Watercooler Science

LiveScience is the National Enquirer of scientific research and study, and their tabloid sensationalism is dangerous, irresponsible and irritating.

Your average Joe hears the word science and thinks that it must be true because science is one of those fields that is supposedly based on solid empirical evidence, not data skewing and flat out misinformation. Take the latest distortion of fact – divorce is ruining the environment.

Researchers publishing online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which ought to give you an idea of the level of credibility when you’re basically science blogging) claim the soaring divorce rate has led to more households with fewer people, and as a result people take up more space and gobble up more energy and water.

Let’s take a moment to analyze that. Making the statement that divorces lead to household with fewer people is like asserting that car crashes lead to less operational cars. Duh. Eating more leads to emptier plates and sleeping leads to less consciousness too, but nobody’s leading with that headline. And that doesn’t mean that resources are being used at the increased clip that they’re suggesting is damaging the environment. Not when they shoot their own lame theory in the foot stating include the demise of multigenerational homes and people remaining single longer are contributing factors to increased household numbers, not solely divorce.

My magic bullet to kill their stupid theory is college. More students leave home and attend college than people get divorced every year. The study relishes the mighty environmental footprint being made, but I say whether you have ten people under one roof or under ten separate roofs, they’re using the toilet the same amount of time and using the same level of power to use their computers. Even though they exaggerate the claim of resources being used, it’s not a problem if we indulge their poor logic. There is far more separation and multiplication of homes when children leave for college – and they generally stay out on their own afterwards. Again, more households that are not divorce related in existence. Clearly, college is wreaking havoc on our planet, yet nobody wants to badmouth learning when divorces be a far better hot button topic. Not if LiveScience can make something out of nothing.