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When Alaska Governor and Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States Sarah Palin declares that fruit fly research is wasteful of taxpayer dollars (unknowingly undercutting her support for Special-Needs children)…
Richard Wolffe declares the following on Countdown:
"Keith, I’m going to be as restrained and measured as I possibly can about this, but this is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and, and there’s been a lot of competition for that prize."
Wolffe goes on to suggest that her lack of a "scientific advisor" or a "speechwriter who knows what they are saying…" are proximate to her problem.
Sorry Richard – Palin believes humans co-existed with dinosaurs, and all other manner of indescribable wackiness, with little or no help from stooges and flacks. She is not the victim – she is the plague.
No matter – if I were you, I would carry extra cash and snacks – you are about to be exiled from the campaign plane.
19 Comments
My uncle was a university lecturer in genetics, and I remember often visiting his lab, with its many stocks of drosophila (fruit-flies to you). As pointed out in the video, they are a standard vehicle for genetic research, because their generations are short and one can readily observe the effect of natural or induced mutations, among other advantages.
I also recall the ignorant McCain jeering at a proposal for research into the DNA of bears. Bears are the closest mammal to us that can perform the extraordinary feat of hibernation, virtually shutting down their bodily processes for long periods – and then reviving them! There are many fascinating implications for the study of coma, vegetative state, MS. etc.
Right. Make the bears used in research seem like they originate in JellyStone Park and the research is somehow invalidated.
Not just anti-science, but anti-conscience.
whenever I am in discussion with an “inteligent design” individual I point out;
“I can show you a virus evolve before your very eyes, I can show you a fruit fly evolve in a single generation”
I go on to say;
“I believe god created the day and the night, he did it with the sun, I believe god created man, he did it with evolution”
this seems to stick even in the hardest “young earther”
oops, I just watched the video and the speech, funny even though keith punishes her for her moronic statement on fruitflies, he misses the elephant in the speach;
“special needs children will be able to go to the school of the parent choice, their care will be put into the parents hands”
this is first and foremost wrong from it’s concept and second, frightening in it’s implications
the concept is wrond since parents can already send the child to the school of choice, public or private, that’s their perogative though there are few public choices for special needs children in many ereas
but the implications are as follows;
she considers public school an “earmark”, she wants parents to be given vouchers if a parent wants to opt out of the public school system
that very principle is flawed
if I want to opt out of the public water supply I buy my own water
I still pay the taxes that created the infrastructure that provides water, me buying water doesn’t change that
the same point needs to be made for education, there are no “vouchers”, if you want private school then pay for private school, on YOUR dime not mine
newtonusr,
You’ll appreciate my 10 year old’s insight. Here’s a snippet from a post yesterday:
Whole story here:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake……-cronyism/
Well stated. Perfect.
As someone who has carried out basic research in genetics using viruses, yeast and nematodes as model systems, I have interacted many times with fruit fly researchers. I can only imagine how upset they are with Palin over this. My only hope is that they are able to turn this into a fundraising opportunity.
Palin is truly a danger to society.
Whoa. I think you’re right, this is huge. I believe this could be read to mean that there won’t be any more special education in public schools. No more tutors, no more IEPs.
“Their care will be put into the parent’s hands.”
Your kid, you deal with him.
That’s a great point.
bingo, that’s exactly what she’s getting at
mindless, ignorant, uninformed
That about sums up the GOP approach to science policy.
And why does she wear that great big polar bear pin (seen on another outfit)? That really pisses me off, since she wants polar bears kept off the endangered list!
Recommended, and dugg.
Even IF one could not extrapolate research from Drosophila to humans (a crazed view) one would still want to know about THEIR biology and reproduction simply because they are a major pest. Perhaps there is so little agricultural in Alaska that it is irrelevant. But all of us down here in the lower 48 involved in Agriculture or consumng the products produced therefrom know all about the MEDFLY infestation. That was the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, Governor Palin. It threatened billions of dollars of the agriculatural industry in California, Florida, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Georgia, the Carolinas, Hawaii and Texas.
So now we know what the McCain-Palin Administration would do with science!
The US gov’t continues to suppress research. One group of victims of this policy is veterans. They still are not getting tested for brain injury.
http://www.epinews.com/
Because that is the Republican game plan. What they say is the opposite of what they are doing, so her polar bear pin makes it appear that she likes them, when she actually could not care less about their survival.
bingo
the clean air act
no child left behind
the drug bill
the patriot act
all were written to accomplish the EXACT opposite their title
The studies of Drosophila helped us discover CHROMOSOMES (these are really big in fruitflies), that genes were actually ON chromosomes, CHROMOSOMAL MAPPING, Meiosis (sex cell division), Mitosis (normal cell division), Crossing over, Sex Chromosomes.
Someone should tell her that her own childs illness (Trisomy 21) was discovered because Chromosomal abnormalities were first discovered in the fruit fly genome!
Studies of these organisms laid the groundwork for the mapping of the human genome. Understanding cancer cell replication and mutation. Stem cell research.
She asserts that she is the child of science teachers…yet she exhibits the knowledge expected of some Bible thwacking moron with an eighth-grade education from a cretinist backwoods church?
I suspect that she swallows the Creationist bulldada that “fruitfly genetics has nothing to do with people” simply because many of the evolutionary processes are so easily described and studied in Drosophila. Yep Natural selection (to things like pesticides), mutation, Hox genes, genetic clusters, speciation due to chromosomal reorganization, evolutionary rates, genetic drift and gene flow, etc.
She is a Know-Nothing, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-thinking shopping machine.
Thanks newt. It’s a crime to schmime science.
…and the future of the Republican party.
They either go with the “anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-thinking shopping machine (©Teddy 2008),” or they blow the whole thing up and start over.
I’m betting they take the short path and go with Imelda.
Fine with me – eventually she will have to go on the record, and when she does…