"Robert Chung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Scott Raymond said:Quoted message said:
Recent statistics suggest that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce.
You should Google less and apply reason more. I hardly consider www.divorcewizards.com a good
place to get an unbiased perspective on divorce data. Unless you've got a reading comprehension
problem, I fail to understand your claim that they conducted a study. Who did it? When was it
done? Where is the data? Oh... I see, you don't know - and that's understandable, because it
doesn't exist (for www.divorcewizards.com, that is). Could it be that www.divorcewizards.com
want their clients to feel a bit more comfortable about going through a divorce? And you know
what they say, misery loves company.
I suggest you take a look at cdc.govdivorce.htmOpen ↗ for some trustworthy
data... and then draw your own conclusions. Of course, if you conclude that because the divorce
rate (4.0 per thousand) is roughly
47.6% of the marriage rate (8.4 per thousand), 47.6% of all married people will divorce, you'd
be a bigger "Dumbass" (is that copyrighted or trademarked?) than I originally thought. I
leave it as an exercise for you to identify the fallacy of such reasoning.
Try again, Henry. But thanks for the laugh - you are entertaining. Then again, so are clowns.
Try again, Scott. No serious demographer calculates the lifetime divorce probability as you did,
so that was a bogus straw man argument. Since you cite data from the NCHS, perhaps you would trust
their estimates. For various reasons, the NCHS no longer does projections of the divorce rate but
the last time they did do them (about 10 years ago) they projected that unless (then) current
trends changed, half of first marriages would end in divorce. Check out the CPR P23 reports from
about 10 years ago if you don't believe me.
Of course no serious demographer calculates the lifetime divorce probability as I mentioned - that's
why I said if Henry thought it legitimate, he's a bigger Dumbass that I originally thought. And I
left if for him as an exercise to identify the fallacy of the "straw man", as you've labeled it.
Quoted message said:That projection, as well as all the projections I've seen since then, are based on synthetic
cohort calculations, not cross-sectional ones. Nuptiality and marital dissolution are central
topics in the study of family structure so researchers spend a lot of time calculating the
probability of marital dissolution. The technique is really no more complicated than the one used
for life tables, and insurance companies do that pretty routinely. Every projection I've seen (and
I'm betting I've seen a lot more of them than you) gives estimates of the probability that first
marriages in the US during the 1990's would end in divorce ranging from about 45% up to about 60%.
I appreciate the fact that you've seen more projections than I have - and it really isn't hard to be
the case. I have yet to find a single attributable projection that has been published (vice
referenced by someone else). Admittedly, I haven't made a real effort to look for them (past the
internet), but if you have some studies in mind, I'd certainly appreciate the references.
I'm curious about one aspect of your statement that "the probability that first marriages in the US
during the 1990's would end in divorce ranging from about 45% up to about 60%." How much of total
marriages do the 1990 marriages represent?
And in the same sense that we know the average lifespan of those that died last year (i.e. no
projection is necessary), any projection that seeks to ":guess" the lifespan of those that were born
yesterday is using very brown numbers. How can we possibly anticipate the lifespan of those born
last year when they will be influenced by certain (but unknown) changes in medical care during the
next 70 or so years?
In all sincerity, if you have some links or references for me, I'd like to read them and they will
be appreciated.
Oh said:Quoted message said:Everyone who has had a divorce (more than 50% of our fellow citizens will eventually get one) has
no credibility WRT to relationships.
Which is a *far* cry from his most recent:
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Recent statistics suggest that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce.
Maybe he's just being a "Smartass" by trying quietly change his claim.
Scott-
