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Article: The case of the peppered moth illusion.(science teaching needs to challenge traditional views of science)
- Article from:
- Whole Earth
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Point Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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How Programmatic Scientists Lost Touch with the Richness of Nature
In high schools and college biology courses, the peppered moth has been a dramatic story of evolution via natural selection. The story goes like this:
The "peppered moth," Biston betularia, occurs in light and dark ... forms,
both of which are shown [at left, and highlighted in the circles above].
The normal ... form is a light, peppered color. A specimen of the dark type
was first captured in 1848, near Manchester, England, just eleven years
before the publication of The Origin of Species. In the years thereafter,
in various parts of England, the relative frequency of the ...