Evolution under fire
Recent books have brought to light major oversights of biology and evolution textbooks in the teaching of evolution. Citing one example in particular the
New York Times has reported on fight to bring to truth to the tale of evolution. Many students have learned of the peppered moths in England as a classic example of natural selection, the backbone to the process of evolution, wherein as the environment grew increasingly polluted from soot emitted in the region the moths became darker in color. It is hypothesized that the change occured as a result of birds that predate the moths not being able to properly see the dark bodytype, only the white bodytype, against the darkened bark of the trees. As pollution lessened, the trees grew lighter, and the white bodytype is now in the majority. It seems that the experiment that 'proved' the hypothesis was highly flawed, and the classic textbook photos faked. Creationists are taking this news as a point in their favor, and screaming for the removal of such information from future textbooks. Their cries of victory might be short-lived however, as scientists are presently rushing to repeat the experiments in a more controlled manner, and to add to the data for natural selection. The scientists involved think that even though the experiments might be portrayed in an exaggerated manner, the principle of natural selection was still at work in the process. Possibly through a method that was not observed in the experiments.
current science news posted by Kirsten at 6/19/2002 07:10:00 PM
Scientists
& Engineers for America
RSS
