Easy to check out

McCain Palin going after fruit flies:
[Via The Tree of Life]

As if scientists did not have enough reasons to vote against McCain-Palin who seem to have decided that Bush was overly supportive of science. Now Palin is attacking of all things “fruit-fly research.” Lovely. Proof that they are both clueless (not knowing what a fruit fly is probably) and anti-science at the same time. For more on this see:
Sarah Palin: Ignorant and anti-science [Pharyngula]
Palin Balks at Scientific Research
Sarah Palin: Ignorant and anti-science
Genetically Ignorant
Think Progress » Memo To Palin: Fruit Fly Research Has Led To …
Palin.. fruit flies…and ignorance

This is from the “Tree of Life” blog ( http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com ) of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate at the University of California, Davis.

Everyone is going off about ‘Palin hates fruit flies.’ This is misleading on several points and simply hyperbolic on others. But then she is also misleading and wrong on some points. And, because of the Internet, any of us can be our own investigative reporter and find out just what is going on. we do not have to rely on others.

Because it is a given that Palin did not find out these facts herself. Someone in the campaign went out and found these facts that ended up in her speech. So can we.

It is very easy to find out just what she said. There are transcripts of what she was planning to say along with video of what she actually said. (An edited version is shown above). The important points are earmarks for fruit flies in France.

Because of new transparency regulations dealing with earmarks, something BOTH McCain and Obama introduced, we can examine just what earmarks are being discussed. A search for Fruit Fly finds only 1 earmark in France, for $300,000. So, there is an earmark for fruit flies in France but it is not in Paris but in Montpelier, which is almost 600 km (about 320 miles) away. So, one correct fact. One incorrect fact. There was no real reason to add where in France it was so why use the wrong city?

From the earmark page, we can see that the money is not for the same fruit fly that we have used in genetics research, Drosophila melanogaster, but the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae. She was not talking about fruit fly research dealing with Drosophila but about research dealing with a major fruit pest. So most of the critics are off base when discussing the genetics work. That is not what this research is examining.

Clicking on the USDA link takes us to a page where we can search for olive fruit fly. First hits give us a lot of information of research in France. Now we can actually inform ourselves about just what is going on and make our own decisions about its worthiness. We do not have to rely on the words written or spoken by others but what we can learn ourselves.

Turns out that the ARS has has a lab in France, focussed on a variety of research projects in order to examine pests that make it to the US in their natural surroundings. This helps identify ways to control the pests without having to do it all in the US.

Without preventative measures, the damage level from these flies can approach 100%. Let’s see. $300,000 in order to try and find a way to prevent $34 million (in 1991) in crop damage. We can find out some of the things this lab has been done in the fight against this parasite.

I would make a point that this would be money well spent and certainly not something stupid to examine. To paraphrase “I would rather study them over there so we don;t have to fight them here.”

I am sure there are some stupid earmarks but I certainly could see how this is money well spent. Simply saying ‘fruit flies in France’ while technically true is misleading in its intent.

So, in my opinion, while both sides had some things factually wrong, I believe that this is research that could be very worthwhile to carry out. Luckily it is very easy to find out this information, indicating that openness and transparency have very definite benefits.

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