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US Patent 6735568: Secrets For Successful Relationships
from the forget-chemistry dept
There's no end to the number of patents granted just for the sake of having a patent -- because patents lend the mystique of legitimacy and can be used as marketing gimmicks. But the scientific study of relationships is a legitimate field, so it shouldn't be too surprising that EHarmony.com has received a patent on relationships, called a "method and system for identifying people who are likely to have a successful relationship." Their rival, Match.com, obviously doesn't want to capitulate and calls the claims "ridiculous at best." The more interesting tidbit is that 20% of the people answering eHarmony's questionaire are rejected outright as not the marrying type. Maybe they're on to something, but that statistic doesn't quite seem to fit with the 50% divorce rate in the US. However, if eHarmony rejects too many people, they might not be very profitable.
Reader Comments
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exclusivity...
However, if eHarmony rejects too many people, they might not be very profitable.
Ah, but you forget, the value of a club increases with its level of exclusivity...
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Math is consistent
Most of the divorces in the US are done by a minority crowd of repeat-divorcers. Even if over 50% of all marriages end in divorce, over 50% of all people do have life-long marriages.
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Marriage failures
So one in five is not of "marriage type" (rename them DIV). Which means that 80 % of people should be marriage types (rename this group MAR). And there are two people in marriage.
If we assume that only MAR-MAR marrgiage lasts and MAR-DIV, DIV-MAR, and DIV-DIV marriages end in divorces... and some make some other random marriage assumptions (being MAR or DIV type does not affect your decision to marry, or the selection of your spouse is not dependent of her/his/your type), doesn't this then mean that 64 % of the marriages last... statistically :-)
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Re: Marriage failures
Those sound like Hardy-Weinberg conditions. You could do it that way and get 64% too.
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Re: Marriage failures
Your statistic is skewed by the fact that those who divorce will often remarry... and re-divorce.
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the divorce rate is not directly related to eharmonys rejection rate.
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Just because 2 people are the marrying type doesn't mean that their relationship would last. I think I would be more likely to join eHarmony because they do reject people that aren't the "marrying type."
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