The Peppered Moth: Evolution Comes Unglued

Almost all textbooks on evolution include the peppered moth as the classic example of evolution by natural selection. There are two types of peppered moths, a light colored speckled variety and a dark variety. Prior to the industrial revolution, almost all peppered moths were the light variety. Tree trunks at that time were covered with light colored lichens, which, as the story goes, provided camouflage for the light colored peppered moths as they rested on the tree trunks. The black variety stood out against the light bark and was easily seen and eaten by birds, thus favoring the light moths.

But the industrial revolution created pollution that eliminated the lichens and covered the tree trunks with soot. Now the dark variety of moth was camouflaged better as it rested on the dark, sooty trunks, so birds now ate more of the light moths that they could see better. Natural selection now favored the dark variety, and it became the most common form by 1950 in industrial areas of England.

When anti-pollution laws were passed in England in the 1950’s, the percentage of light moths began to increase, supposedly because lichens started growing on tree trunks again, providing the light moths with the better camouflage once more. In addition, experiments with peppered moths in the 1950’s appeared to confirm the key points of the hypothesis. The peppered moth story has been trumpeted since the 1950s as proof positive that evolution by natural selection is true. In 1978, one famous geneticist called the peppered moth the "the clearest case in which a conspicuous evolutionary process has actually been observed."

However, this "clearest case" of purported Darwinian evolution by natural selection is not true! The main problem with the peppered moth story is that it has been known since about 1980 that the nocturnal peppered moth does not rest on the trunks of trees during the day. In fact, despite over 40 years of intense field study, only two peppered moths have ever been seen naturally resting on tree trunks! Since peppered moths don’t rest on tree bark that birds can see, the entire story of camouflage from predators and subsequent natural selection falls completely apart. The experiments conducted in the 1950’s have also been discredited as flawed science.

So where did all the evolution textbook pictures of peppered moths on different colored tree trunks come from? They were all staged. The moths were glued, pinned, or placed onto tree trunks and their pictures taken. The scientists who used these pictures in their books to prove evolution all conveniently forgot to tell their readers this fact. If the best example of evolution that has been believed and used as proof by eminent evolutionary biologists for over 40 years is not true, how about all their other supposed examples? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?