Sunday, July 20, 2003		Books

Ambition, lust and fudged scientific data
Kamaldeep K. Toor

Of Moths and Men
by Judith Hooper. 4th Estate, London. Pages 377. `A3 8.99

JUDITH Hooper makes it clear at the very beginning that lepidopterists are boring and that one cannot empathise with them unless one shares their interests, but she weaves such a fascinating story about their personal and professional lives that it leaves even the layman besotted. Of Moths and Men is an account of the deceit and fraud in scientific treatises, of how personal agony like a troubled childhood or illness and complexes influence scientific data. It proves that scientists are not emotionless robots but are as susceptible to lust for wealth and fame as any other person.

The concept of natural selection and industrial melanism forms the crux of the book. Darwin in his book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection had theorised that species evolve because nature selects those characteristics that help an individual to survive and breed. This theory caused a furore in the scientific community in the late 19^th century but faded into obscurity in the first part of the 20^th century. The reason was that while the theory was convincing it was practically impossible to prove until one man decided to do so. At the heart of the story is H.B.D. Kettlewell, a British amateur moth collector with a troubled personal life. Egging him on was the Oxford don E.B. Ford. It was Ford who rescued Darwinism from obscurity in the 1920s and 30s and Kettlewell absorbed his ideas. At the heart of their scientific experiments was the peppered moth. This night-flying moth was originally off-white in colour with a freckling of black scales. But surprisingly, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19^th century there emerged a dark form of this moth in the industrialised regions. These melanic (dark) moths began to breed and grow in large numbers where there was a factory or the atmosphere was polluted. In the unpolluted countryside it was the opposite. The normal off-white variety thrived there. The implication was obvious. In the dark, polluted industrialised regions the melanic moths had a better chance of survival whereas in the countryside the normal pale variety would survive. Scientists thought that this was Darwin’s natural selection at work. For years industrial melanism as it was called, remained a theoretical precept until Kettlewell went out into the countryside to prove it in 1953. He went to Birmingham (an industrial area) and Dorset (an unpolluted region) and conducted his difficult experiments. Kettlewell proved that natural selection was at work. He got the perfect statistical data and was the first to prove experimentally that Darwin’s natural selection was not merely a theory. His work found a place in high school science books and was established as gospel truth.

However about 20 years after his death, American evolutionary biologists, entomologists, ornithologists and geneticists discovered that the experiments conducted by Kettlewell were fraudulent. There were gross irregularities in his work. The experts concluded that the data gathered by Kettlewell was too perfect. They conducted the same experiments in America but did not get the same results. They discovered various chinks in Kettlewell’s experiments and then began an intense academic war between the Darwinians and the new experts who disproved the theory that natural selection was at work in Dorset and Birmingham. They claimed that "ambition, jealousy, rush to publication, megalomania, behind-the scenes manoeuvrings, even sex, illness, desperation" lie behind the fudged statistics of Kettlewell.

The book is an attempt to understand this intense controversy that shook the field of evolutionary biology. It traverses over 100 years of the history of evolutionary biology. Judith Hooper scrutinises the personal and professional lives of the key players convincingly. Her style is absorbing and humorous interspersed with literary quotes and allusions, which can be attributed to her MA degree in English Literature. Biologists, geneticists and ornithologists will benefit greatly by this work. The lucidity and the engrossing story will attract the layman too.