Last week, we posted a letter from scientists Kevin Padian and
Alan Gishlick in response to a piece by Jonathan Wells in the
September/October issue of Books & Culture, dealing with the
notorious peppered moth experiments. This week, we have given
Wells an opportunity to respond. At stake are fundamental
questions about truthfulness in debate—matters on which there
should be consensus among all parties to the debate over
Darwin's legacy. In Of Moths and Men, Judith Hooper charges that
defenders of the peppered myth have "marginalized" and
"demonized" scientists who challenge them. Here Kevin Padian and
Alan Gishlick obligingly prove her charge beyond a reasonable
doubt. According to the myth, light-colored peppered moths
resting on pollution-darkened tree trunks are preferentially
eaten by birds; the resulting natural selection explains why
better-camouflaged dark moths became more common during the
industrial revolution. The myth was largely exploded in the
1980s, however, when scientists discovered that pep