Why does the US Government love to commission useless academic studies?

There seems to be a trend of the US government funding studies that really add no value to research or to our understanding. In fact the findings are often pretty obvious.

http://ift.tt/216VHRe

Quote:

Do you know why coffee spills when you walk while holding a cup of it? Do you care? America's Department of Defense does. According to a recent report from U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) allocated a $172,283 grant to fund a study conducted in 2012 at University of California at Santa Barbara that investigated why coffee spills while you walk.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1YdQE2d