Re: [asa] Kettlewell had design problems

Let me ask who has read Kettlewell's original papers and can make a
coherent case that it involved fraud? Then we can perhaps address the
claimed 'flaws' in his approaches? Is anyone familiar with the
literature here or are most relying on the creationist representation
of the peppered moth? Bruce Grant's review however is hardly that
critical of Kettlewell although he identifies some short comings or
potential short comings, much of which have been addressed more
recently by Majerus.

<quote Bruce Grant>Certainly there are other examples of natural
selection. Our field would be in mighty bad shape if there weren't.
Industrial melanism in peppered moths remains one of the best
documented and easiest to understand.
</quote>

Why not quote Majerus who is the world's foremost expert in these areas.

Even Grant is outraged by Wells
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/grant-pratt-tribune.html

Grant writes in a letter to the Pratt Tribune dated December 13, 2000
LETTER: Charges of fraud misleading

<quote>But, should we blame Ms. Rider for her outrage upon learning
that moths were glued to trees? No. Instead, I blame Dr. Jonathan
Wells, who wrote the article she cites as her source of information.
While he has done no work on industrial melanism, he has written
opinion about the work. To one outside the field, he passes as a
scholar, complete with Ph.D. Unfortunately, Dr. Wells is
intellectually dishonest. When I first encountered his attempts at
journalism, I thought he might be a woefully deficient scholar because
his critiques about peppered moth research were full of errors, but
soon it became clear that he was intentionally distorting the
literature in my field. He lavishly dresses his essays in quotations
from experts (including some from me) which are generally taken out of
context, and he systematically omits relevant details to make our
conclusions seem ill founded, flawed, or fraudulent. Why does he do
this? Is his goal to correct science through constructive criticism,
or does he a have a different agenda? He never mentions creationism in
any form. To be sure, he sticks to the scientific literature, but he
misrepresents it. Perhaps it might be kinder to suggest that Wells is
simply incompetent, but I think his errors are by
intelligent design.</quote>

Wells and ID did a poor job on presenting the story of the peppered
moth in an accurate manner. And yes, I do have read the original
research by Kettlewell and the many papers on the topic. It's not that
I am critical of Wells because of Wells being an ID proponent, it's
the poor level of argument which causes me to reject both Wells and
Intelligent Design which at best can be found to quote mine
evolutionary research since it has nothing fertile to propose itself.
However, it seems that there is a consistent tendency to misunderstand
the literature when it comes to ID 'criticisms' of such. And combined
with the scientific infertility and the theological riskiness, I have
found few if any redeeming qualities in the mainstream ID arguments.
It's a science killer, it relies on ignorance at many different levels
to make its claims, and it is founded on principles which use
equivocation to further its case (terms like design, complexity and
information come to mind).

However, what concerns me most is how ID does such a poor job at
accurately representing the scientific research and Wells' Icons
seems to have set a standard here.

Given the fact that Kettlewell's experiments are still excellent
examples of experimental research and despite some objections has
resisted falsification and even better has been supported by recent
research by Majerus who addressed some of the objections and concerns,
it seems hard to argue that one puts too much stock in his experiment.
But at least we should all agree that ID's complaints seem unfounded
whether it involves accusations of fraud or even relevance of the
research or quality of said research.

Read the original research, I attempt to do so especially when it
comes to refuting the claims made by ID. I have been surprised how
often the actual research painted quite a different picture. Of course
I am always open to well reasoned arguments why Kettlewell should be
accused of fraud or why we should reject his experiments or even why
we should put 'too much stock in his experiments (yes plural, few
realize that Kettlewell's argument was based on a series of
experiments).

On Dec 15, 2007 3:11 PM, James Mahaffy <mahaffy@dordt.edu> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> You may rightly accuse some of falsely accusing Kettlewell of fraud, but you are equally wrong in putting too much stock in his experiment. Do read a little of background on his work. See http://bsgran.people.wm.edu/melanism.pdf in the peer reviewed journals. There were some strong design flaws and I suspect his pictures should have indicated clearer that they were of pinned moths. His point was to show how they blended in with the bark and that was valid but as I understand they were not labeled as pinned moths on the bark. [however this is not my area and I will not go more into it unless I first read the article and talk to an entomology friend.
>
> Unless we actually read the article or look or know something about the professional opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of his work, we end up being critical or defensive of his work because we like or hate ID and some in that camp that have highlighted this as deceptive.
>
> [snip]
>

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Received on Sat Dec 15 19:46:30 2007