Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth

by Judith Hooper

"An engrossing narrative" ( Wall Street Journal ) that does for evolutionary biology what The Double Helix did for DNA. In the 1950s, a British physician and amateur lepidopterist named H. B. D. Kettlewell went into the English woods to catch "evolution in action" among the now-famous Peppered Moths. His work became "Darwin's missing evidence," an evolutionary experiment as influential as any in the last century. Compellingly told, Of Moths and Men reveals Kettlewell to be a deluded scientist, a man tyrannized by his mentor, the powerful E. B. Ford, an imperious, eccentric Oxford don, a Darwinian zealot determined to crush all enemies in his path. In a revelatory, controversial work that will be debated for years to come, Judith Hooper uncovers the intellectual rivalries, petty jealousies, and faulty science behind one of the most famous experiments―and myths―in the history of evolutionary biology. Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. 8 pages of illustrations

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Biology, Biography, Natural History, Evolution

406 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Shatterlings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not much wiser about moths, it seems nobody is, and the men are dislikable chaps, they usually are. Parts of this are interesting but it seems to take a while to get there, I think anybody picking this up is already going to know about Darwin and natural selection so it could have been gone through a bit less thoroughly to get to the heart of the story a bit quicker. The moral seems to be most of what you were taught in school was just plain wrong.

Also I think the information given about Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits is wrong, it's cold that brings out the points not heat as stated here. If you keep a Himalayan rabbit in a cold place, you can turn it black, so there you go I can share my useless information too.

[John Mccullough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hooper's book first appeared to me to be a creationist tract, thus not worthy of reading. In reality, it is not only a critique of the "melanic moth" work done by Kettlewell and others, but a brief review of genetic theory trends - mutationism, selectionism, neutralism, and molecularism, if that term might be used. As a young graduate student I was wooed by E. B. Ford's ecological genetics, or the less radical form - theory plus empiricism to see how the damned thing (evolution) actually worked. I am a minimalist, working on specific genes in humans (cerumen, phenylketonuria, now hemochromatosis). I knew or casually met a number of the people mentioned in the book and wished I had met more. The book is perhaps a brief introduction to the history of the field, a damning critique of studies of "melanism" in lepidoptera and an introduction to some very interesting if eccentric/flawed geniuses. It has hunan drama so may appeal to the general audience on that score but it is really a history of a small number of people attached to very prestigious institutions in England and in the US. I think she is a bit heavy in her critique if the Brits, but she is also sympathetic. The book is well-written and can be read in 2 or 3 easy nights. I shall read it again as there is much to digest for those interested in natural selection in any species.

[Ashley K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched and packed with information. The upshot is that there's evidence that the famous peppered moth experiment (which, in a nutshell, indicated that industrial soot on trees in the UK led to a darker/melanic form of the usually-pale peppered moth becoming more common, because it could blend in better and escape predation by birds) was shoddy, sloppily-done science (if not outright fabricated). The experiment, for those who don't know, was a Really Big Deal, referenced in virtually every biology textbook, because many heralded it as "proof" of evolution. Any instance of data falsification or "fudging" in science is always serious, but in this instance it's deeply troubling because it gives fodder to evolution naysayers. But it gives enough detail about the lives of those involved that the reader feels sympathy for the experimenter (Bernard Kettlewell), in many ways a victim of academia's toxic culture and intense pressure.

[Allison Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the review that said this could be read in 2-3 easy nights when fit new it was so dry I had to set it down for a few months or so lol. Anyhoooooo, who isn’t familiar with this example? You’ve all seen it in your textbooks right? The peppered moth that “evolved” with industrial pollution. It’s usually a picture of two moths on a light colored tree and two on a tree darkened by soot. Basically showing how one stands out to operating in each type of environment and how that can lead to natural selection.

