The Golden Fleece

Thirty or forty years ago – I can't remember precisely because memory and other things go as we age – Senator Proxmire initiated his Golden Fleece Awards. Perhaps it was primarily a publicity gimmick – it certainly attracted a lot of media attention – but he maintained that it was designed to showcase governmental wasting of taxpayer money. And it did that, too. Although there were others (eg the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, the Department of Commerce, and many more) an important source or waste, he felt, was in the area of scientific research. So he “honored” the authors of papers on many important subjects who had received grants from, among other agencies, the National Institute for Mental Health and the Department of Education, for their groundbreaking work. As the Senator put it when discussing one of the studies,

I object to this not only because no one—not even the National Science Foundation—can argue that falling in love is a science; not only because I'm sure that even if they spend $84 million or $84 billion they wouldn't get an answer that anyone would believe. I'm also against it because I don't want the answer.

I believe that 200 million other Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery, and right on top of the things we don't want to know is why a man falls in love with a woman and vice versa.

The media also took note of the awards. A story published by the Sarasota Herald Tribune on August 22, 1975, supplied by the N.Y. Times News Service, and printed under the headline “Stewardesses' Shape Survey Just One Big Bust To Proxmire,” states

WASHINGTON – Uncle Sam has been measuring airline trainees' bosoms, buttocks – and who knows what all else at a cost of $57,800.

It's all supposed to be in the interest of safety, of course. But it caused Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis. – the man who in March discovered a $465,000 federal study on why folks fall in love and called it an “erotic curiosity” – to fly off the handle again. ...

It's important to know that the value of money has gone up nearly four and a half times since 1975, so the latter grant, if made in in 2015, would be $2,118,500. Ya' gotta' love it.

Lest you question the significance of the projects he cited, here are a few listed by Wikipedia. (Don't forget that the amounts listed would be greater in 2015 dollars.)

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded project for $121,000, on developing "some objective evidence concerning marijuana's effect on sexual arousal by exposing groups of male pot-smokers to pornographic films and measuring their responses by means of sensors attached to their penises.
• The National Science Foundation (NSF) for spending $103,000 to compare aggressiveness in sun fish that drink tequila to those that drink gin.
• National Institute For Mental Health (NIMH) for spending $97,000 to study, among other things, what went on in a Peruvian brothel; the researchers said they made repeated visits in the interests of accuracy.
• Office of Education for spending $219,592 in a “curriculum package” to teach college students how to watch television.
• United States Department of the Army for a 1981 study on how to buy Worcestershire Sauce.
• United States Department of Commerce (Economic Development Administration) for spending $500,000 to build a 10-story replica of the Great Pyramid in Bedford, Indiana. Begun in 1979, the money proved insufficient and the site is currently abandoned.
• United States Department of Defense for a $3,000 study to determine if people in the military should carry umbrellas in the rain.
• United States Department of Justice for conducting a study on why prisoners want to escape.

Why do I bring this all up? It's because I'm one of the subjects in a study of mobility in aging funded (with our tax money) by the National Institute of Health. I just received a holiday newsletter from the program informing me that “... the study is currently in its 5^th year. We measure brain activity and walking at the same time. Our results demonstrate that both brain structure and function have an impact on mobility.” (It only took five years to figure that out.)

Who woulda' thought that the brain controls mobility. I always figured it was Orion. If I only had a brain. In medical school they taught us that we were controlled by the stars, so a study like this is certainly surprising and welcome. Indeed, the research is taking place in the same medical school, so I hope they'll update their curriculum.

Notwithstanding medical school, however, I always though that the brain had something to do with walking. I learned about it from the French Revolution. From what I understand, relatively few people who had been separated from their heads by the guillotine were able to walk after that. There are stories of chickens doing so after their heads were chopped off but that is apparently because the decapitation is too high and some of the brain remains (see http://theweek.com/speedreads/448290/why-chickens-live-heads-cut). The seminal work of ISIS, also suggests a relationship.

However even if the question is only about the effects of aging, I'm not convinced a study is needed. I, and many others, can assure the investigators that you get tired and achy and sometimes forget things. Perhaps I'm selling basic science short, but, at least in their own bragging, they don't always make a very good argument for the use of tax money. If a latter-day Proxmire were to suggest that this project was a boondoggle, I'd be hard put to defend it based on the information I have.

So why do I participate? I think I have a reason but I can't remember it. But I do know that it gives me something to do every now and then.