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Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Peppered Moths and Natural Selection | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
MartinV in Message 32 asserts:
First I would like to close this:
RAZD writes:
I'll take your non-response to this (and your failure to posting on the above thread) as a tacit admission that you were completely wrong...
Talkorigins also admitted, that photos of moths were staged: Icon of Obfuscation But I can glue as well dead moths on the tree trunk, photograph them and presented them as support of my conception, that there are no changes in population of moths. But if you think that it was done with noble aim to persuade pupilsinto believing in darwinism I have no intention to quarrel about this. This is basically saying that the textbooks are perpetuating a fraud on the public and that the study is invalidated by the moths being glued to the trunks.
This is a serious charge and either needs to be substantiated or withdrawn, publicly. If MartinV has any integrity. What does his link say about this aspect of his charge?
quote: It may come as a shock, but probably more than half of all pictures in textbooks are "staged" -- set up to show the concept being presented in a clear and unambiguous manner. Does that invalidate the concept that is being exemplified by the picture? Hardly. The issue of moths being glued to the tree trunks is addressed in Message 1 of this thread, and the fact that moths were glued in place -- in the initial study as well as in staged textbook pictures -- is indeed not in dispute, not by talkorigins, and not by me.
What may come as a surprise to MartinV is that this does not invalidate the study. Why not? Two reasons: (1) The initial study was to show that predators preferentially selected to eat dark moths on light trunks and light moths on dark trunks. This was done. One set of tests was done in sooty polluted areas and one set of tests was done in clear unpolluted areas. In both sets of tests preferential predation was demonstrated and this was recorded by the data. This in essence was controlling for all other conditions of predation or death of the moths (ie pollution etc) and limiting the results to strict predation based on the difference in visibility of the moths (they were also dead and not moving so the only characteristic involved was visibility). The data is clear. Dark moths were seen and eaten more frequently than light moths on light tree trunks and light moths were seen and eaten more frequently on dark tree trunks.
The data says preferential predation occurred. (2) The initial study does not have any bearing on subsequent studies that did not rely on glued moths for the data and which supported the conclusion of the initial study. In all subsequent studies preferential predation is observed, with dark moths being seen and eaten more frequently than light moths on light trees and light moths being seen and eaten more frequently on dark trees.
Conclusion: preferential predation occurred and has been replicated and repeated, and that this validates the conclusions of the initial study. This is how science works, it doesn't rest on any one experiment done by any one scientist -- otherwise "cold fusion" would be accepted -- it rests on repetition and replication, on testing the variables to see what effect that has on the results, and on expanding initial findings into more general cases. You can think of the first study as assuming that predation was the cause of the different populations that were observed, and testing that assumption in a controlled manner to eliminate other possibilities. You can think of subsequent studies as extending that finding to more general cases and finding that the initial conclusions hold up. True, the moths don't naturally rest predominantly on readily observed tree trunks, but it is also true that (1) some do, and (2) birds don't restrict their predation of bugs to only readily observed tree trunks. The importance of tree trunks and the gluing are insignificant when it comes to the results of the tests. Text books with pictures of staged moths on staged tree trunks still portray this truth: differential predation occurred, it was due to sooty pollution, and the effect was reversed when the pollution was cleaned up for the same reason. MartinV can either
or or We'll see eh? Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5873 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
And for reference, I have been taking animal pictures for years. About 50% of all my pictures are "staged", including some of the best. Although the staging includes framing the shots to resemble the organism's natural habitat as much as possible, nature photography has as much "art" as "science" to it. Most organisms are simply uncooperative - even insects - and for some reason won't sit still to have their pictures taken. Baiting, using captive animals, dead insects, etc, is fairly standard practice. IMO, staging doesn't constitute fraud of any kind. Only someone who's never tried to work in the wild could think this.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
And to add to the difficulty:
Peppered moths are hard to findFor illustrative purposes it was desirable to find both morphs sitting next to each other on the same surface. In an accessible place. With good lighting. Staging seems the only practical method of producing what was wanted.
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5873 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Heh - no kidding. I have a totally staged - but breathtaking - photo of an owl butterfly (Caligo indomeneus) sitting on a branch that shows its crypsis capability to very good effect (one of the few that I've bothered to blow up and frame). What you can't see in the picture is: 1) it's dead - I carefully crushed it's thorax after capture, and 2) it's pinned to the tree by a small pin pushed through its off-side abdomen. People keep telling me what a wonderful shot it is and asking how I got it.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Looks like the answer is in.
