings that Haeckel's simplified drawings are
> >inaccurate, and that the biological community has known this for a long
time
> >and done nothing in concert to correct the situation. Wells goes further
and
> >claims that not only are the drawings inaccurate, but that they are
> >deliberate misrepresentations of the facts.
>
> The historical situation is much more complicated than this. Please read
> the research article by Michael K. Richardson and others ("There is no
> highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: Implications for
> current theories of evolution and development" in Anatomy and Embryology
> (1997), vol. 196, p.91-106). Wells' discussion is really just a review of
> Richardson's work.
>
> Haeckel's drawing have gbeen questioned almost from the beginning but no
> definitive demonstration of fraud (at least widely known) was provided
> until relatively recently. the reason is that comparative embryology fell
> out of favor with the biological community and very little original work
> had been done. This is particularly true of animal groups not commonly
> used as laboratory subjects. Richardson, specifically focused on the
> vertebrate groups that Haeckel used.
>
> The theory of recapitulation which Haeckel proposed was rejected early on.
> I was introduced to Haeckle in school only as an historical interest and
to
> point out that recapitulation had been rejected.
>
> Furthermore, Richardson strongly rejects the way his work has been
> represented by Wells. So anyone who wishes to argue this issue needs to
> read Richardson's paper.
>
> In a letter to the editor of the journal Science (1998, vol. 280,
> p.983-985), Richardson and his coauthors write: "Our work has been used in
> a nationally televised debate to attack evolutionary theory, and to
suggest
> that evolution cannot explain embryology. We strongly disagree with this
> viewpoint. Data from embryology are fully consistent with Darwinian
> evolution. ... It also fits with overwhelming recent evidence that
> development in different animals is controlled by common genetic
> mechanisms."
>
> The letter concludes with: "Haeckel's inaccuracies damage his credibility,
> but they do not invalidate the mass of published evidence for Darwinian
> evolution. Ironically, had Haeckel drawn the embryos accurately, his
first
> two valid points in favor of evolution [increasing differences between
> species as they develop, and strong similarities between early human
> embryos and those of other eutherian mammals] would have been better
> demonstrated."
>
>
> >Moreover, he then goes on to present the best current thinking on the
problem
> >of similarity/dissimilarity of embryos by presenting the developmental
> >hour-glass model. He wrote, "Vertebrate embryos start out looking very
> >different, then superficially converge midway through development at the
> >'pharyngula' or 'phylotypic' stage, before diverging into the adult
form."
>
> I find this staement incredible. Haeckel's diagrams have been used
> recently for the very purpose of supporting the "hour-glass" model and the
> phylotypic stage. Richardson's paper was written to falsify that model!
> In other words the rejection of Haeckle's drawings is tied to the
rejection
> of the phylotypic stage. This is even in the title of Richardson's paper:
> "There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates." That
> conserved embryonic stage is the phylotypic stage!
>
>
> >The case of the peppered moths is a similar one. To show them resting on
the
> >trunks of trees, as they are pictured, is to misrepresent the facts. It
has
> >been known since 1980 that peppered moths do not normally rest on tree
> >trunks. No one really knows yet where the moths rest on trees. Moreover
the
> >cause of melanism is still in dispute.
>
> Again, Wells' critique of the work on evolutionary change in the peppered
> moth was not his own but substantially drawn from the work of Michael
> Majerus (Melanism: Evolution in Action" by Michael E.N. Majerus: Oxford
> University Press,1998). Please read this book!
>
> Wells quotes the following sentence from Majerus' book: "The findings of
> these scientists show that the precised description of the basic peppered
> moth story is wrong, inaccurate, or incomplete, with respect to most of
the
> story's component parts."
>
> However, the next sentence reads: "When details of the genetics,
behaviour,
> and ecology of this moth are taken into account, the resulting story is
one
> of greater complexity, and in many ways greater interest, than the simple
> story that is usually related."
>
> Furthermore, a couple sentences later Majerus states: "First, it is
> important to emphasize that, in my view, the huge wealth of additional
data
> obtained since Kettlewell's initial predation papers (Kettlewell 1955a,
> 1956), does not undermine the basic qualitative deductions from that work.
> Differential bird predation of the typica and carbonaria forms, in
> habitats affected by industrial pollution to different degrees, is the
> primary influence on the evolution of melanism in the peppered moth."
>
> This issue of posed pictures is of no consequence. The pictures are
> clearly posed. I recognized this as a high school student - How else
could
> you get a picture of two different morphs together on the same background?
>
> The moths do indeed rest on tree trunks, just not commonly. They seem to
> prefer the undersides of branches and the branch/trunk joints. However,
> the total number of resting moths observed in non-experimental settings is
> very small. Interestingly, observations of the growth of lichens show
that
> the undersides of branches and the branch/trunk joints are the favored
> locations for initial lichen growth. This would reinforce the
Kettlewell's
> conclusion that the light morph gained additional criptic advantage
against
> a lichen covered background.
>
> The book by Majerus covers all tyoes of melanism in a wide range of
species
> and demonstrates that is a widely occurring phenomona with several
> different causes. Melanism, and the peppered moth case study in
> particular, is an excellent subject for teaching both how natural
selection
> works and how science works. Wells does a great disservice by implying
> otherwise.
>
> Keith
>
>
>
> Keith B. Miller
> Department of Geology
> Kansas State University
> Manhattan, KS 66506
> kbmill@ksu.edu
> http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
>
>
>
>
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