One of the key political battlegrounds these days is science. There has been much in the news on skirmishes on evolution v. creationism and women's control over their reproductive capacity (including state constitutional amendments that define the moment of conception as the beginning of life), just to name two big and ongoing battles. While these two areas have had serious engagement and vigilance, a far more important battle has been left to the know-nothing crowd. It was a battle we saw throughout the presidential campaign last year. And it will not go away.
The swine flu pandemic provides a useful way to discuss this issue. There, the battle can be easily defined as Your money or your life.
Basically, the issue is whether there is any value in pure science. Wikipedia defines pure science thus:
There is a difference between fundamental or pure science and practical science; sometimes called by the two phrases pure science and applied science. Pure science, in contrast to applied science, is defined as a basic knowledge it develops. Basic science is the heart of all discoveries, and progress is based on well controlled experiments. Pure science is dependent upon deductions from demonstrated truths, or is studied without regard to practical applications.
The most recent skirmishes on this issue involved the 2008 presidential campaign and battles over the budget. It is one thing to intelligently (a term here which means not just smarts, but also intelligence as in an information-based discussion). Scientists do just that. link
It is quite another to show one's lack of knowledge by just picking some issue and making fun of it - and thereby hope to kill important research.
So it is interesting that when we hear talk of pork in the budget, pigs today help us understand the value of pure research.
Consider 2009 H1N1 - swine flu. Reuters update on swine flu provides a good overview of the evolving policies that are being considered based on science in this area.
Our ability to avoid and minimize illness and death are based on an understanding of this disease that came from fundamental reseach into viruses and viral evolution.
And yes, do mention to your creationsist friends that if they get a flu shot this year and any other year it means that they are admitting that viruses evolve. Otherwise one shot in a lifetime would be sufficient.)
Our ability to respond to what looks like a potentially severe disease - especially for children - now also comes from what would certainly be derided by the anti-pork zealots as a ridiculous waste of money to make pigs feel better. That position in the case of swine flu and other cases is based more on lack of knowledge of how science works and of the value of amassing a deep and wide understanding of the world around us. You just never know when it will matter.
Science Magazine has a good overview of swine flu research and how it helps us predict where the disease will take us. This article takes into the intersection of pure and applied research, showing us how knowledge from many areas and years of plugging away and spending federal funding, have helped us deal with this disease.
Jon Cohen, Pandemic Influenza: Straight From the Pig's Mouth: Swine Research With Swine Influenzas, Science 10 July 2009: 140-141. [The full article is subscription only.]
Pig studies have taken on a new cachet because of the swine origins of the 2009 A(H1N1) strain that's causing the current pandemic—and the pig flu research community's eerily prescient predictions that something like it was bound to make headway in humans. Human influenza researchers, who mainly work with ferrets and mice as models, have turned up provocative findings about the new virus in a remarkably short time. Yet the veterinarians who do most of the flu studies with pigs, primarily to help pig farmers, are well placed to make a unique contribution. They know the closest relatives of the novel H1N1 virus intimately, and their studies are offering critical clues to its genetic origins as well as sobering insights about how it may evolve.
The article describes why we need to pay attention to flu in pigs, the science of why they provide good mixing grounds for bird, human, and swine flu. It says that a special feature of the new H1N1 flu is the amount of virus those infected shed, thus making it easier to infect others. Since flu evolves rapidly and since pigs can be infected by bird and human flu, were you to get H5N1 in a pig - that is, the bird flu which has proven deadly to humans who become infected - and should it recombine with 2009 H1N1, you would have a flu that is deadly to humans, can be transmitted easily among humans, and that sheds lots of virus.
The article also describes one important area where knowledge is lacking. That is, where the virus evolved. Researchers have ruled out many areas, including the US. The current theory is Mexico or Latin America, areas where monitoring of pigs for viruses does not take place, because of a lack of funding for it.
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