Proverbs 17:22….Laughter is good medicine: My husband says I feed him like he’s a god….every meal is a burnt offering—-Rhonda Hansome

Did you know that 75% of statistics are made up? Think about that statement for a minute. Mark Twain once said, “There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics”. You can manipulate people’s statements about things by asking them leading questions (a question that points to only one answer)…like “Are you still beating your wife?” WOW! You cannot answer that question with a simple yes or no.

Example: all of my adult life I have heard the divorce rate is about 50%. What a crock! This figure is arrived at by taking the number of marriages in one year (say 100 for ease of argument) and comparing them to the number of divorces in that same year (say 50). 50/100 = 50% The BIG, BIG, BIG problem is that you’re not accounting for people who have been married several times. In the mid 1990’s, some sharp sociologist noticed this. At the same time, a landmark study of human sexuality was released. This report used modern polling techniques on the general public for the 1st time ever. Yes, you read that right! Up until the mid 1990’s, any survey on human sexuality or marriage/divorce was NOT done using modern polling techniques.The Sex In America report went out into the general public and asked couples if they had ever been divorced (among many other questions about their sexuality). About 3 out of 4 couples had NEVER been divorced. So the ‘real’ divorce rate is about 20-25%, although it has been trending upward in the last few years. Why this discrepancy? The ‘real’ divorce rate takes into account that many divorced people have been divorced several times. Think Elizabeth Taylor. She was married 8 times and divorced 7 (one husband died). The 50% divorce statistic doesn’t take that into account. As is commonly known, 2nd marriages have a higher divorce rate than 1st marriages. Read www.afajournal.org/recent-issues/2015/january/the-real-threat-to-marriage/. A good book is “The Good News about Marriage: Debunking Myths about Marriage and Divorce” by Shaunti Feldhahn & Tally Whitehead. But there are other reasons that the 50% divorce statistic is wrong. Read www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml .

Another example is the oft-quoted ‘10% of Americans are gay’ figure. This came from the 1948 Kinsey report. Unfortunately, Kinsey loaded his sampling with a lot of prisoners & prostitutes. Dr. Judith Reisman was the first to point this out in the early 1990’s. Its incredible that our academic elite NEVER noticed this. Read www.williamsinstitute.law.UCLA.edu/press/how-many-gay-people-are-therer-in -america-nope-youre-wrong/. The Williams Institute is a gay/lesbian think tank…hardly an unbiased group. Their findings: 1.7% are gay/lesbian.

So be careful whenever you hear statistics, especially when they don’t sound right. If you know of any other statistic that is not accurate, let me know. Thanks!

For His Kingdom, Dave Maynard
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