quote:
The white moth on the black tree was quite visible on the tree to predatory bird, and it was killed.
In this case, specific camoflage is selected for. However, some white moths will reproduce, but many more black moths will reproduce. Camoflage is not directly related to the ability to reproduce, just the chances of reproducing and the chances of the offspring reproducing.
quote:
The moths in this area died to chemical pollution caused by insecticides.
. . . because none of the moths were resistant to the insecticides. They lacked the variation to resist poisoning resulting in local extinction. In this case, black or white camoflage had nothing to do with the selection process. I'm not sure if you are trying to say that natural selection is not applicable in this case, but it plainly is. The non-resistant moths were selected against. It just so happens that there were no organisms to select for.
quote:
The moths flourished in the timeframe between the birds migrating south and the onset of winter.
And those moth variants that are able to consume limited food supplies in a more effecient manner will out compete less effecient variants. Effecient food gathering will be selected for.
quote:
The black moth took away the the insect the white moth was after.
White or black doesn't matter. What is selected for is food gathering effeciency and food gathering technique.
quote:
As before, a mutation occurs and it get's "tested" (sampling is not the right word yes) in terms of it's fitness to reproduce. Or the environment changes and the variations already present get retested. (but having the variation already present is not really the correct approach when the subject of interest is changes in structure of organisms).
Umm, I think you might have slipped up here. For something to be "tested" it must already be present. Evolution is changes in allele frequency, that is the percentage of organisms with a specific trait. Yes, at some point in the past the specific characteristic or trait may not have been present, but to be tested it must already be present. And yes, under certain circumstances traits that were once selected against may become advantageous in a different environment. Just off the top of my head, predatory cats often go through cycles of long canine teeth followed by periods of short canine teeth. According to the most popular theories, this is due to a feedback loop between predator and prey size (both progressively get bigger over time until it is selected against due to environmental changes).
quote:
1 or 0, illustrating that fundamentally the relationship of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction, it's fitness, is a matter of reproduction or no reproduction of an organism.
WRONG. It is the percentage of individuals with certain traits in subsequent generations. Using black and white moths, white moths will still reproduce and may make up a small percentage of the population even under strong selection. It is not a stringent "yes or no" type of deal. Black or white does not effect the actual ability to reproduce, but the ability to live long enough to out reproduce other organisms within the species. Also, fitness is not measured by how many "children" you have, but how many grandchildren you have.