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It's been called a fruit fly for a long time, even if it's not technically right
By Michael White | October 27th 2008 11:06 AM | 8 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Michael White

Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature, government, and society.

I'm a biochemist


... Full Bio

In the aftermath of the Palin fruit fly comment, some bloggers are knocking people for not knowing that the model organism D. melanogaster is technically not a fruit fly.

But the fact is that the confusing nomenclature isn't some recent mix-up - as we see in the paper everyone's citing, biology textbooks as early as 1923 have referred to Drosophila as fruit flies, and

Among 13 textbooks published after 1945, with one exception all use fruit fly as the common name... Noteworthy is the finding that even the Entomological Society of America has been seduced. Its list of common names of insects assigns small (sic!) fruit flies to the Drosophlidae and other fruit flies to the Tephritidae.

So it's not unreasonable at all, when someone refers to "fruit fly research," to assume that this person is referring to one of the world's most widely used model organisms.

Comments

Yes - everyone calls them fruit flies (including me, even though I know it's incorrect). But this is a teachable moment! Now all we have to do is decide whether they're vinegar flies or pomace flies...

Michael Eisen (not verified) | 10/27/08 | 13:01 PM
Hank's picture
There are 30 articles here that make the same mistake (excluding the ones like this one and the other Palin pieces discussing it) .

We don't have editors so I guess that's okay - it's assumed researchers writing are right.   My wonder;  at what point does using something wrong enough make it right?   I can't count how many times I have heard amateur and professional writers use the phase 'begging the question' as if to mean 'it demands to be asked' rather than as a logical fallacy.   But me and maybe 5 other people notice.

Hank Campbell | 10/27/08 | 13:17 PM
adaptivecomplexity's picture
The 'begging the question' thing drives me nuts, but like you say, almost nobody notices.

Michael White | 10/27/08 | 16:37 PM
Stellare's picture
'Begging the question' is an expression I never really understood. I've heard and seen it in writing several times and I had an idea of what it meant, but as you point out there are some logical disharmonies in it. Now I know more about the English language. Thanks, Hank! :-)

Bente Lilja Bye | 10/29/08 | 07:55 AM
Hank's picture
For the gory details on petitio principii and other logical fallacies, I present: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html

Hank Campbell | 10/29/08 | 10:42 AM
Stellare's picture
You have no idea how much I love this shit, Hank. Thanks a trillion and more. :-)

Bente Lilja Bye | 10/29/08 | 11:19 AM
adaptivecomplexity's picture
It is a good teachable moment - I've spent plenty of time in very close proximity to Drosophila biologists and it was complete news to me that it's technically not a fruit fly. The mix-up is not made any easier by the fact that many papers describe fly experiments using fruit extracts for food.

The odds of this being cleared up will be pretty low as long as the two most widely used undergrad textbooks (Lodish et al and Alberts et al) continue to call Drosophila a fruit fly.

Michael White | 10/27/08 | 16:36 PM
Hank's picture
I got a kick out of this over on Prof. Eisen's (not our Prof. Eisen - his brother that founded some magazine or another that Nature hates ) blog ...

What I find particularly amusing about this is that I’ve had several conversations in the past few years ... about how we should really get Drosophila researchers to use the correct name. But these conversations always end because we quickly realize that the whole issue is absurd ...  I mean it’s not like it’s ever going to be at the center of a presidential campaign or anything….

Bwa ha ha

Hank Campbell | 10/27/08 | 16:49 PM

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