Coffee Break with Liz and Kate » Headline, Liz's Rants » Are your shrimp in shape? – Liz’s rant
Are your shrimp in shape? – Liz’s rant
And furthermore, do you really care? Well, either the National Science Foundation cares, or they’re in a contest with other people to come up with the most idiotic uses of taxpayer dollars ever known to man. I’m going with the contest scenario.
Here’s the scoop. A senate report recently revealed that the NSF has mismanaged about $3 billion – partly to fund the exercise ability of shrimp… on a treadmill. Apparently, NSF employees tested sick shrimps’ metabolism. And boy, who could’ve guessed what they found:
The sick shrimp “did not perform as well and did not recover as well from exercise as healthy shrimp,” according to the report. Price tag to come to this “my-9-year-old-could’ve-guessed-this” conclusion? $559,681.
But the story doesn’t end there. Among the other ways the NSF used our tax dollars:
- Jell-O wrestling in Antarctica
- A laundry-folding robot
- A YouTube rap video
- A robot hoedown and rodeo
- Virtual recreation of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair
The senate report goes on to say that the NSF did fire the organizer of the Jell-O fiasco, and the staff got a big lecture, blah, blah, blah. According to some emails from people at the NSF McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Raytheon Polar Services paid for the wrestling matches, so who knows.
But here’s the scariest part. A spokesperson for the NSF had this to say:
“We believe that no other funding agency in the world comes close to NSF for giving taxpayers the best return on their investment.”
Tell that to the shrimp on the treadmill. I’m not buying it.
-Liz
Related articles
- NSF gets down and dirty – with Jell-O! (rt.com)
- Taxpayer-funded Jello Wrestling? (nyletterpress.wordpress.com)
- Sen. Coburn Targets Shrimp on Treadmill, Other NSF Spending (blogs.wsj.com)
- Senate Report Finds Billions in Waste on Science Foundation Studies (foxnews.com)
Filed under: Headline, Liz's Rants · Tags: jello wrestling, National Science Foundation, NSF, senate report, shrimp on treadmills, taxpayer dollars
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Many people complain about scientific studies without a proper understanding of what they are meant to study. Some may even have complained about a scientist studying moldy bread. Often the complainers have no understanding at all of what science is all about or how it functions. Not every study has an obvious application and yet science as a whole makes great progress.
Ignorance is not a justification for remaining ignorant. Some politician complained about fruit fly research last year, how did that turn out? Well, it just so happened that industries in his own state needed the fruit fly information and he wound up looking like even more of a fool.
This particular senate report is from Tom Coburn, an anti-science baptist preacher. He doesn’t want tobacco regulated despite the obvious health issues.
Knowing this, do you really expect his compaints to have merit? The man is a creationist nutjob who tries to stymie science at every turn in order to spread his religious agenda. He sterilized a woman against her will. He tried to hush up sexual misbehavior by fellow republicans. Do you trust this man? Why?
If people like that were in charge of scientific research we would still be in the dark ages.
Some of this research may have value one day. It all gets approved and regulated by people who actually know what they are doing, unlike Tom Coburn.
Honest people don’t need to block dissenting opinions on their blogs.
Why do you? What are you afraid of?
JTK, surely you haven’t been camped out at your computer for the last 24 hours, waiting for your comment to be approved. Pardon me for enjoying my last few hours before summer break. I don’t have the luxury (or desire) to be on the computer at every waking moment, nor do I have the patience for insinuations that I am dishonest because you had to wait.
I appreciate research as well as the next person. In fact, you’ll be pleased to know that I have participated in moldy bread experiments on a variety of occasions (in fact, as recently as last month). As for treadmilling shrimp, jell-o wrestling or robot hoedown research being the one bit of research that saves us all from the falling sky, I’m not banking on it. Here’s the thing. These are my tax dollars at work, here. As a nation, our debt is spiraling out of control with every minute that ticks by. And we’ve got people researching such craziness on my dime? They’re acting as if taxpayer money is free money – accountability within many of these entities is all but non-existent. And I’ve had enough.
As for dissenting opinions, if you’ve read our posts regularly, you would recognize that we welcome dissent. This is still America – at least for now.