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February 10, 2012 • 7:22 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
If birds eat the dark-colored moths, only the light-colored moths will have offspring. Is this a story of how genetic mutation led to more adaptive coloration or simply a story of how differential predation changed the predominant coloring of the moth population?
I do not think you understand the process. It is a combination of random mutations, with the ones that make more copies of themselves in the next generation (i.e., natural selection) coming to predominate.
Well, that’s my question. Do the data show that the process you describe accounts for the dramatic change in the proportions of light and dark colored moths? Why couldn’t it just be the kind of moths that the birds could find and eat couldn’t reproduce at all after being eaten while the ones the birds couldn’t find could still produce offspring colored like their parents? If (unrealistically) all the light-colored moths get eaten, 100 percent of the remaining moths will be dark, but these moths won’t have “evolved” into dark-colored moths.
I answered your question. I suggest you go read about the peppered moth story in an evolution textbook You have described natural selection without apparently not understanding what it is.