http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/palin-fruit-flies/







Hopefully everyone here knows that fruit flies are extremely important to biological research. Partly because we share genetics with them, partly because they have a short life cycle and we can breed them fast in big numbers, partly because they save us from having to experiment on human beings or other animals. If you talk to ANY SCIENTIST EVER, or read ANY SCIENCE BOOK EVER, you probably know this.







I'm not one to be easily driven into a rage, but this comes close. I don't usually view total ignorance of science as a flaw. To each his own. Most people can get by leeching off the brains of smart people. Even if they want to spit in their faces at the same time, e.g. everyone who derides evolution but still partakes of modern medicine. We all do some leeching and none of us is an expert in all fields of science.







But when you're trying to be a leader and a person who is going to be part of the group of people directly responsible for setting funding and policy decisions that determine how science research is conducted in your country, you have a responsibility not to be a total moron on the subject. Let alone to go arrogantly spreading your own stupidity around the world like some kind of smug piece of walking human crap-ball of self-righteous ignorance. There's being ignorant, and then there's wallowing in a big ditch full of it.







There is a group of people in this world who believe that a few minutes of their down-home, good old-fashioned common sense can easily defeat centuries of careful and rigorous science and analysis. I know some people like this in real life and when I talk to them I seriously want to fly into a murderous rage and REND THEM.