Here at Reality Base, we’ve taken great pleasure in covering the irreligionist arguments of anti-theist writer Christopher Hitchens. We’ve also delved into the world of GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, whose ruminations on science have been most…interesting. So when we saw that the former had taken on the latter today in Slate, on the subject of none other than science, we were about as thrilled as anyone with a 401K could be these days.
Hitchens takes the well-heeled (literally) candidate to task for recently denouncing fruit-fly research as a wasteful and unnecessary—not to mention “un-American,” since some of the research took place in France—expense. Fruit flies, or Drosophila, will likely ring a bell for most readers—as they should, since they’re one of the great laboratories of all genetics research. As Hitchens points out, the fly can be easily grown in a lab and is a valuable research tool because it lives for a very short time, breeds vigorously, and displays plenty of genetic mutation in each generation. He writes:
[S]ince 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.
He then goes on to lambast Palin’s reported belief in creationism:
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• Check your state’s voter-machine-hackability rating (chances are, it’s high).
• It was only a matter of time: The official “Palinisms” video game launches.
• More on the “What exactly is a ‘green job’ anyway?” question.
• For that matter, why not throw in a “Green New Deal” to save the economy (and the planet, while we’re at it)?
• While we’re on the subject of good news—aka the planet and the economy—it’s worth asking: Does the rise of one necessarily mean the fall of the other?
• A rundown of autism myths—though at this point, there are almost too many to count.
Seeing as global warming is a defining issue of our time and all, it’s not a shock that museums would want to feature exhibits on the subject. But given that climate change is still (somewhat, on a dwindling basis) a politically-charged and controversial topic, what stance should a museum show take on the principal point of contention—specifically, whether or not the cause is mostly (or only) human activity?
That’s the dilemma that New York’s famed American Museum of Natural History is flirting with in its new show, “Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future.” The exhibition takes the definitive stance that human activities are primarily responsible for climate change. Museum curator Edmond Mathez, who first proposed the show several years ago, said the man-made direction was a deliberate move to educate the public on the real scientific consensus about climate change. Of course, it’s unlikely Mathez could have foreseen that the show would open during a presidential election in which one side’s VP nominee stomps on the very consensus the exhibit was built to promote—but then, all the more reason for an injection of fact into the public discourse.
So what does the show look like?
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Despite her running mate’s acknowledgment of the scientific consensus, Sarah Palin has once again affirmed her denial that man is the primary (or only) cause of global warming, this time on the national stage:
IFILL: Governor, I’m happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let’s talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?
PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation’s only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it’s real.
I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.
But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?
The first half of this political sidestep comes as no surprise. The last paragraph is, in a word, nuts. Here are a few past examples of the Palin method—i.e., “solving” scientific problems without first determining the cause:
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Internet slanders or no, Sarah Palin has reportedly spoken words demonstrating her dangerous lack of thought about evolution and education. Now it seems that Matt Damon’s dinosaur question may be more than just a puffed-up Internet rumor as well.
The L.A. Times has a source who claims to have spoken directly to Palin about dinosaurs in 1997, when she was mayor of Wasilla. Stephen Braun reports that the notoriously soundbite-ready VP nominee told Philip Munger, a music teacher at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, that “dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time” 6,000 years ago—an statement that’s so horribly incorrect on so many levels, yet still all too common in creationist lore. Munger said Palin insisted that “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks.” Were these pictures on display here by any chance?
Granted, Munger is no fan of the photogenic governor: He writes the actively anti-Palin blog ProgressiveAlaska, and has appeared on ultra-liberal Air America radio to speak out against her. Still, unless yet another blogger digs up evidence that he’s lying, there’s no proof that their exchange is a myth. And, of course, all this could be cleared up by a simple Q&A with Palin herself—if such a thing was possible.
Image: Flickr/williac
• Congratulations to Andy Revkin, New York Times reporter and DISCOVER alum, on winning the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, which is given to journalists who provide excellent reporting on “stories that simmer instead of explode”—though whether global warming falls into the former category or the latter remains to be seen.
• DrugMonkey sounds off on the “broken” NIH grant review system.
• The National Institute of Mental Health calls off a study on chelation in children. Why? Because it was dangerous and “unethical.” No kidding.
• We here in Mother Russia do not like silly American “Google.”
• Is media sensationalism a product of evolution?
• No politician is safe! An activist group hacks into Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account, leaving McCain grateful that he doesn’t know how to use the Internet.
• Which scientific experts should the next U.S. president appoint to guide him? The National Academy of Sciences has a few ideas—and they’re happy to share.
• M.I.T.’s president calls for a major R&D funding increase for alternative energy; the world (hopefully) listens.
• Newsflash: Doctors admit to sometimes acting unprofessional. Good thing they’re only laughing at you while you’re anesthetized, and not handing you prescriptions for a drug they’ve been paid to endorse… oh, wait, never mind.
• Ed Brayton summarizes McCain’s “sex ed-gate” mess.
• And Gristmill offers a breakdown of the “Palin v. Palin” climate change message.
• The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has its say on aerial wolf hunting.
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