Typical Times

Where is the 'Science' in this science article? I followed the link from Instapundit because the wording got my attention. Once I started to read the article I knew something was amiss. Then I saw that it was from the Times. That explains a lot, like why the following passages are in a Science article:

In the United States and much of the Western world, when a couple divorces, the average income of the woman and her dependent children often plunges by 20 percent or more, while that of her now unfettered ex, who had been the family’s primary breadwinner but who rarely ends up paying in child support what he had contributed to the household till, climbs accordingly.

What world is the author living in? Of course he doesn't contribute the same in exact dollars after a divorce than he did before. First he does not live there any more, second he has to pay for his own place to live, and third he has to pay child support (even when he has joint custody and the kids spend part/half of the time with him). His available income goes go UP by 20%? Are you kidding me? If he has any extra disposable income it is because he was kicked out of the 2400 sqr ft house he was living in and now resides in a 600 sqr ft apartment. Real fair exchange that.

the man who skips from one nubile spouse to another over time is, like the sultan who hoards the local maidenry in a single convenient location, simply seeking to “maximize his reproductive fitness,” to sire as many children as possible with as many wives as possible.

So it is also now the man's fault that his wife left him and he would like to be a couple again. She got "tired" of being married, takes him for child support and short term alimony and he is a harem builder because he is dumb enough to give another woman the opportunity to financially screw him.

“We’re so wedded to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women won’t, that women are victims of the game,” Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said.

Well liberal groups are but not anyone that bothers to actually look at the statistics behind marriage, divorce and child support in America.

but the capacity of women across cultures to dissolve relationships that aren’t working has been much underestimated.

Especially in America by liberals where the no-fault divorce allows either partner to basically walk away from a marriage without cause or concern and more and more women are doing just that while men are getting crushed under child support payments.

A few child support facts:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau report, non-custodial fathers pay some or all of their support obligations 77% of the time, and non-custodial mothers make full or partial payment 75% of the time.

Of all fathers who have custody of their children, more than 92% of them work, either full or part-time, while 78% of custodial mothers are employed.

So men are just a likely (or more so) to pay some or all of their child support verses women and when men do have custody of their children they are 14% more likely to have a job than women.

Also Sanford Braver, Ph.D researched the statement that a mothers standard of living goes down after a divorce while a fathers goes up and finds it false.

Among the myths under attack: the "disappearing dad'' who initiates the divorce and then deserts his children; and the widely cited 73 percent drop in standard of living that divorced mothers and children suffer (an alleged error in arithmetic by Harvard researcher Lenore Weitzman). Braver's calculations indicate that post-divorce mothers and fathers share about the same standard of living, at least in the beginning.
In case you are interested, more info here.

An't it a beatch when facts get in the way of a good "story" be it in the science section or the opinion page?