Melanism: Evolution in Action

Melanism in Action

Melanism: Evolution in Action (ISBN 0198549822) is a science book by Dr Mike Majerus, published in 1998. It is an update of Bernard Kettlewell's book The Evolution of Melanism.

The book contains a very useful summary of Majerus' work on melanism in ladybirds and a review of the peppered moth story. It has been criticised for being uneven, for example it explains the basic principles of evolution such as the Hardy-Weinberg law in earlier sections, and in later sections includes graduate level concepts.

Jerry Coyne reviewed the book for Nature, comparing it to Sargent et al (1998).

This review has been criticised by Majerus and others of not being representative of the work. Other reviews such as by Laurence Cook fail to see the controversy coming. The (see creationism and the peppered moth)