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.
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.
October 25, 2008 at 7:12 pm
As you say the French fruit fly research she ridiculed concerns the Olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae, not Drosophila sp.
Nevertheless since the two species are close, the results of the French research may well lead to advances in understanding Drosophila and may bring similar medical advances.
To say nothing of the damage she has done to the public perception of fruit fly research in general.
October 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm
The French research is not devoted to medicine at all. I think the olive fruit fly work is important on its own merit.
As a biologist, I hate to see the fruit fly denigrated in any way since it is such an exquisite model animal. But as a scientist, I was actually much more upset by the denigration of the new projector for the Chicago planetarium as an ‘overhead’ projector. The old projector was put in place in 1930 and updated in 1969.
I think fixing a tool that has been used to educate millions about the skies is a lot more than getting a new overhead projector.
So why use such misleading examples if there are so many earmarks to be cut? I wish they would chose those instead of being so misleading with ones that deal with science and actually have important uses.
October 27, 2008 at 7:52 am
The main trouble with any earmarks is they are usually simply attached to a bill with no way of telling how useful they are. Scientists, along with most other specialists, are positive that anything having to do with SCIENCE is worth studying. In other words, they are Lobbyists.
October 30, 2008 at 8:56 am
“Scientists, along with most other specialists, are positive that anything having to do with SCIENCE is worth studying.”
Man I wish that was true: that way I’d get every grant I applied for funded! A better statement is probably: most scientists think the science they are working on is worth studying.