One of the oddest points in a very odd and nasty presidential campaign (and sorry if I offend, but the bulk of nastiness has been spouting from the lips of the McCain/Palin campsite), is the attack on science. Granted, I know that Sarah Palin has been quoted as believing that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together only 6,000 years ago, and wants creationism taught in schools. I haven’t investigated whether or not she actually said that–about the dinosaurs–but that philosophy has been attributed to her.

But Palin, who has tried to make herself seem like an “everymom” and constantly derides the evils of the intellectual elite, appears to be profoundly ignorant of science and scientific research in general. Granted, John McCain has promised to increase funding for cancer research, so I don’t know if he shares Palin’s overall disdain or ignorance of the subject. But it is worrisome, if the duo is elected, to have someone sitting in the VPs chair, who thinks that scientific research on fruit flies is being done because of an overwhelming interest in the personal lives of the little critters.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In an election that has been fought on an astoundingly low cultural and intellectual level, with both candidates pretending that tax cuts can go like peaches and cream with the staggering new levels of federal deficit, and paltry charges being traded in petty ways, and with Joe the Plumber becoming the emblematic stupidity of the campaign, it didn’t seem possible that things could go any lower or get any dumber. But they did when, at a speech in Pittsburgh, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place “in Paris, France,” and winding up with a folksy, “I kid you not.”

I supposed that stating that the location of this research was supposed to emphasize how silly it was, that sharing data and working together with scientists living in friendly nations is somehow bad. Or makes the research spending worse than it actually is.

But what is ironic is that Palin has been touting the virtues of small town America, and how wonderful these places are. But I guess its okay if the farmers living in these small towns and rural areas, ie, the real America, have their crops devastated by fruit flies. Yes, fruit flies are one of the most destructive critters to agriculture, and the maligned research was studying that very issue. But even it was explained to her, I doubt that she’d get the message. She clearly stated during the VP debate that knowing the causes of global warming was not necessary in order to stop it and reverse it. So I guess that studying fruit flies to try to control their destructive behavior is a silly endeavor. Just control them, stop them, fix it. Who needs to do research? Just get a can of Raid and “spray, baby, spray.”

The second part of her ridiculous statement has to do with genetics. Scientists have been using fruit flies for over 100 years to study genetics, and much of our knowledge stems from–ahem–fruit fly research.

It was in 1933 that Thomas Hunt Morgan won a Nobel Prize for showing that genes are passed on by way of chromosomes. The experimental creature that he employed in the making of this great discovery was the Drosophila melanogaster, or fruit fly. Scientists of various sorts continue to find it a very useful resource, since it can be easily and plentifully “cultured” in a laboratory, has a very short generation time, and displays a great variety of mutation.

This makes it useful in studying disease, and since Gov. Palin was in Pittsburgh to talk about her signature “issue” of disability and special needs, she might even have had some researcher tell her that there is a Drosophila-based center for research into autism at the University of North Carolina. The fruit fly can also be a menace to American agriculture, so any financing of research into its habits and mutations is money well-spent. It’s especially ridiculous and unfortunate that the governor chose to make such a fool of herself in Pittsburgh, a great city that remade itself after the decline of coal and steel into a center of high-tech medical research.

I rest my case. As I said, McCain has said that he will restore funding to NIH for cancer research. I read his plan for cancer care, and it plainly states that. But as for other scientific research, well, I don’t know where he stands. He hasn’t said anything about the fruit flies, nor has he jumped in to smooth over Palin’s inane comment about it or clearly state that scientific research is a priority.  Or explained how important fruit fly research is to farmers the world over, including those that live in those cute little pockets of real America, and no matter how “Pro-American” they are, their crops will still be destroyed by fruit flies run amock.

I fear that if McCain/Palin are elected, scientific research will take a hit, or at least they will make an attempt to curtail funding. Afterall, McCain did say that initially, all govt spending will be frozen, other than defense, veterans, and “vital programs.” What constitutes vital, I’m not sure, but it sort of contradicts his pledge for cancer research funding, and certainly doesn’t paint a rosy outlookfor other research.  And that is something that should be of concern to all of us.