His response Message 38 to
RAZD writes:
About peppered moth there are plenty materials on Internet - I have no intention transcript anti-darwinian articles and read your transcrition of darwinian claims ... See Message 121 for a fuller evaluation of your base assertion. I'll take failure to answer on that thread as taking the third option listed. In other words option #3. MartinV essentially admits he has no integrity. None. He just demonstrated that he's not interested in looking for the truth, he won't substantiate his claim or withdraw it. Sad. He doesn't even have enough integrity to post his answer here. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5829 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
Peppered moths are hard to find
If they are hard to find, where do they rest during day? Are theseplaces accessible for birds to pick them? If it is so, what are the difficulties for a scientist to make a photo of them in their resting place? Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
They usually rest high up in trees, where it is very hard to see them from the ground. So yes, where they rest is very accessible to birds but not to us. And, of course, the "wrong" colour moths for the area would usually be rare, so finding one of each kind side-by-side would be really difficult even now.
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JonF Member (Idle past 169 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
If they are hard to find, where do they rest during day? Are these places accessible for birds to pick them? If it is so, what are the difficulties for a scientist to make a photo of them in their resting place? From Fine Tuning the Peppered Moth Paradigm:
quote:{Emphasis added} 34 years. He saw 47 moths, far more than any other researcher. Yup, they're hard to find and pose. Got any suggestions for how to get a light-colored moth and a dark-colored moth together in a well-lit area that demonstrates teh difference in camouflage?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I've merely skimmed through this thread, and I don't have a comment on the various scientific questions discussed, but it does seem to me that the main thing about the peppered moth has barely been touched on: that is, creationists have NO problem with new varieties brought about by natural selection. It may have been fudged or staged or miscalculated or misinterpreted or anything, but assuming it's 100% legitimate, creationists should have no objection to it. This is completely in keeping with what we expect from the ability of a Kind to vary and adapt.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : improved wording
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skepticfaith Member (Idle past 5722 days) Posts: 71 From: NY, USA Joined: |
I am trying to make a similar argument on a different topic
What mutations are needed for a particular trait (e.g. wings) to arise?, but there is a snag here. There is no scientific definition of a kind, and there needs to be or the evolution people will just say that we have already observed evolution between species and you are merely asking for the impossible. Certainly some species are classified as separate and yet they are so closely related - we can infer it is a kind, but there has to be some way of calibrating the kinds..
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Certainly some species are classified as separate and yet they are so closely related - we can infer it is a kind, but there has to be some way of calibrating the kinds.. How about, oh, say, genus, or family? God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’ --Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01 Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
We don't have a definition yet, that's just the way it is. Eventually we may. Meanwhile there are other angles to argue.
This is kuresu's post listing a lot of hybrids, that it seemed to me could be a start toward at least finding the boundaries of a Kind, in MJFloresta's thread, Hypermacroevolution? Hypermicroevolution. Most about at the Family level but not all, showing that the taxonomic tree isn't necessarily the way to the Kind. Then I've argued that the natural processes of variation and selection ultimately arrive at a limit where no further speciation is possible, on various threads, including the one going on now, Ben's thread What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution from becoming macroevolution?, and my old threadNatural limitation to Evolutionary Processes. MJF argues similarly on his thread. This may not give us a precise definition of a Kind, but if such a limit is recognized to be the inevitable outcome as I think it is, then that's at least demonstrating that macroevolution can't happen. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 5751 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Peppered moths, sigh, no, they don't show evolution. It's quite simple: A- the peppered moths stayed moths, they didn't evolve into flies or butterflies. B- There was no genetic code added to the pepper moths, which evolution would require. C- Macroevolution was NOT observed, the moths didn't evolve any new organs or tissues, all that happened was a color change, a variation within a kind.
"If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
MartinV -- welcome to the thread.
msg126 writes: If they are hard to find, where do they rest during day? Are these places accessible for birds to pick them? If it is so, what are the difficulties for a scientist to make a photo of them in their resting place? The information is in the website you linked on this and in the opening post on this thread. I suggest you Read the information available and then see if you have any questions. See if you can find any evidence that natural selection is not in fact displayed by these moths as described. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
... but it does seem to me that the main thing about the peppered moth has barely been touched on: that is, creationists have NO problem with variation brought about by natural selection. Yep. Exactly. This is pointed out in the opening post on this thread, where I show that everyone that has looked at the issue honestly comes to the conclusion that it demonstrated Natural Selection. For the record the results have been replicated by several studies and the worst you can say about the original study is that it wasn't run to the standards that would be used today. It may have used some bad or questionable techniques, but the results have been validated by later studies that did use good methodology. These later studies cannot be criticized on the basis of how the initial study was conducted.
It may have been fudged or staged or miscalculated or misinterpreted or anything, but even if it's 100% legitimate, creationists should have no objection to it. This is also why it is really very silly at best for a creationist to say that this is a fraudulent study -- it demonstrates Natural Selection and nobody is claiming that it demonstrated speciation. And the fact that natural selection is actually demonstrated by the moths is not disputed by anyone who has honestly studied the issue. Thanks. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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