I kid you not

摘要

As the Editor of a journal focused on the use of model organisms to advance human health and a former fruit fly researcher, I took it a little personally when Alaska Governor Sarah Palin denounced fruit fly research: “…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.” (Palin, 24 October 2008). I’d be preaching to the converted if I explained what is so wrong-minded about that attitude (but others have done so quite eloquently; see, for example, Hitchens, 2008; Palmer and Pringle, 2008), and I’d be na?ve if I thought that it was an appreciation for the value of biomedical research in model organisms that drove record numbers to the polls on November 4th to elect Barack Obama as the 44th president of the USA, an office he will assume later this month. It wasn’t even what drove me to the polls – I had already voted by the time Palin made her declaration.