It’s a lot of old boys club shit. You know old scientist rivalry. Men trying to prove shit to each other and shit talking. 🙄 okay but for real, I was familiar with this moth example that proved natural selection but DAMN , if this book didn’t cash it out on BAAAAAADDDDD science. Kettlewell has some serious flaws in his research. Like not using local/native population, setting moths on trees where they might not even actually use that as a topical resting place, using non live specimens (all this essentially making just a feeding center for birds ), not taking into account other predation, I mean it goes on and on.

The book was interesting but it def dragged. I think I picked this up at a thrift stores YEARRRRSSS ago. Glad it’s finally out of my collection lol

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Michael Majerus, the late Professor of Ecology at Cambridge, in his Darwin day lecture describes her book as “littered with errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods,” per friend Paul Braterman. So, creationists use of this book to try to deny evolution by natural selection just doesn't work. That would include clear creationist Jonathan Wells in “Icons of Evolution.”

[Bella]

I really enjoyed the parts of this that I understood. I found it to be extremely well researched and reasonably even-handed. It almost has the flow of a novel.

When I picked it up (as a second-hand bookshop in Tasmania) I had no idea of the controversy that the book is a part of. I read up on it on Wikipedia and felt like all I was missing was some popcorn. In this book Hooper paints a portrait of squabbling scientists eager to prove their beliefs, and that is played out outside the book with criticism of the author and the book. I have zero stakes in this game, and the representation of a bunch of privileged old white men heatedly arguing over the minutia with personal attacks and footnotes--but with little reference to the bigger picture or the outside world--was hilarious. I work in politics, not academia, but Hooper just nailed that world.

I am not a creationist, the author is not a creationist, I do not know if I've even ever met a creationist (I don't live in the US). It's a shame it's been fodder for creationists, even though if they actually read the book they'd see that evolution isn't being questioned. As Hooper says (p. 312) "... the fact that 'Darwin's missing evidence' is imperfect does not disprove the theory of evolution."

A starting point if you'd like to learn more about where the book sits in the ongoing saga of the peppered moth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppere...#

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up reading 'Of Moths and Men' because I was locked out of the hallowed halls of knowledge, the Richland Public Library, by a petty regulation for three weeks. With no other recourse for books, I was luckily able to find enough tolerable reading material for cheap in the Friends of the Richland Public Library Store, who are more than willing to take (very little of) your money when the library won't give you books.

I had some ups and downs in opinion of this book as I read it, but ultimately, I think I enjoyed it, and it was worth reading. I appreciated the overview she gave of the history of evolutionary biology, including a focus on the Synthesis (of Darwin's Natural Selection and Mendel's Genetics) that marked one of the biggest advances in evolution ever. The coverage wasn't as in-depth as I would have enjoyed it to be, but it was a tangent from the main thrust of the book anyway, merely there to lay necessary groundwork for the tale ahead.

Hooper spends much of the book exploring the characters of two major figures in evolutionary bio in the twentieth century: arrogant, brilliant professor Henry Ford, and the charming, larger-than-life lepidopterist Bernard Kettlewell. Ford seems to have recruited the prodigious Kettlewell to go out and prove the occurrence of Natural Selection in nature. Their case seemed ready-made: peppered moths, [i]Biston betularia[/i], began to turn dark (become melanic, as they say) just at the time when coal pollution from Britain's factories began to commit genocide on the light gray lichens of its forests. The trees got darker, the lighter moths were presumed more visible to predators (those of the colored vision variety, ie birds), and thus selection favoured the melanics. Demonstrating the conclusion experimentally, however, proved much more difficult than anyone expected. In spite of all those difficulties and failures, however, it was announced triumphantly by the over-eager, never-wrong Ford that he (and his helper Kettlewell) had proven natural selection occurred conclusively.

The whole exercise proves first of all the dangers of arrogance in biology. There are no situations that can be easily and intuitively grasped in all their realized complexity. The story of the peppered moth seemed too easy because is [i]was[/i]. Field scientists have accumulated an overwhelming amount of evidence that clashes with the neat story ever since it was published. This usually betokens a paradigm shift, but the situation here is a bit more complicated. The paradigm - natural selection - is unquestioned. The original experiment was bad science, but unfortunately, the mounds of accumulated evidence against it haven't shifted it out of its place in the paradigm.

