What would we do without “researchers?” Eureka reports:

Do you like to do good things for other people? If so, your genes might be responsible for this. At least, the results of a study conducted by researchers of the University of Bonn suggest this. According to the study, a minute change in a particular gene is associated with a significantly higher willingness to donate. People with this change gave twice as much money on average to a charitable cause as did other study subjects. The results have now been published in the journal Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.

The researchers working with the psychologist Professor Dr. Martin Reuter invited their students to take a “retention test”: The roughly 100 participants were to memorize series of numbers and then repeat them as correctly as possible. They received the sum of five Euros for doing this. Afterwards, they could either take their hard-earned money home or donate any portion of it to a charitable cause. This decision was made freely and in apparent anonymity. “However, we always knew how much money was in the cash box beforehand and could therefore calculate the amount donated”, explains Reuter.

Calculate!? Calculate?! It’s called adding or subtracting. That’s not calculating, it’s carrying the one.

I’m seriously asking if these “researchers” were in third grade.

They took a swab of DNA from the folks and compared a certain gene and compared it to those who gave more (which they cleverly calculated) and voila -they had a study!? What’s going on over there in Bonn that they think this is a study?

Holy Cow! Couldn’t the person’s financial situation also have something to do with how much they gave. Or maybe they were unsure if your clever little cash box would actually find its way to a charity they liked.

This study is so ludicrous that these guys should get stimulus funds NOW. Who says there aren’t shovel ready jobs? These guys are really shoveling it already.

Maybe we should separate the altruism gene for those who wish to give their own money and those who want to be altruistic with other people’s money, then we’d be on to something.

In other news, a researcher/blogger in Philadelphia just announced he discovered a “stupid researcher” gene and was last seen heading to Bonn.

HT Instapundit