Page 546 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Kettlewell's moths on tree trunks were published everywhere.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Kettlewell's story was written
into every textbook and would influence the minds of biology

students for four decades. 141
The strangeness of his assertion was first noticed in 1985
when a young American biologist and educator, Craig
Holdrege, decided to do a little more research concerning the
story of the peppered moths, which he had been teaching his

students for years. He came across an interesting statement in
the notes of Sir Cyril Clarke, Kettlewell's close friend, who par-
ticipated in his experiments. Clarke wrote:

All we have observed is where the moths do not spend the day. In 25
years, we have only found two betularia on the tree trunks or walls

adjacent to our traps. . . 142

This was a striking admission. Judith Hooper, an
American journalist and writer for The Atlantic Monthly and
the New York Times Book Review, reported on Holdrege's reac-
tion in her 2002 book, Of Moths and Men: The Untold Story of
Science and the Peppered Moth:

"What is going on here?" Holdrege asked himself. He had been dis-
playing photographs of moths on tree trunks, telling his students
about birds selectively picking off the conspicuous ones. . . "And
now someone who has researched the moth for 25 years reports hav-

ing seen only two moths" sitting on tree trunks. What about the
lichens, the soot, the camouflage, the birds? What about the grand
story of industrial melanism? Didn't it depend on moths habit-

ually resting on tree trunks? 143
This strangeness, first noticed and expressed by

Holdrege, soon revealed the true story of the peppered
moth. As Judith Hooper went on, "As it turned out, Holdrege
was not the only one to notice the cracks in the icon. Before long the
peppered moth had kindled a smolder-
ing scientific feud." 144

So, in the scientific argu-
ment, what facts became
clear?

Another American writer
and biologist, Jonathan Wells,
has written on this subject in
detail. His book Icons of

Evolution devotes a spe-
cial chapter to this myth.
He says that Bernard
Kettlewell's study, re-

garded as experimental H.B.D. Kettlewell
proof, is basically a scien-
tific scandal. Here are some
of its basic elements:

544 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3