Obligatory Reading of the Day

While trying to elevate the discourse on divorce he continues to perpetuate the myths of divorce.

Read the Wiki or our discussion of divorce at giveupblog.

Divorce is not more common than before. It is at a major low. It peaked in the post-WWII era (people coming home messed up from the war or to find uninterested wives) decreased temporarily during the 50s, then popped up again in the 70s, hitting a record of 41% in the 80s (the 50% of marriages ending in divorce thing is a statistical myth).

So much of the discussion of divorce starts with the myths that everybody believes but are so easy to disprove. 1 in 2 marriages does not end in divorce. The people most likely to divorce are not liberal left wing atheist but evangelical christians. The divorce rate is now at about 30% down from the high of 41% in the 80s.

Start from there. I agree with the nature of his argument, divorce is not inherently bad, especially because the alternative, a society without divorce, is essentially monstruous. Not allowing people to separate in the face of infidelity, abuse, criminality, or just plain unhappiness is cruel. But it's also pointless to continue to propagate the myth that divorce is getting continually worse. We're scientists here, lets do better.

You should post this comment on her blog.

I wanted too. Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't look to me like she has comments enabled. Am I blind?

Sure she does, and a lot of comments on all three posts already. Right at the bottom of each post.

I like the story telling and I agree with the conclusions, so I did not get bothered by peripheral factual errors - they do not affect the final conlusion she drwas.

Ahh, my javascript blocker was killing them. See it now.