Wow, that was a lot of response to something you don't understand.

Whatever agricultural research is being done with the fruit fly in France, it 
is totally irrelevant to the mass of responses cited by Stephen Black that all 
point to the important scientific advances in genetics, autism and other areas 
by studying the lowly fruit fly. Just because research is done with fruit flies 
does not make it worthy of funding (especially if the research is into the 
eradication of the fruit fly). Certainly the argument from Ronald Fisher's work 
could be used to advance any research agenda. In which case, how do we 
prioritize what should be funded by the government and what should be funded by 
the private agribusiness industry? For example, how much pharmaceutical 
research should be funded by the profits of the drug industry and how much 
should be supported by government funding? Should funding be decided by where 
the company is and how much clout the congressman has to bring home the bacon? 
As to aplysia, I was making that analogy, probably not clearly stated that, if 
aplysia were to be found to be objectionable to the fishing industry, would 
their use in psychological research be used as a reason to fund research into 
their eradication? There may be good reasons for the research but support for 
it would not logically be connected to its use in psychological research.

Rick

Dr. Rick Froman, Chair
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR  72761
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________
From: Mike Palij [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:57 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Cc: Mike Palij
Subject: RE: [tips] Sarah Palin on genetics research

I admit to not completely understanding the points made by
Rick below, so there are a few issues that I'd like clarified:

[snip]

Perhaps I have serious misunderstood the points you're trying to
make but I have had a hard time trying to make sense of them.

-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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