Hannity and Carlson dislike science

[pokerfan]

Yeah, I know. big newsflash here...

Posted on: March 25, 2010 3:46 PM, by PZ Myers

As yet another examples of the derangement of conservative thought, Sean Hannity has been pushing a list of 102 examples of 'wasteful' stimulus spending. I don't quite get it; this is money the government is disbursing to encourage jobs for the sake of jobs, and if they were hiring people to dig holes and fill them in again, it would accomplish their task. However, the money is being spent sensibly on projects that also improve the nation's infrastructure in small ways and increase knowledge.

One of the targets of their scorn are science projects, including this one, improving the facilities at an insect collection in Michigan. You might not want to watch this if Hannity and Tucker Carlson make you gag, but the scientist in charge, Anthony Cognato, does a good job of making his case.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/hannity_and_carlson_dislike_sc.php

The bad guys are really reaching here. Carlson tries to imply that they didn't need the money, that all they had to do was stick the 'bugs' in a refrigerator, but that doesn't work — this is a working collection, you can't just archive them away in a deep freeze, and storing a million-specimen collection in a bank of -80° freezers would be rather substantially more expensive than putting in more effective shelving.

[Jim__]

1. The ignorance of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

If that's their 102nd worst way, I'd have to say that the stimulus money was spent pretty well. But, of course, that might not be the conclusion of the average faux viewer.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Remember when the Quitta from Wasilla commented against fruit fly research

During the campaign.


This morning, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) gave her first policy speech urging the federal government to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), “a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation.” In the speech, Palin cited the need to do more for children with disabilities such as autism:

For many parents of children with disabilities, the most valuable thing of all is information. Early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference.

Palin claimed that the amount that Congress spends on earmarks “is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA.” She then ridiculed some of the projects — such as “fruit fly research” — saying they have little or no value:

'Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? <...> You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.'

She is apparently unaware that scientific research with fruit flies has led to valuable discoveries that have boosted autism research, as a study at the University of North Carolina demonstrated last year:

cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for..nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.

The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.

The study of fruit flies has also been used for other autism research and “revolutionize” the study of birth defects.


Sarah Palin's comments display an attitude that is blatantly anti-science. Worse, it's lazy, ignorant and gleefully so. Somewhere along the line, the Republicans have endorsed a candidate who is so short-sighted and glib that she inadvertently mocks an indescribably important field of which she might have a personal knowledge. Whatever happens on November 4, the fruit fly's contribution to the public good will always far outweigh that of Sarah Palin, and she would do well to show some respect. I kid you not.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/palin-fruit-flies/
that one pissed me off as a scientist.

[Moostache]

3. We need to fight their "race to the bottom" attitudes at every turn!

They believe that the best policy is to starve government programs of their funding in order to make them ineffectual and then point to the remaining funding as wasteful spending for such terrible results. The self-fulfilling prophecy is their speciality!

Left to their own machinations, the Hannitys and Carlsons and Becks and Limbaughs of this country would sell out everything about public education and funding of it in the misguided belief that education is (like health care and everything else in their worldview) a privilege NOT a right.

It is that which makes all the difference!

The sad thing is that the eventuality of their worldview, if we allow it to be carried to fruition, is a dead country on the global stage. The 6-years of unfettered wing-nuttery that was Bush-Cheney 2001-2007 came perilously close to killing the country's economy entirely and has left us debt-ladened and still teetering! Yet fools like Hannity are still cheerleading from the sidelines

The only way forward is through more and unfettered access to education, not less; through universal access to health care, not less; through more regulation and innovation in energy, not less and finally through more effective government involvement vis a vis regulation in the economy, not less.

In short, the way ahead is a whole lot more "Yes, We CAN!", and we all know how John Boehner would respond to THAT!