When I was a student at Harvard in the early 60s the Peppered Moth experiment was offered as one of the defining demonstrations of the validity of Darwinian evolution. Had it been true (as students were assured it was; beyond criticism, in fact), the peppered moth story would have demonstrated only micro-evolution(change within a species), not macro-evolution (change from one species into another). However, as Jonathan Wells described in Icons of Evolution--12 years ago--the peppered moth experiment was not true. It was a fake.
Yet it is still in many textbooks. Now a new science experiment from South Korea describes the subject anew, with a valid--and revealing--experiment. The peppered moth "icon of evolution" has no business in science textbooks. Why is it still there?
