Are there people who actually share Sarah Palin's attitude towards science?

I watched her speech, some was on the economy and the platform she wanted to pay closest attention to, special needs children. I applaud her for wanting to do that understand her reasoning behind it. But she contradicted herself as well.

She stated there would be an across the board freeze in programs not necessary, while in the same breath stating that special needs programs would be fully funded. She then spoke to Autism, and then back to 'earmarks' being taken away to free up money and mentioned the earmark for the study of fruit flies in France.

While there are many earmarks that are ridiculous, I don't think people understand that there are just as many that are meant for good purposes.

I'm not a scientist, did horribly in the subject in school, but am fascinated with science and read what I can in the area. When she mentioned Fruit Fly studies, I shook my head. There was a big study done at the University of NC, where not only did they find a substance from Fruit Flies that is directly related to Autism, but they've also identified the same substance in human DNA and think that this will lead to early diagnosis, genetic identification etc.

I know that she personally does not seem to believe in scientific study, but whoever is writing her speeches needs to do their research far better than they are doing, especially in regards to a platform that she would like to champion.

I personally think science is important on so many levels. I don't know anyone who doesn't think it's important....

Well, someone dumb enough to think that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time (yes, Palin really believes that) isn't expected to have blasts of shining insight coming out of her mouth. She doesn't believe in evolution, so it's probably useless to try and explain to her the usefulness of experimenting on different animals that share the same general makeup as us because she will object that we share anything with them. God created different kinds, and they're all different, remember? <rolleyes> You know, I think there are actually a lot of people out there like shawnesty1 above who honestly think that scientists are only concerned with researching and not finding cures because curing a disease means no more money. Nevermind that a research scientist isn't exactly a high paid position, and anyone who finds the cure for AIDS has an easy Nobel Prize (including the ~1.5 million $ prize that comes with it), and ignoring the fame and prestige and ability to demand high paid positions that the guy who found the cure would get. No, these people are so caught up in their little fantasy world that they really believe scientists are suppressing a cure so they can get money by researching it. These people are not concerned with how things work in the real world, they want to live in their fantasy and to hell with anyone who tries to tell them otherwise. I suspect sometimes that people resent science because it produces results, something their beliefs are incapable of doing.

If you look into Sarah Palin's sporadic educational background, this should not suprise you. The danger is that instead of realizing that she does not know and trying to do the research into finding these things out, she is making uninformed decisions that will effect all of us. I have a degree in Physics, and my first career was as a research scientist, so I can appreciate the reasons why we must continue research we must continue to invest in the quest for knowledge, even in hard times, We have to find the money, or else we risk stifling our growth and will no longer be considered a world power.

This lady is very dangerous for America. Everyone at first was so impressed by her being attractive. I could care less about what she looks like, I need her to have intelligence and interest into becoming informed on subjects she does not know about, before she makes all these dangerous decisions and speeches.

Obama:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." --explaining his troubles winning over some working-class voters

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people

"The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society."

"I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

"It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Don't think Obama never makes a mistake.

hard to say. is there an arugment a person could make about public money being wasted on certain projects? Well I would have to say yes there is. my university gets 40% of its budget from doing pentagon research. Now, does this seem right? Should we be spending billion of billions of dollars on finding better ways to kill people?

So in a sense i have to agree with her. If the government is going to spend public money on research it should be for public benefit. I have no problem with some of that money going to military stuff. However, I do wonder if it would not be better to spend most of it on problems like medical research.

Unfortunately, there are all too many who do. Palin has a number of other postions which are obnoxious to any scientist (such as teaching creationism in schools), and were not Obama such an utter fool, I would not vote for her.

It's safe to say that anyone who doesn't believe in evolution or trust the science of evolution doesn't have the brain power to understand genetics research using fruit flies and how those tests lead to breakthroughs that can lead to cures. It's really scary that people don't value education more than that.

I am sure there are quite a few people. I am not for nor against Palin. As you well know there was more to that issue than just fruit flies. I do not see that as her debate.

Is there anyone else who thinks there may be a few more important things? I can name some.

I agree...it is sad. I personally do not think that these remarks should be made about issues the politicians do not understand...nor have the training to understand. This is dangerous. This is exactly what the bush administration did with global warming...and Palin does not feel this is caused by man! What a shame...that is why we have scientists are training and educated.

Very worrisome!

It amazes me how many petty things people bring up on Palin

The reason is because she is awesome . How can you liberals just turn a blind eye on the illegal and radical things your candidate has done?

The truth is to hell with the fruit flies and every other government programs we are out of money spending needs to stop now. Only medical and wellfare should continue untill we recover. Lets see how many politicians want their job if they can't abuse our tax dollars.

They spend millions to get their hands on our money well no more thats what I say be a politician because you want to better your community, thats a real joke.i