A research paper Kippen,%20Rebecca_paper.pdf based on looking at 2482 marriages and what breaks them apart raises some serious questions about the scientific validity behind some of the major matchmakers.
In a recent interview Galen Buckwalter, chief scientist at eHarmony.com said “Age, in and of itself, is not a factor in compatibility.”
In actual fact, age is one of the biggest factors in what ends the marriages according to the study.
If either person smokes than it close to triples the chances of ending the marriage. ( Eharmony matches smokers to non smokers they also list a few other things that tend to lead to divorce.)
The same goes for drinking….
There are many other examples in that report based on 30 years of research into what creates unstable marriages. To date no site has wanted to submit their tests to scientific validation and even those that do are only showing 10 -20% better than chance of marriages forming, But you can get that kind of improvement by simply matching non smokers with non smokers and people with people in their age range.
July 19, 2009 at 12:22 pm |
I suppose matching a compatible couple is one thing and making a marriage work is another thing. There are loads of other factors that contributes to a relationship working that are outside of stuff you would consider when courting.
So called scientific evidence are also quite biased most of the time, the sponsored of a research tends to influence it so that the outcome they prefer is what the research reaches. A valid and respected research would be one conducted by perhaps and academic institution who has not agenda in the outcome of the findings.
July 25, 2009 at 3:48 pm |
“To date no site has wanted to submit their tests to scientific validation”
OK
“and even those that do are only showing 10 -20% better…”
Which is it?
July 27, 2009 at 2:45 pm |
Are we really suprised by this? As temi states there are too many variables that will determine the success of a marriage – little of which can be determined by some computer algorithm. The reason why these matchmaking services are a draw to punters is because the way online dating works makes it very difficult to determine who might be compatible – so any filtering service is better than none. Surely the key factor early on is if people are compatible in terms of their personality and if there is some chemistry there. Finding this out on most dating sites is very hard which is why smeetme.com took the direction we chose.
July 27, 2009 at 5:11 pm |
my test is only 20% better than chance….. But its not validated and niether is any other sites test,.
August 6, 2009 at 10:55 am |
Hey markus, I’m curious. Is Plenty Of Fish your only successful website, or do you have others?
You don’t have to list them if you do, I’m just wondering, because I think I remember you saying a while back that you were working on other stuff and you knew the model to success could be repeated and not just with dating sites. It’d be really interesting to know if you did. So is plenty of fish your only website money maker?
A simple ‘yes it is’ or ‘no it is not’ would suffice.
October 20, 2009 at 6:26 am |
my test is only 20% better than chance….. But its not validated and niether is any other sites test.