That's a wild overstatement:
Icon of Obfuscation - Peppered MothsThe story of the peppered moth
FINE TUNING THE PEPPERED MOTH PARADIGM
Moonshine: Why the Peppered Moth Remains an Icon of Evolution
I don't have a problem with teaching it as an example of science gone wrong.
I do have a problem with that, because that's an inaccurate description.
Thanks, Ichneumon, I knew I could count on you to set me straight! ;^)
But, still, why give creationists any ammunition? The article I linked from Whole Earth (Craig Holdrege) wasn't written by a creationist.
A longer version of the story, with photos, as printed in Elemente der Naturwissenschaft 70: 39-51, 1999
http://natureinstitute.org/txt/ch/moth.htm
Conclusion from Holdrege's article - I think this is completely valid reasoning.
Conclusion
For decades the peppered moth has been a standard classroom and textbook example of evolution. Millions of students have learned this "living proof" of natural selection. The story they have been, and are, being told is most likely false, or to put it more mildly, filled with half-truths. This is not because teachers and writers are intentionally lying, or hiding and bending facts, but because the example is only brought to prove a point, so that complications appear extraneous to the argument (if not to the truth). Moreover, the idea of natural selection has become so ingrained into the modern mind that it can become like a pair of spectacles that one doesn't remove anymore. Concepts then become axiomatic and science ends up being promulgated in a dogmatic form. As a correlate, the complex and rich phenomena of nature degenerate, as it were, into mere instances of overriding principles. Instead of illuminating, the idea becomes, in Goethe's words, a "lethal generality" (Goethe 1995, p. 61).
This tendency toward solidification is not what keeps science alive. Vitality in science comes from researchers doubting conclusions, making new observations and constructing new experiments, from scientists thinking original ideas that break through the constrictions of dominant paradigms. Science teaching need not only serve the codified "body of knowledge." It can also serve ongoing exploration and the continual renewal of ideas. Since there is "more to melanism than meets the eye," peppered moth research can be an excellent teacher of the living scientific process.