from Fred:
"However, regarding your belief that ?the system of evolution by natural selection is one to get away from as fast as we can,î it?s likely that many of my red state brethren would say, "Amen sister!" "


Hahaha! But do you mean they would give me an "Amen" by denying the truth of natural selection, or getting away from it by saying, "yes, it's true, and it's an awful system!"

(Sadly I suspect it's the former.)

I can appreciate your comments about the flawed data, especially because there's a NY Times article about that very phenomenon that I was just reading (it's in today's Science section: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/he...pagewanted=all

It was saying national divorce rates are not the 2 in 1 figure we've been told they are, it's more like 41%. However, I was interested to find some data that again, indicated that the better off we are, the less we divorce. In this case, it "better off" indicator was the education level of the women.

"Families with highly educated mothers and families with less educated mothers are clearly moving in opposite directions," Dr. Martin wrote in a paper that has not yet been published but has been presented and widely discussed at scientific meetings.

But since 1980, the two groups have taken diverging paths. Women without undergraduate degrees have remained at about the same rate, their risk of divorce or separation within the first 10 years of marriage hovering at around 35 percent. But for college graduates, the divorce rate in the first 10 years of marriage has plummeted to just over 16 percent of those married between 1990 and 1994 from 27 percent of those married between 1975 and 1979.

To me, this data supports my earlier point, which is that how well people are doing has a lot to do with the personal choices they make (regarding their families and reproduction) the political choices they make (should we share or keep resources), and the the depth and range of their perspectives (big picture, rationality/ small picture, short term, often emotional responses to immediate problems.).