Talk:Peppered moth evolution

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Peppered moth evolution has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: August 16, 2022. (Reviewed version).

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Jerry Coyne

An editor has removed the quotation from the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne on Majerus's experiments, on the grounds of the essay WP:USESPS. However, essays are never more than advisory, and where they conflict with policy, they are wrong. The actual policy is WP:RSSELF, which the essay has over-enthusiastically tried to explicate. The policy states: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."

Coyne is a major player in evolutionary biology. He has published many widely-cited peer-reviewed papers, so he meets the "established expert" and "work in the relevant field" criteria. The reason for the dislike of blogs is that anyone can write one; but when a scientist is notable and relevant, per WP:RSSELF, then the concern doesn't arise. We should therefore restore the brief cited quotation from Coyne on the subject. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Text restored. WP:USESPS even says, "Sometimes, a self-published source is even the best possible source or among the best sources." The statement is particularly relevant to the whole story. Chhandama (talk) 08:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative hypothesis

The selective factor proposed på P. A. Riley is not alternative to natural selection, but alternative only to the predation factor. Should be moved up. 185.91.152.17 (talk) 13:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

True but there's nowhere "up" to move it to. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Problematic title of the article

The process described in the article demonstrates a principle of natural selection but does not illustrate evolution, which is the emergence of new species through genetic mutations. Both types of moths coexist, and one does not evolve genetically from the other — certainly not within the span of decades or even hundreds of years, which is the timeframe of the described phenomenon. In universities, the topic is taught as an example of natural selection, which is an evolutionary process. Unfortunately, even there, the fine but essential line between an evolutionary process and "evolution" from one species to another is sometimes blurred and then becomes a mistake. Hexagone59 (talk) 05:03, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts. However, while variation ultimately must come from mutations, evolution in an existing species which already has variation with multiple alleles (true in almost any species) can certainly consist in change in allele frequency, demonstrated clearly in the peppered moth. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:07, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Microevolution is the change in allele frequency over time in a population, and that is what is described here. So the title is correct. cyclopia ^speak! 11:55, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the insight. In this case the article should at least mention the term Microevolution at the beginning - it does not appear anywhere (and neither Allele frequency).

Using the term "evolution" alone, which is commonly related to mutations in genes, is vague and may lead to misunderstanding of the true meaning of the word evolution here. Maybe a precision / narrowing down is needed such as "This phenomena does not involve gene mutation"?

Another point to make is that alleles frequency is something creationism can live with: as long as there is no new genotype - there are no possible new species, just fluctuations (and possibly extinction which is the end of an evolution). So claim for evolution (vs creationism) cannot be made on this account. This is why in my opinion it's a flaw to consider allele frequency as "(micro)evolution", but it's too late to change that now :)

.Hexagone59 (talk) 15:27, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure any of that would be accepted by mainstream biology, and it's not our job to consider creationism either on this talk page or in the article. That goes for all Wikipedia's biology articles, by the way. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The main issue for us is to use common names, and this is usually referred to as evolution, not something else. For us to change it based on our own opinions would be inappropriate. As for "evolution" versus "fluctuations" - evolution has been defined in terms of changing gene frequencies in a population for a long time. Everything else just stems from that.

Speciation is a separate phenomenon from evolution. What constitutes speciation is subject to debate, as is the very concept of a species. Wikipedia has a lot of articles where you can learn about this - and should cite sources that you can use to verify the fact claims.

Debate beyond that is outside the scope of Wikipedia. Guettarda (talk) 17:54, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:50, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As for "Not sure any of that would be accepted by mainstream biology":

Does this include my suggestion to specify Microevolution and allele frequency since all of you agree that this is the case? Is there a reason this should not be clearly said? Just like Quantum mechanics is Mechanics but still for sake of clarity one specifies this.

I saw Tree of life thru Speciation as the core of evolution (wiki: Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species.) But I cannot argue about the more general concept of evolution you point out.

As for the argumnet I made mentionning Creationism, it was not to suggest its veracity, and certainly not to mention it in the article. It was to make a point which apparenetly I failed. Hexagone59 (talk) 21:16, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does this include my suggestion to specify Microevolution and allele frequency since all of you agree that this is the case? Where in the article do you suggest discussing it? Based on which sources (specific to peppered moth evolution)? If you have specific sourced changes to discuss, please propose them. Otherwise you're misusing this page. Guettarda (talk) 23:22, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]