Today, we are blogging from Durham, North Carolina, where we are trying to do our humble bit to help elect Barack Obama. On Friday, Sarah Palin gave us yet another reason to feel good about what we're doing here.
We are far from the first people to comment on this subject -- even within the Huffington Post -- so we'll keep it brief. But Palin's mockery of "fruit fly research" during her October 24th speech on special-needs children was so misconceived, so offensive, so aggressively stupid, and so dangerous that we felt we had to comment.
Here's the excerpt from the speech:
"Where does a lot of that earmark money end up, anyway? [...] You've heard about, um, these -- some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense, and sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not!"
It's hard to know where to begin deconstructing this statement. This was a speech on autism, and Palin's critics have pounced on the fact that a recent study of Drosophila fruit flies showed that a protein called neurexin is essential for proper neurological function -- a discovery with clear implications for autism research.
Awkward! But this critique merely scrapes icing off the cake.
Fruit flies are more than just the occasional vehicles for research relevant to human disabilities. They are literally the foundation of modern genetics, the original model organism that has enabled us to discover so much of what we know about heredity, genome structure, congenital disorders, and (yes) evolution. So for Palin to state that "fruit fly research" has "little or nothing to do with the public good" is not just wrong -- it's mind-boggling.
What else does this blunder say about Palin and her candidacy? Many people have used it as just another opportunity to call her a dummy, since anyone who has stayed awake through even a portion of a high-school-level biology class knows what fruit flies are good for. But leave that aside for a second. Watch the clip. Listen to the tone of her voice as she sneers the words "fruit fly research." Check out the disdain and incredulity on her face. How would science, basic or applied, fare under President Palin?
We have other questions. Who wrote this speech? Was he or she as ignorant as Palin about the central role that fruit flies have played in the last century of biomedical research? Or was this a calculated slight to science and scientists -- a coded way of saying, "We don't care what you know or what you think"? We find it odd that, of all the examples of dubious expenditures of public funds, the speechwriters alighted on this one.
Whatever the explanation, it scares us. Everyone who has suffered, either personally or indirectly, from an inherited illness, and anyone whose life has been lengthened or enriched by modern medicine, should channel Palin's flip comment when they stand in the voting booth on November 4th.
Loading comments… 
That is not what Sarah Palin did. She was not presenting a serious argument. She was repeating a cheap-shot know-nothi
I do think that research should, for the most part, not be funded by earmarks. I feel it is too easy for someone get the research done on the taxpayers dime. This research is necessary but should be done by business not taxpayer dollars.
The point is kind of moot now but I am a stickler for this type of thing. Yes I defend Obama from crazy red meat types as well.
who said she was a hockey mom.
She declared herself a reformer
But she was really a hypocrite all along...
The Palin Bunch
The Palin Bunch
Your only point that might have some validity is that research should always be done by the private sector. I personally think that is a dubious point, and that government has some role in research.
The important issue is Palin's spectacula
Any message read from DNA is a lie planted there by Satan, just like everything in that Demonic Encycloped
All species are separate, independan
Don't you love it when she says global warming is has no humanly caused component, it being part of a natural cycle documented in the geologic record?
The geologic record of the past 6001 years.
VOTE!!!!!!
1. (Old Testament Studies). How Noah selected the male and female fruit fly for the Ark.
2. (New Testament Studies). Fruit flies in the Vineyard. The place of drosophila melanogast
3. (Creation Science). Proof of Intelligen
4. (Esthetic Science). How to apply lipstick to drosophila melanogast
Science policy changes. Only heterozygo
um did we have a crumbling economy under clinton? didnt think so....the bush tax cuts have been a burden upon the middle class but have been great for those who want to buy a 1200 handbag...
anyhoo...d
The research she was speaking about was an olive fruit fly. Not the same species as the "fruit fly" used for genetic research. Most of your comments have been rendered moot now because you don't even understand the difference
The reason it is a big deal is that some AgriBusine
You can dislike Sarah Palin all you like but at least when you try to "correct" one of her statements be sure you are in fact correct in yours. Otherwise you simply look bitter and foolish.
So you are right in that she was not blasting genetic research based on religious principles
This is exactly the type of corruption that needs to be brought to light and stopped.
She is from a very evangelica
Obama says NO tax increase for anyone making less than 250,000. Truth: the democrats, led by Nancy and Reid, plan to let the Bush tax cuts (3 of them) expire soon, this automatica