
The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36424768
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skepticarse
If I recall the moths were glued to trees for photos.

[http://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/the_peppered_moth](http://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/the_peppered_moth)

This whole thing was BS, or at least a huge part of it.

~~~
splawn
You mean the picture was staged... which is a huge difference from saying the
"whole thing" or even "a huge part of it". Do you also look at paper models of
the solar system and go "Those aren't real planets... must be a bunch of BS"?
It seems to me like you either didn't read the article or didn't understand
it.

~~~
NickBusey
From the link the parent commenter posted:

> The staging was an issue, critics argued, because it over-simplified the
> peppered moth story and made it seem that the camouflage of the moths was a
> self-evident advantage. However, it wasn't clear that moths rested on tree
> trunks during the day, as the pictures implied. Some evidence suggested they
> preferred to remain higher in the tree canopy and beneath branches where
> their coloration would have been less of an advantage. Also, it wasn't clear
> that birds were the main predator of moths. Bats also ate moths, and since
> bats use echolocation to navigate, the coloration of the moths would not
> have made a difference. Critics also questioned the methodology of
> Kettlewell's experiments.

~~~
splawn
Its science... _all_ experiments have their methodology questioned by critics.
These points are coming from the distorted views of Intelligent Design
advocates in hopes to take advantage of peoples ignorance of how science
works, a tactic that sadly seems to work well.

Edit: again, read TFA

------
amelius
> ... the science behind biology's most famous insect

Wouldn't that be Drosophila?

~~~
danieltillett
It is a really good question what is the most famous insect in biology. There
is a good case to be made for Drosophila, but I would be inclined to select
Anopheles first purely on the deaths it has caused [1].

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anopheles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anopheles)

~~~
Amygaz
Depends on your angle:

In term impact to the field of biological science, definitely _Drosophila
melanogaster_. Lots of genetics, and now even brain research.

In term of most beneficial to humans: bees (direct economical benefits) and
ants (largest environmental benefits, so indirect benefit to human)

In term of biggest threat, the debate is open, and always changing: before
mosquitoes ( _Anopheles_ and _Aedes_ ), houseflies can carry a lot of diseases
of every kind (parasites, bacteria, viruses). At one point it was the flea
(the Black Death). Grasshopper and crickets also caused a lot of people to die
from hunger, and are still significant agricultural pests. Ants and termites
(crops, food supplies, infrastructures, diseases...)

~~~
tim333
Mucking about with Google Trends the winner seems to be 'mosquito' for most
searched.

~~~
knodi123
There's a difference between famous and infamous. Mosquitos are definitely the
most infamous insect..

~~~
Natsu
I hate the entire order of _diptera_ (flies, mosquitoes, gnats), personally.

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barking
The black moths could still mate with the peppered variety so they're still
the same species just different 'breeds', perhaps, so is this really
evolution?

I am a layman but one criticism of the theory of evolution that seems sensible
to me is the absence of intermediate forms.

For example types of ape that could mate with say gorillas and chimpanzees.

All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a continuum.

~~~
mikekchar
When you have a continuum, species don't diverge. They interbreed. So the
whole will just carry on. If a mutation occurs that stops interbreeding, then
that line is likely to die out because of competition with the main line.

However, imagine rabbits on an island. There are zillions of them everywhere
and there is a wide variety of mutations. Mostly it doesn't matter because
most of them can interbreed, and the ones that don't die out. But one day the
rabbits get a terrible disease and almost all of them die. The ones that don't
die have a mutation that makes them resistant to the disease. Now you have a
different kind of rabbit where they are all resistant to the disease.

This keeps happening. Not always disease. Sometimes their food source
disappears. Sometimes a new preditor arrives. Sometimes the weather changes.
Each time, they almost all die. Only the ones that could survive live.

After all of that, the island rabbits are very specialised. They might not
even be specialised for the current conditions. For example the disease may no
longer exist. The weather may have changed back. The predators may have died
out. But it doesn't matter. They are very different than the original rabbits,
and also very different from the rabbits on the mainland. So much so that the
two can't interbreed.

There is no intermediate forms because they all died. If they had not died,
the specialised form would not have developed.

We can observe this both in the wild and in laboratory conditions. Especially
with short lived insects (usually fruit flies) we can actually see evolution
happening in this way. But with rabbits... we tried to kill all the rabbits in
Australia with a disease and ended up with lots and lots of rabbits who are
resistant to the disease.

This is why it is important to teach evolution in school.

~~~
loudmax
An even more impressive demonstration is the existence of ring species:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species)

Here, you have a population whose geographic range is in the shape of a ring.
Say, around the base of a mountain range. Members of the species may display
some regional variation, but they can interbreed with their nearby kin. At
some point on the ring though, there is a break. Here, regional variations
will have accumulated to the point where the members are not able to
interbreed and you have what appears to be two distinct, if similar, species.
Only by following the line of population the long way around the ring do you
find that the populations are still connected and actually the same species.

~~~
barking
You sent me off on a tour of the internet about this topic that I'd never
previously heard of and it ended here:

[https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/there-
ar...](https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/there-are-no-ring-
species/)

There are no known examples of ring species, which is a pity because it would
be really cool.

