Dudes, I don’t like Sarah Palin at all either and I’m pretty sure that she’d be bad for science in the US. But why is everybody getting riled up about the fruit flies thing?
It’s this that she’s talking about, right (google ‘fruit fly research in paris france’, read comment threads)?
Members of Congress requested funds for all these pet projects and thousands of others last year, according to the latest copy of the annual “Pig Book” released by Citizens Against Government Waste.
[…]
Some lawmakers defended their earmarks, such as Rep. Mike Thompson, D-California, who channeled $742,764 to olive fruit fly research.
“The olive fruit fly has infested thousands of California olive groves and is the single largest threat to the U.S. olive and olive oil industries,” he said.
Here’s the Paris France connection.
Does she know high school biology? Dunno. Does she shoot wolves from helicopters? Yes. Does she think biomedical research using drosophila is a waste of money? Probably not…
Am I missing the point?
I am aware that she was talking about a French study on true fruitflies that are pests on olive trees – quite useful agricultural research in itself, not to mention that the insects are close enough to Drosophila that findings in them can be translated into Drosophila genetics.
But that does not matter as:
- only a handful of people are aware that she was talking about that study
- only a handful of biologists know that Drosophila are not (‘true’) fruit flies.
- most people will, thus, think she is dissing Drosophila research.
Impressions matter. Her intention was to diss all of useful science, so useful science needs to fight back
For values of ‘most people’. Most Americans will wonder why people their tax dollars are funding olive groves in France.
I think the Usual Suspects are getting their tits in a tangle because Sarah Palin is the whipping boy de jour. But what do you expect from scienceblogs.com?
my god, you can tell it’s early. That first line should read
“For some values of ‘most people’. Most Americans will wonder why their tax dollars …”
That’s the point – they will never know that the obscure reference has anything to do with olive groves in France. But next time they open any science section of a newspaper they will see fruitflies mentioned and they will frown.
Bora: OK, that reasoning is fair enough. It just seems a little unnecessary to jump on a quote taken out of context when Palin’s other policies are such fertile ground for argument!
RPG: Tsk, Network has politics and religion talk too.
yeah, but we do it in a much more civilized manner.
I jumped on all the other quotes as well ;-)
The last line of Jenny’s (no, not our one) entry says it all really.
Do you think Palin knows any of this?
I’m undecided about whether this is an attack on science – it doesn’t feel like one. They want to talk about pork, and reached for examples that looked absurd (at least to them). I suspect they don’t look at these things too closely, and they find science “pork” easier to ridicule.
I’m waiting for someone to point out that the people who were being aided by the fruit fly research were a part of Palin’s “real America”.