Senator Misleads on ‘Absurd’ Science
Sen. Rand Paul misrepresented two studies supported by federal grants, while advocating legislation he introduced to change the federal grant funding process.
In both cases, Paul, a 2016 presidential candidate and Republican from Kentucky, confused the means the researchers used to conduct their experiments with the studies’ ends, or purpose. Paul also ignored the broader implications of the research.
- Paul characterized one study funded by the National Science Foundation as “bad science” because it looked at “shrimp on a treadmill.” But the scientists developed the treadmill as a means of studying how bacterial infection affects shrimp respiration during activity.
- Paul also left out the broader goal of the shrimp research: to understand how the recent decrease in water oxygen levels where shrimp and other seafood live might affect how they handle infections.
- Paul said it’s “absurd” that the National Institutes of Health provided $2 million for a study on whether “kids don’t like food that has been sneezed on.” But that money went to a six-year project, composed of multiple studies, on . study used a video of an actor sneezing on food as a of understanding if young children can pick up on subtle cues about contamination.
