You’d think it would be easy to find meaningless science and scoff at the millions of dollars wasted by educated eggheads who have nothing better to do except waste taxpayer money and mislead the minds of our children with their delusions and wrong headed thinking. Why the hell are they studying that, you might ask. Take the case of this student researcher, Hudson Freeze, who went to the hot springs in Yellowstone park to gather samples of scalding water, way hotter than any creature can possibly survive in, just because his professor, Tom Brock, thought that’d be an interesting thing to study. 

When they got their samples back to their lab in Indiana University, the researcher continued to see if anything would grow in this water as he turned up its temperature day after day. On the fourth day he was surprised to find microscopic worm creatures thriving in water that would normally kill anything else. They named the creatures Thermus Aquaticus (TAQ) and filed away the discovery and moved onto other work. It was 1966. Talk about stupid meaningless science. Dude spent how much money to discover microscopic creatures that like their watery environment too hot for others. Ugh. What a waste. 

Then there was this other researcher, Kary Mullis, years later trying to find a cheaper way to ID DNA strands. There is a way to ID DNA but it was time consuming, expensive and the results were not “definitive” enough. But his genius was figuring out that if you can duplicate the strands you can make enough copies to increase the levels of detection. The process of duplication requires “unzipping” and “re-zipping” the long DNA molecule. But he couldn’t find a way to do it without the strands falling apart because the heat needed in the process tends to tear genetic material apart. Ugh. That would have been the end of this meaningless science story, and our ability to identify and work with genetic material would have never happened. 

That would have been the end… except someone working with Mullis found the work done by the earlier researcher, Freeze, and used his weird heat-tolerant microscopic creatures (TAQ) to make the DNA ID process work. The process is called polymerase chain reaction, but you might have heard of it as the PCR DNA test. Because of the PCR test, scientists were able to decode the Human Genome. Research in genetics previously thought impossible, took a giant leap. In 1993 Dr. Kary Mullis received the Nobel price for the development of the PCR test. All of this world changing science was made possible because of the “meaningless research” done by Hudson Freeze on weird microscopic creatures that thrive in boiling water back in 1966. 

If you can’t tell already, my point is that labeling something “meaningless” is a misnomer. It’s only meaningless until it isn’t and you cannot judge when or how that bit of research might prove its “worth” until it does. That’s how science works. Someone makes a discovery and records the results in 1966, and a decade or so later that information proves to be essential for what turns into a world changing discovery. Thus, an $80,000 grant saved the lives of billions (because PCR was used in detecting the COVID-19 virus and the creation of the rapid development of the vaccines) and the grant continues to do work whenever any genetic research or discovery is done.

We’re going to lose all of that because someone making decisions doesn’t understand how science works and thinks that it’s enough to have a good photo op or headline by slashing budgets and eliminating whole areas of study. Fourteen years ago I wrote about a study done about what motivates us to do excellent work. Granted, there are some who just want a good photo op or headline, but they’re not the ones doing the actual work. The Radio Lab interviewer asked Freeze if he was jealous that Mullis got the Nobel instead of him and Freeze said that’s not why he does the work. Freeze knows that PCR wouldn’t have been possible without his TAQ polymerase, but now he can use PCR in his current work helping kids with rare genetic diseases. You don’t know what research is going to lead the next leap in science and you certainly don’t give the decision about what gets funded to someone who’s sole motivation is enough attention to drown out his own lack of self worth. Good science weeds out its own flaws and weaknesses. We don’t need your ideology or borrowed soundbites. What FELON47 is doing to science and academic funding pisses me off. 

Here’s the Radio Lab episode that inspired this article:

Bonus YouTube video with more information on the flawed genius who imagined the PCR test, Kary Mullis:

Sources:

Tags: genetic research, radio lab, science, science funding, thermus aquaticus

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