The Truth About Peppered Moths

[Micaiah]

When God created animals and humans, in His infinite wisdom, he built variability and adaptability into our genes. People would be boring if they all looked like me, and some may also be unhappy with their looks. You havepeople with brown hair and blue eyes, and red hair and brown eyes. Such variations are not mutations.

Shifts in the frequency of genes in a population is not the kind of genetic change needed for evolution (swamp to person). For that, you have to get new genes, with a new function. Bacteria have to grow legs and arms and get eyes and ears. No one has been able to come up with examples of such mutations. There are some far fetched theories on how it supposedly occured, but we still wait for hard evidence. Some things never change it seems.

Johnny sits in a maths test, and does the first sum correctly - 5 times over. Sorry, he only gets marks for one sum. Duplications of genes do occur, but duplication does not mean new information.The mechanisms involved with duplicating and switching genes on and off are complex and precise. They are further evidence of a wonderful Creator.

There are many so called living fossils that demonstrate the stasis of the different kinds created by God. There are a lot of different looking cats, but at the end of the day, they will never turn into a dog.

 

[notto]

When God created animals and humans, in His infinite wisdom, he built variability and adaptability into our genes. People would be boring if they all looked like me, and some may also be unhappy with their looks. You havepeople with brown hair and blue eyes, and red hair and brown eyes. Such variations are not mutations.

Shifts in the frequency of genes in a population is not the kind of genetic change needed for evolution (swamp to person). For that, you have to get new genes, with a new function. Bacteria have to grow legs and arms and get eyes and ears. No one has been able to come up with examples of such mutations. There are some far fetched theories on how it supposedly occured, but we still wait for hard evidence. Some things never change it seems.

Johnny sits in a maths test, and does the first sum correctly - 5 times over. Sorry, he only gets marks for one sum. Duplications of genes do occur, but duplication does not mean new information.The mechanisms involved with duplicating and switching genes on and off are complex and precise. They are further evidence of a wonderful Creator.

There are many so called living fossils that demonstrate the stasis of the different kinds created by God. There are a lot of different looking cats, but at the end of the day, they will never turn into a dog.

You continue to put forward strawmen of 'bacteria growing legs' or some such nonsense.

Duplication of genes + mutation of one of the genes = new information.

The mechanisms for duplicating and switching genes on and off are sloppy and imprecise - hense mutations and how we get duplication of genes in the first place (along with other substitutions, and hense, new information).

Living fossils show stasis in small areas. The amount of extinct species in the fossil record, points to anything but stasis. Even these living fossils are different species from what we find in the fossil record.

Evolution never expects cats to turn into dogs, that would be as silly as a bacteria growing an arm, more strawman.

(haven't we had this conversation before? Why are you still presenting your strawmen of evolution)?

 

[notto]

Continuing with a quote from the above book:


The theory promoted is the more conspicuous moths on the bark of the trees get eaten by the birds, and those that were camourflaged had a better chance of survival. The problem is the moths were rarely seen on the trees, unless of course you are an evolutionist doing research. Then you just glue them on.

Can you show us a source that says that moths were rarely seen on the trees? You would be wise to question your source because it is actually second hand information that Safarti is using from Wells who is mistating the information.

 

[seebs]

Er, what's your source for saying that the moths were rarely seen on the trees? Anyway, wouldn't that support the theory that they had effective camoflauge?

 

[Micaiah]

Wouldn't say that someone studying the moths for 25 years is not a reliable source.

A further quote from the book by Sarfati:

Other studies have shown a very poor correlation between the lichen covering and the respective moth populations. And when one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trunks in an unpopullated forest, the birds took more of the dark (less camourflaged) ones, as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones - the opposite of textbook predictions.(5)

(5) Lees and Creed reference 3.

 

[seebs]

Hardly enough information there.

Also... I have a hard time imagining that this guy has done nothing but study these for 25 years. So saying he's been "studying them for 25 years" is a little misleading.

 

[Micaiah]

Of course the source is suspect. He doesn't agree with you. I haven't noticed too much attempt from the other sideto quote your sources or substantiate your claims. Just a concerted attempt to hose down anything that contradicts the beloved TOE.

Another quote.

The university of Chicago's Jerry Coyne said that such painful revelations about the moth story ("the prize horse in our stable") was like finding out that Santa Claus was not real. Quoted by Creationists, he now insists that peppered moths do somehow demonstrate "evolution after all".

 

[tryptophan]

My university course (10+ yrs ago ) included the text-book case of the evolution of the peppered moth due to the Industrial Revolution changing their environment.

My friend who is a YEC, discounted the example, saying there were always black peppered moths in the population and that it wasn't therefore evolution. At the time, he told me that the scientific community had withdrawn their interpretation of what had happened to the peppered moth.

Three weeks ago, I was at the Natural History Museum in London. They have a Darwin exhibition and they included the peppered moth as an example of evolutionary theory.

This Sunday, my friend delivered the class - on transitional forms. He also discussed (and again rejected as a preposterous falsification) the evolutionary interpretation of the peppered moth.

Due to circumstances which are outwith the subject of this thread, I kept my mouth shut. However, I was confused and slightly alarmed. I don't for a minute believe that the Natural History Museum would use an example of evolution which had subsequently been disproven, as proof which supports the theory. So does YEC have a valid alternative and if so, what is the Natural History Museum's game?

In no way does this dispute evolution at all. In fact, the presence of black moths (or, at least the gene for the black color) is necessary for the black color to be a selected trait. The moth population evolved not by magically creating the black color to help itself, but by the black gene being selected for. The lighter colored moths were easier to see, and hence were more likely to be caught and eaten by predators. The black color gene would increase, hence evolution.

 

[tryptophan]

First of all, there are many evolutionists who will use anything for as long as they can to support evolution, even if it has been discredited.

Some people do not know the real story about peppered moths so here it is:

In Europe there are trees with white bark. The white moths could land on these trees and camoflauge with them and this helped protect them from being eaten by birds. Now the black moths couldn't do this, they would land and because they were black they would be an easy target to see for the birds. Needless to say the percentage of white moths was very high and the percentage of black ones was extremely low.

As the industrial movement progressed, smoke and ash would be released into the air, much of this turned the bark of trees dark. Now the black moths could land on these trees and be safe but the white moths were now the ones that were easily seen and consequently eaten.

Evolutionists would say that because the trees turned dark the moth evolved in order to survive in its habitat. But Creationists would say that because the birds could at first see the black moths easily they got eaten more often and all people saw were the white moths. But when the tree bark turned color, the black moths could hid better and the white ones were eaten more, therefore the people saw mostly black moths around.

I believe the second explanation is the better and most logical.

Of course the second explanation is more logical. That's natural selection in action. You're unintentionally advocating evolution.