Obscure Research Studies Funded By Tax Dollars

At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Murray Webster has spent the past two years researching people and their status.

“What we're interested in studying is how characteristics can acquire status value,” he said.

Students spend hours logging how people interact in groups by gender and race. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation -- a federal agency created by Congress. The cost is $117,000 -- all taxpayer money.

“You always have to be able to explain to somebody -- why is it in the national interest to spend money on this?” Webster said. “I have no doubt that it's valuable.”

Eyewitness News looked through records from the National Science Foundation and found nearly 70 current studies at UNCC, including studies of "the mechanical breakdown in rock" and "creative expression."

At UNCC alone, research gets $27 million in taxpayer money.

Other universities get taxpayer money for research, too. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is studying the mating preferences in frogs, costing $669,000 in taxpayer dollars.

Dr. Sabrina Burmeister leads the research on special frogs from Central America.

“Our ultimate goal is to better understand how the brain generates behavior. So I think that's a pretty fundamental question in understanding ourselves as humans,” she said.

“What do you say to critics who say, ‘Come on, $670,000 to study frogs?’” asked Eyewitness News anchor Blair Miller.

“It may seem odd that we would choose a frog to study fundamental questions in biology, but science has found that's a successful strategy,” Burmeister said.

Burmeister said most of the money pays for building expenses and researcher salaries.

Steve Ellis, who works with a government watchdog group in Washington, D.C., said he believes most taxpayers don't want their money funding these studies when many schools are raising tuition.

“When they find out that hundreds of thousands of dollars of their tax dollars are being spent, and you figure these very same Americans are struggling to make ends meet -- I think there's going to be some outrage out there,” Ellis, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said.

Congressman David Price, who represents the Chapel Hill area, is the only North Carolina Congressman who helped push for more science research and more funding for all studies. So Eyewitness News asked him about the studies on frogs and status.

“I imagine there's a good rationale for each of those -- good scientific rationale,” he said.

“How do you make sure that none of these studies or grants are for frivolous or wasteful spending?” Miller asked.

“You institute a program of peer review where the scientific community is passing judgment on the merit of individual proposals,” Price said.

A panel of fellow scientists decides which studies get federal funding. One government watchdog agency said there needs to be more oversight, not only from the science community but also lawmakers. They're trying to get Congress to make sure they know exactly where money is being spent these days.

To see the database Eyewitness News searched that shows which studies are being funded by the government and at which universities, visit http://nsf.gov/awardsearch/.