By New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE — A half-million dollar federal stimulus grant intended to create or save jobs in New Mexico so far has bought 150 hours of observing monkeys and trips to Vienna and Barcelona.
After nearly three years, the project has reported creating or saving only one full-time job on average per year — and that job has now left the state.
Beginning in August 2009, using money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the National Science Foundation began funding a $496,067 study at the Santa Fe Institute titled “Network Conflict Theory: Empirically-Based Models of Conflict Dynamics and Effective Conflict Management Strategies.”
The Santa Fe Institute described the project in one of its own publications: “(Researchers) sifted through 150 hours of observations … collected on patterns of conflict in a monkey society to see if monkeys learn better strategies as they gain experience fighting.”
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