Mutant moths and feuding scientiststhe real story behind the most famous experiment in twentieth-century evolutionary biology. H. B. D. Kettlewell was a British doctor who caught butterflies and moths as an all-consuming hobby. He went into the English woods with a missionto catch "evolution in action" among the now-famous peppered moths. His work became "Darwin's missing evidence," a fixture in biology textbooks for half a century. Only recently has new research brought a different story to light. Compellingly told, Of Moths and Men reveals Kettlewell as a deluded scientist who distorted facts and suppressed evidence he didn't like. Tyrannized by his mentor, the powerful E. B. Fordan imperious misogynist and eccentric Oxford don who was a Darwinian zealot determined to crush all enemies in his pathKettlewell ended his life a suicide. A story of hubris and heartbreak, Of Moths and Men reveals as much about the internecine battles of science as it does about the mysteries of evolution. 16 pages of b/w photographs.
- ISBN10 0393051218
- ISBN13 9780393051216
- Publish Date 17 August 2002
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 12 November 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 400
- Language English