Page 217 - The Error of the Evolution of Species

Harun Yahya
(Adnan Oktar)

to represent the majority, as they had before the Industrial

Revolution.)
The phenomenon of a population composed of light-
colored individuals gradually assuming a dark color is
known as industrial melanism. Some 100 examples of this,
mainly of nocturnal moths, have been reported in the sci-
entific literature. 261 The protein melanin leads moths to as-
sume a darker shade: Therefore, a darker moth produces

more melanin than a lighter- colored one. 262
th
But clearly, the 19 century statistics regarding melanism
in moths are deficient and flawed, when compared to mod-
ern scientific standards. One of the two scientists who spent
years researching this subject, Bruce Grant from William and
Mary University, express this fact: "During the last century
and the early part of this one few people kept records about
morph frequencies, so our picture of the rise and spread of
melanism is sketchy." 263

The British biologist James William Tutt first examined
this color change in his book British Moths. 264 According to
Tutt, typic butterflies on light-colored lichens in unpolluted
forest areas were less visible; therefore, they were spared
being hunted by birds. (Lichens are a symbiotic plant com-
munity consisting of algae and fungi.) In the wake of the
Industrial Revolution, lichens died out because of pollution

caused by soot and acid rain and revealed darkened tree

215