Pointless Academic Research Projects

I would like to nominate utterly pointless and wasteful academic research projects. The type of study which adds exactly nothing to the sum of human knowledge, which is clearly self-indulgence and a total waste of time and money.

Some examples:

* The University of Northumbria allowed someone to pursue research on how to brew the perfect cup of tea.

* The department of defence in the USA spent two million dollars on asking an expert to create robots who could play improvised jazz with human musicians. WHY? How does this relate to defending the US from the attacks of Putin and Kim the Wrongun?

* A study of teenage student behaviour concluded, after painstaking research, that kids who spent a lot of time playing computer games
of an evening would have less time to study homework. No shit, Sherlock. Have another bursary; feel free to piss more taxpayers money away.

Other British study projects included research on why cookies crumble, how to make the perfect slice of toast, and why woodpeckers don’t get headaches.

This is a bit of a lightweight nom, but when we live in an age where money is desperately needed for real research into fighting disease, seeing people get awarded public money to study the likes of Klingon sonnet writing sends my blood pressure towards fatal levels.

Nominated by Weary&Disgusted

46 thoughts on “Pointless Academic Research Projects

  1. The perfect cup of tea, is money well spent all Englishmen like a brew!
    Nation of tea drinkers.
    But jazz robots?
    Fuck right off!
    Jazz is the worse form of musical wankery, an robots are creepy motherfuckers.
    Combine them?
    Worse than coronavirus pakis.

      • Im scared of them too.
        See those sexbot things on here the other day?
        Gave me the heebie jeebies.

        They OFFEND me.
        Theyre like the chinese.
        Look a bit human,
        But not.
        Fire kills both!👍👍

    • Worst music? No, thats ‘grime’! And, to a lesser degree rap/r’n’b.

      • Welcome to Jazzzz club.
        With your host C3PO.
        Bzzz NICE Bzzz.
        These are not the droids we are listening to.
        Metal mickey at Ronnie Scotts,
        ‘EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE
        Bzzzzz.

      • Mmmmmm – nice!
        No sign of Dench today – as a f*cking locust I assumed she would be swarming on me crops, had my best, ahem, “bat” ready I did!
        It is an “interesting coincidence” that pretty much every major viral outbreak in the last hundred Years has originated in China, gone around the World and has led to a financial hit/meltdown for the west with the bat snafflers coming out even richer at our expense – all part of their evil plan to control the World.
        When this has eventually resolved (long and painful process) we need to ask some very serious questions as to whether we do business with these evil little f*cking rats ever again.
        Unfortunately I did not unload mass ordnance from the bomb bay of The Spruce Goose on China as planned – I was diverted over Pakistan and just couldn’t help myself! 😃👍

      • Evening Foxy, been reading about the boxer rebellion, when Britain, France,Russia,U.S.,an others decided to give Denchs lot a fuckin good hiding.
        Some british troops were killing chinks, and had this old one, one soldier was going to gut him with his bayonet,
        His mate said “hold on, ive been dying to try out these dumdum bullets”
        Shot the chink.
        “Its blown the back of his nut off!”
        Said the happily impressed soldier.
        Dont make em like they used to do they?☺

  2. My current area of research involves trying to determine what the designers of the first drawing board went back to, when things didn’t go to plan….

  3. I want to know why clouds don’t fall down. What keeps them up? How come they defy gravity?

  4. There is no such thing as climate “science”. There is no such thing as social “justice”. All these bullshit studies are devised to find the answer required. Its not science, its the exact opposite. Lets just hope that the present unpleasantness will make government withdrawer all funding to these pointless cunts.

  5. I remember reports of a project years ago into researching whether there was any difference between men and women when it comes to farting.
    The conclusion? Men’s farts are noisier, women’s farts are smellier.
    The practical aspects of evidence gathering must have been quite fascinating. Research grants well spent I’d say.

  6. NASA spent millions on research and trying to develop a pen that would work in zero gravity out there in space.
    The Russians took pencils…

  7. There are whole university departments devoted to the futile and pointless – Gender studies, ethnic this and that, PPE, Distorting history, Meeja studies. The list is fucking endless.

    • Yes. Back when I was temping in the University of Glamorgan, there was a lecturer in gender studies who kept telling everyone (temps, other lecturers, anyone who would stand still for five seconds), that they would benefit enormously from being more “womb centred”. This lecturer was a fella too. I think he meant people should be in touch with their feminine side, but it sounded like utter lunacy at the time. Ivory towers, indeed.

  8. Once university was made available to all jobs needed to be invented to employ all the extra poindexters.

    So the requirement for research akin to something monty python would of made a sketch out of becomes a reality.

    Thank you taxpayer.

  9. How the fuck would you determine if a woodpecker had a headache?
    Ask it if it fancied a shag after living together over 3 years?
    Fuck off.