It's an interesting and telling story, a cautionary tale about the dangers treating the most oft-repeated stories of one's field on unquestioning faith. The men involved are somewhat interesting too, but not enough to really merit the attention, I felt. The value of the story is more as a parable. If you are interested in the history and philosophy of science, this might be of interest to you.

[Steve Root · Rating 5 out of 5]

Education - it's a problem. Scientific education even more so. How to squeeze in the merest hint of knowledge into a group of 10 year olds who have no higher thought than who fancies/bullies/hates/loves who.

What is needed is a shortcut, perhaps just one picture, which will etch the concepts it embodies in relief so stark that they will be grasped to the bosom of even the most 'challenged' sub-adolescent for its entire life. In later years they will proudly boast of their depth of insight into evolutionary theory imparted by this single episode. It's all there - it's obvious innit?

And so HBD (Bernard) Kettlewell, a man who was standing on the shoulders of giants, as the giants never ceased reminding him, came to be the (mostly) unwitting torchbearer for the Darwinian cavalcade. Swept up by an all-consuming passion and in awe of a motley crue of dapper polymaths, Oxford luminati and banking heiresses our hero Kettlewell leaves no trunk unturned in search of the ultimate proof of a seemingly bulletproof concept. Black soot, black moths. Simples.

This is nature where nothing is ever that simple and the more blindingly obvious the theory, the more worm-ridden it will be when you turn it over. But this particular theory is strong, it has power beyond mere science and reaches into the realms of folklore. To challenge it is a heresy, to even enquire about its methodology invites disdain and approbrium from the Great & Good.

Happily there were a few of the more individualistic souls willing to scratch the itch that this most iconic of scientific illustrations had left them with.

Ms Hoopers book details clearly the original experiment and the travails of those involved in it. All human life is here, plus a fair portion of demagogery, self-delusion and hypochondria. She paints a vivid picture of post-war English morés and attitudes with a very neutral brush, avoiding simple stereotypes where possible whilst not avoiding the truism that stereotypes often have deep roots. She imbues E.B Ford, 'evolutionist and raconteur', the driving force behind all this, with a hint of the Machiavelli. She notes that 'in Oxford a Don without a college is like a man without a country'.

The meat of the book is not the experiment itself, but how it came to be an institution and a form of unquestionable holy writ. Ms Hooper has done a painstakingly professional job here, finding and interviewing the few remaining members of the clique. As time has passed more and more criticism has been aimed at the original experiment, its methods and its mathematics, yet no contrary results have even dented its shiny carapace. To all intents and purposes it has now been utterly torn to shreds and should now be firmly esconced in the seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time bin with phlogiston and the ether. That it isn't is a testament to the unshakeable bigotry of the scientific establishment.

Read this book. It will show you that the only thing which matches scientific intelligence is its malice and unswerving tunnel vision.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

It tells the complicated story of the melanic peppered moth of biology book fame. But more importantly, it tells the story of simple men who through ambition and cleverness muddle their way through experiments to make there mark on science. It shows the difficultly and messiness of creating scientific experiments and executing them. It shows how politicized the scientific community can be. That, and when you finish reading it you can impress your biology friends with your knowledge of Lamarck and tell them why all those iconic pictures in your high school text books are wrong.

[Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit wordy, but overall a great testament to the turn of the century developments in evolutionary biology and the effect of industrialization, both figuratively and quite literally, on modern science.

[AskNezka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really eye-opening in regards to the "proof" of evolution that we were all taught in school ... in reality still just a theory!

[Eileen]

Fascinating story about the drama around the theory of Natural Selection and the peppered moth. Great read for atheists, agnostics and creationists alike!

[John E · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still trying to find the point of the book -- what is the author's conclusion. Great cast of characters (with multiple foibles, like the rest of us) with great dedication snd self-centeredness.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating and well-written book about the history of science, the doing of science and evolution. Surprisingly suspenseful for a nonfiction read.