this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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No one is casting aspersions on the scientific method or the value of research, what is questionable in this case is that the conclusion simply follows naturally from the hypothesis. The proposition here is that people who have opposing political views are more likely to be antagonistic to each other, that is a tautology.
And yet, you’ll see many people posting elsewhere on social media that it shouldn’t be relevant.
Can’t imagine trying to share a life with someone who didn’t share my values, but there seems to be a contingent that think that other things should be more important.
In your original comment, it seemed like you were questioning why the study was funded, then compared it to another obvious cause-effect about kicking a dog. Did I misunderstand?
The conclusion might have confirmed your personal hypothesis, but we don't assume that any conclusion "naturally follows" a hypothesis without measuring it.
The way you phrased it is a tautology, but the study didn't measure antagonism. It measured whether couples broke up or not.
The research subject as quoted is a tautology, people separate because they have irreconcilable differences, opposing political views is an irreconcilable difference so the conclusion of the research is that couples with irreconcilable differences are more likely to suffer from the problems associated with irreconcilable differences.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Tautology doesn't mean obvious or predictable, and you're basing your argument on faulty premises. The study measured how many politically-aligned couples separated in a 1-year period compared to how many politically-opposed couples did so.
Yes, sometimes that's a reason people separate.
It's sometimes irreconcilable, and sometimes not. Couples with opposing political views are more likely (but not guaranteed) to separate than couples who agree.
Nowhere in the study do they declare political heterogamy an irreconcilable difference, nor could they without 100 years of data. You keep referring to "the proposition" and "the research subject" and "the conclusion" and then inserting your own phrases and concepts that were literally not a part of the study. And this is all in defense of your original comment in which you cast an aspersion on the value of the study and then claimed that you didn't. You've made previous comments with the same low-effort "study finds that water is wet" so I don't believe we're both speaking in good faith here.