Send Them Crawling Back to Their Old Hovel

A common creationist reply to examples of evolution in prairie mice, fish, insects, bacteria, and viruses is that those organisms are still prairie mice, fish, insects, bacteria, and viruses, respectively. Despite the level of obliviousness to the genetics and physiologies that differentiates populations from one another, creationists have no problem promoting the "microevolution but not macroevolution" meme. This tactic is simply them crawling into a hole filled with ignorance. Ignorance of biology specifically and science in general. But what happens when they attempt to crawl out of their hovel...?

Nick Matzke indicates that criticisms concerning the classic example of natural selection, the peppered moth story, arose vehemently from the creationist corner when a simple critique of methodology was addressed by, ironically, scientists who study peppered moths. However, to due to the incompetency of the creationists, the creationists failed to differentiate criticisms from a complete dismantling and declared early victories for an alleged defeat of a "Darwinian" paradigm.

However, the very scientist who creationists quoted to support their early victories has been for the past seven years carefully studying the bird predation of the peppered moth. From a news story about his recent talk:

Now a Cambridge professor has repeated the key predation experiments with the peppered moth, only this time he has taken into account the criticisms and apparent flaws in the original research conducted 50 years ago. Michael Majerus, a professor of genetics at Cambridge University, has spent the past seven years collecting data from a series of experiments he has carried out in his own rambling back garden. It has involved him getting up each day before dawn and then spending several hours looking out of his study window armed with a telescope and notepad.

He wanted a definitive test of the idea that selective predation by birds really was responsible for the differences in the chances of survival among black and peppered varieties of B. betularia. His garden outside Cambridge is in an unpolluted area so in this setting it should be the typical or peppered variety of the moth that has a better chance of survival than that of the black or carbonaria form; it is unlikely to be seen by birds against the mottled background of the lichen-covered trees.

In a seminal description of his results to a scientific conference this week in Sweden, Professor Majerus gave a resounding vote of confidence in the peppered month story. He found unequivocal evidence that birds were indeed responsible for the lower numbers of the black carbonaria forms of the moth. It was a complete vindication of the peppered month story, he told the meeting.

"I conclude that differential bird predation here is a major factor responsible for the decline of carbonaria frequency in Cambridge between 2001 and 2007," Professor Majerus said.

"If the rise and fall of the peppered moth is one of the most visually impacting and easily understood examples of Darwinian evolution in action, it should be taught. It provides after all the proof of evolution," he said.

Though I would use my words more carefully than Majerus at the end, it would only be because he has tenure at a prestigious university and I am simply a student in progress of my bachelors. Simply put, the peppered moth story is a classic example of natural selection in action. Though the science literature is full of other examples, none are as more easily comprehensible as the story of the peppered moth as it is built off of visualization, a tool even the below average student possesses. So instead of saying generic evolution, as Majerus had, I probably would have simply stated natural selection.

That point aside, Matzke gave us an enlightening tidbit at the end of his post. From the ARN blog:

IMHO...a couple of issues with the most recent peppered moth study. It's still a moth, and the evolution is an oscillation of populations, just like the finches of Galapagos. Of course, the Darwinists will appeal to the "great creators", random chance, natural selection, and the jackpot, hundreds of millions of years. Given enough time, anything can happen, right?

Game. Set. Match. The IDists are forced to crawl back to their creationist meme. Given enough time, perhaps they will finally own up to their history. However, this is doubtful. Those in great denial will do anything to remain in that ignorance-filled hovel.