The story is even more complex than that, I think, in that some of the = criticisms of Kettlewell's original experiments are legitimate. No = reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, and more = recent, more robust experiments have upheld Kettlewell's findings, = thought his methods were flawed. =20 I use this story as an example of how science is done in my ecology = class. Someone publishes something, people accept it, but years later, = problems are discovered, and people repeat experiments to fine-tune the = knowledge. It doesn't mean the original science was necessarily wrong, = but that our methods have improved and there are better ways of testing = the hypothesis. I think teaching students how to evaluate whether a = website is credible can also be an important lesson. Far better if they = can learn to debunk these websites on their own that for us to tell them = it's wrong. =20 I highly recommend Bruce S. Grant's paper, "Fine Tuning the Peppered = Moth Paradigm" as a teaching tool and discussion of this problem. =20 Grant, Bruce S. 1999. Fine Tuning the Peppered Moth Paradigm. = Evolution 53 (3) 980-984.
________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of = Leslie Mertz Sent: Fri 9/1/2006 9:07 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Google and peppered moths Something is wrong here. When I typed "peppered moths" into Google,=20 up popped a listing of pages claiming to expose the famed study as=20 faulty science. Anyone with an understanding of natural selection and=20 evolution can quickly see through the pages' creationist=20 underpinnings and find the myriad mistakes in their claims. To the=20 many people who are still forming opinions about the topics, however,=20 the sheer number of these web pages -- even though they are mainly=20 repeats of the same purposely erroneous information -- may lead them=20 to the wrong conclusion. This includes college students, who will=20 "google" just about anything and everything. Perhaps we need to use=20 the same tactics to ensure that the scientifically accurate story is=20 told. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Leslie Mertz, Ph.D. educator Wayne State University
