''Of Moths and Men'' is a book by

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

Judith Hooper about the

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

ecological genetics Ecological genetics is the study of genetics in natural populations. Traits in a population can be observed and quantified to represent a species adapting to a changing environment. This contrasts with classical genetics, which works mostly on ...

school led by

E.B. Ford Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford (23 April 1901 – 2 January 1988) was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested i ...

. The book specifically concerns Bernard Kettlewell's experiments on the

peppered moth The peppered moth (''Biston betularia'') is a temperate species of night-flying moth. It is mostly found in the northern hemisphere in places like Asia, Europe and North America. Peppered moth evolution is an example of population genetics an ...

which were intended as experimental validation of evolution. She highlights supposed problems with the methodology of Kettlewell's experiments and suggests that these issues could invalidate the results obtained, ignoring or disparaging evidence supporting

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

while repeatedly implying that Kettlewell and his colleagues committed fraud or made careless errors. Subject matter experts have described the book as presenting a " conspiracy theory" with "errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods". The evolutionary biologist

Michael Majerus Michael Eugene Nicolas Majerus (13 February 1954 – 27 January 2009) was a British geneticist and professor of evolution at the University of Cambridge. He was also a teaching fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. He was an enthusiast in Darwin' ...

spent the last 7 years of his life systematically repeating Kettlewell's experiments, demonstrating that Kettlewell had in fact been correct.

Allegations of poor experimental practice

Hooper alleges several flaws in experimental methodology, including gluing the moths in place on parts of trees where they would not naturally settle, feeding birds heavily enough to condition them to expect feeding at that point, artificially boosting recapture rates, altering experiments (unconsciously) to favour the expected outcome, and errors in statistical analysis. The historian of biology David Rudge has carefully reexamined the records upon which Hooper's argument is based. His conclusions were that her historical research was poor and she had shown fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of science.

Reviews

The book was described as well-written in reviews in the mainstream press, but it was severely criticised in scientific publications. Writing in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'', Coyne (2002) attacked Hooper's "flimsy conspiracy theory fambitious scientists who will ignore the truth for the sake of fame and recognition

y which Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...

she unfairly smears a brilliant naturalist". In ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'', Grant (2002) critically summarised the book's content, saying "What it delivers is a quasi-scientific assessment of the evidence for natural selection in the peppered moth (''Biston betularia''), much of which is cast in doubt by the author’s relentless suspicion of fraud".

Bryan Clarke Bryan Campbell Clarke (24 June 1932 – 27 February 2014) was a British Professor of genetics, latterly emeritus at the University of Nottingham. Clarke is particularly noted for his work on apostatic selection (which is a term he coined ...

, who worked alongside Kettlewell at Oxford, described Hooper's book as "a treasury of insinuations worthy of an unscrupulous newspaper". The entomologist and expert on peppered moth evolution

described the book as "littered with errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods". He spent the last 7 years of his life on research, systematically refuting Hooper's claims. Much of the work was published posthumously, the data being reviewed by a team of evolutionary biologists, leading to a vindication of Kettlewell's findings, the re-establishment of his reputation, and the restoration of the peppered moth as an exemplar of Darwinian evolution.

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Of Moths And Men Biology books Ecology books Selection 2002 non-fiction books