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Now that I’ve had a chance to look at the blog reactions to the Palin fruit fly idiocy, I’m amazed at how rapidly everyone assumed she was talking about Drosophila. This is because most of the world – including virtually all Drosophila researchers – mistakenly believe that “fruit fly” is the proper common name for members of the genus Drosophila. However the proper common name for Drosophila is vinegar fly or pomace fly. Fruit fly properly refers to members of the family Tephritidae. Now, oddly (and I’m sure accidentally), Palin got it right – the project she was criticizing involved the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae) – a tehpritid.

What I find particularly amusing about this is that I’ve had several conversations in the past few years – usually late nights at the bar at the annual Drosophila meeting – about how we should really get Drosophila researchers to use the correct name. But these conversations always end because we quickly realize that the whole issue is absurd. I mean when would it ever actually matter what common name we use for Drosophila. I mean it’s not like it’s ever going to be at the center of a presidential campaign or anything….

[UPDATE: There’s a great historical discussion of the common name of Drosophila in this essay from Mel Green]

[UPDATE 2: It seems that some people seem to think that I was saying that the fact that Palin was talking about Bactrocera instead of Drosophila makes her comments acceptable. I meant nothing of the sort. Whether she was talking about basic research in Drosophila or applied research in Bactrocera, her mockery of science is dangerous, vile and unacceptable. What I find most repugnant is the utter ignorance McCain and Palin manifest – and the pride they seem to take in it].

As I’m sure many of you have now heard, Sarah Palin delivered her first official “policy speech” in which she pressed for Congress to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). To enable Congress to fund this without increasing spending, she returned to McCain-Palin’s favorite enemy – the earmark.

And, following recent M-P tradition, she chose to highlight scientific research as the enemy – in particular the evil fruit fly:

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.

I’ll come back later to the absurdity of someone dissing scientific research while purportedly pushing progress for people with disabilities. But it was amazing how rapidly – and proudly – the Drosophila research community started sending around the video of her speech. One of my colleagues wrote:

The noble fly is honored to be the focus of Palin’s venom.  I expect that Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Arabidopsis thaliana are quite upset that they were ignored.

Not so fast. Before the Drosophila community gets too excited, I would like to point out that she was not talking about Drosophila. She was apparently talking about true fruit flies from the family Tephritidae – specifically the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) secured $748,000 to develop methods to eradicate the B. oleae – which has the potential to wreak havoc on the California olive crop. Why France?  Well, some of this money went to a USDA research facility located in France  – which the US government set up in France where B. oleae is already established and can be studied without the risk of escape.

Now it just so happens that my lab studies this fly – not B. oleae, but two of its close relatives B. dorsalis and B. cucurbitae. So all my fine Drosophila friends – YOU are not the target of Sarah Palin’s wrath. I am :-).

And if you really want to piss her off, send a small contribution to help us sequence the Bactrocera oleae genome. Only $50,000 to go….