  10. Condensation is caused by fish in the atmosphere.
    “Hackenthorpe Book of Lies.”

  11. Good nom. I´ve often wondered about this kind of pointless research especially as it is often difficult to get funds for projects. Ironically, a lot of breakthroughs have resulted from accidents rather than the official research. Penicillin is probably the best-known example but quinine, X-rays and the microwave were “accidental” by-products.

    Check out this link for more https://www.sciencealert.com/these-eighteen-accidental-scientific-discoveries-changed-the-world

  12. I recall some twat that claimed that land mines could be seen with thermal optics.
    They can if they have just been buried, however as the soil temperature evens out they disappear.
    I know this because I had to take someone to the demo and pondered the revelation on the way there, not having been to uni myself I thought that my theory may have a hole in it, apparently it did not, wasted journey and someone came out looking a right cock (They had been to uni and everything).
    Fortunately this was not funded research but a chance observation made by the claimant on the day of planting the fuckers (who should have waited before they shouted eureka)

  13. ”Shall we have a go at curing cancer? No, I’m gonna see how many fruit pastilles it takes to choke a kestrel.” – Frankie Boyle.

  14. A couple of years ago there was a study that concluded that if you live near take away outlets you are more likely to be obese. I kid you not.
    Ugh!!🤦

  15. I once heard of a U.S. Military study that involved shooting cats in the head. It concluded that a living organism suffering a catastrophic (no pun intended) brain injury will die. What the fuck? We’ve only had firearms for about four hundred years, maybe more, and apparently nobody in all that time has realised that. Next study, the effects of entering the vacuum of space without a spacesuit.

    • Slightly at a tangent…

      The FBI wanted to bug some organisation quite desperately. It was apparent that this was going to be a very difficult job indeed…until one day, somebody remarked that a cat paid regular visits to the building, on a daily basis, and without fail. So, one day, the cat was lured with food, anaesthetised, and had various transducers, mikes and transmitters stitched into it.
      After ascertaining that the cat was healthy and compos mentis, they took it to the area and released it. The FBI’s binocular gaze was upon the feline as it headed for the target building, until…it got flattened by a UPS truck.

    • It makes you wonder what kind of insane manager green lights \ authorises research like this doesn’t it ? What kind of conclusion were they expecting – for cats to have “nine lives” and miraculously survive bullet trepanation ? Absolutely crazy.

    • They did use painkillers, but the parrots eat em all…
      A woodpeckers skull has a kind of shock absorber inside it which isolates it from injury (a genuine work of natural genius) – dumb f*ckers should just get a drill from Aldi!
      (Thus proving that woodpeckers are dumb!)

      • The skull has sort of ‘bubble layer’ in the bone that acts as a shock absorber.
        As do certain mountain goats and deer,
        When they are in rutting season and clash skulls?
        Reinforced skulls.
        No shit.
        Not exactly scientific lingo but true.

        I have it on good authority that strangulation is not a good control measure on a rutting Ram, this research was carried out by a friend who was towed through a hedge and into a fence whilst trying to restrain said ram with a loose lead.

      • Lessons you learn on here eh admin?
        Youve probably stopped at least 3 posters who were considering strangling sheep from implementing their fiendish plot.😁👍

      • Right so woodpeckers are cheating cunts then? I’ve lost all respect for the beaky bastards now.

      • Not so much cheats, more ‘tooled up’ with the right gear.
        They woodpeck to get grubs to eat.
        Dont tell the chinese or youll see them trying it in the woods!
        Eating maggots out of trees to them is like us picking a cherry out of a scone.

      • Evening Miserable, not been told to stop working yet? If we hear of a high speed police chase in Lancashire involving a removals van and pissed off bear of a man we’ll know its you.

      • Not sure if im allowed to work or not LL.
        But till they sort it the fuck out for the self employed ill have to honour my bookings.
        Not ideal mate, but gotta provide for my family.

  16. Research is vital – I spent f*ck all and very little time researching if hitting yourself with a hammer hurt.
    Here is my scientific paper on the subject – “yes”.
    And randomly, just got a text from “The Gov” telling me to stay indoors. No problem – feed me, pay my wages and deliver all the business mail I have to deliver then.

    No? F*ckoff then – I do not go out to p*ss about and act like an irresponsible moron – it is a health and business necessity to stop me starving and my business going bankrupt.

    • I think there should be more research into the effects of long term masturbation. Which reminds me, I have an eye screening appointment on May 5th and there’s no sign of them cancelling as yet. They put drops in which makes it impossible to drive afterwards and I’m not getting on a bus, so I’ll have to walk four miles there and back. If I say I hate those fucking dirty chinese bastards, would that be racist?

      Analytically No, if you were to say you hate those stinky chinky bastards I might think you were propagating unfounded bigotry and perhaps Racist, Personally I dislike Chihuahuas, but this is not an arrest-able offence so as yet have not fell fowl of the law.

      • Me very rikey chihuahuas, six make a good mear; reave dem to rot in bucket of cold sick for extra fravour.

        Fur make very good wirry-warmer for smar cock.

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