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Research Determines Women Can Keep a Secret For 47 Hours
A study of 3,000 women aged 18-65 has found that the average woman cannot keep a secret for longer than 47 hours. The study also found that four out of ten admitted that they were unable to keep a secret, no matter how personal or private. Michael Cox, UK Director of Wines of Chile, which commissioned the research, said, "It's official - women can't keep secrets. We were really keen to find out with this survey how many secrets people are told. What we didn't bank on was how quickly these are passed on by those we confide in. No matter how precious the piece of information, it's often out in the public domain within 48 hours."
That sucks! Now everyone will know about my Pokemon collection in 2 days!
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Television, Telephone, Tell a woman.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
No, but really, every single woman I've ever know does the exact same thing upon hearing a secret:
1.) Hear secret and promise Friend #1 she won't tell anyone.
2.) Deliberately jump into a conversation with Acquaintance #1 and bring up something trivial and unrelated. This step is important. If it doesn't happen, it wasn't really a secret.
3.) Promptly call Friend #2 and in a hushed but still CLEARLY audible voice, tell the secret.
4.) Commence calling everyone she knows in order of familiarity. With each new person in on it, talk becomes less quiet and forbidden.
5.) Inevitably hears the secret back from someone else.
6.) Speak about secret openly to everyone until it gets old.
It would be more relevant if they included men in this study. I've found both sexes to be untrustworthy. Normal, socialized humans appear to have an instinct for being immoral.
The survey was commissioned by the Wines of Chile? One wonders how rigorous this study was, especially given they don't mention asking the obvious alternative group, men. It sounds almost like an Onion article.
It does match my experience, but in general men aren't that great at secrets either-- we just don't find most gossip as interesting. I, for one, forget most of it almost as fast as my gf tells me... Still: never tell a girl something you don't want people talking about the next day. Women are a lot like Facebook, in a way... you don't get to complain about them doing what they do.
--And on the person the 'secret' is being kept from.
It's more accurate to think of information as a form of power. Manipulative women are very good at doling out and/or withholding power accordingly among allies and enemies. This is why astrology is so powerful. If you know any Snake women, (Asian astrology, based on Jupiter), then laugh all you want, but keep an eye out because that girl has it built into her genes to destroy and manipulate people out of fear and/or wicked amusement.
-FL
The sky is blue and the pope's a Catholic. More at 11
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
The best way to keep a secret is .. to forget it :-)
Wow. And here I thought my parents had more to do with my gene pool than my time of birth. Nevermind my disposition.
Nothing is ever so simple. There's a lot more to a person than their genes. --Even identical twins born within moments of each other will express their individuality in unique ways. Astrology and genetics provide influences and boundaries, etc., but they do not prevent the soul from choosing and then expressing those choices via an application of Will.
Computers offer a useful analogy; Two computers can be built using the same hardware, (genetics), can run the same software (astrology), but what the user does within that environment is governed by the Soul.
-FL
Everyone knows that women can't keep secrets for any longer than 47 seconds, let alone 47 hours...
This just keeps getting better and better! I understand every word in this analogy, but the the whole thing just refuses to makes sense! Are you on the talk show circuit or something?
Nope. Just a guy who happens to know what he is talking about.
This study, like astrology and whatever the hell the parent poster was raving on about, share one similarity. They are results and methods promoted by and for people who seek mental shortcuts to understanding the world. It's a tempting strategy certainly, but in the long term, you're better off trusting in getting it done right.
I agree. Now how about you go and do some of that rather than just talk about it.
I'm betting you've done zero research beyond turning your nose up at the odd newspaper astrology section and Chinese place mat, --all in accordance with the opinions of the authority figures in your life, (like any good pack animal). --It's true that newspaper astrology is silly, but my opinion for why this is so also happens to be valid because I've taken the time to actually research the subject. It's annoying, yes, but knowing what you are talking about DOES require that you actually study the subject in question rather than simply seek those mental shortcuts, as you aptly put it.
Astrology is valid. But you wouldn't know that unless you leave your comfort zones and do some digging into taboo areas of knowledge and risk being ridiculed by other cowards. Most people are not capable of this, and so they remain happy in their ignorance while pretending to be rational thinkers. People frightened of laughter are tiny beings of little power or consequence.
-FL
Women tell secrets either because they like the feeling of power or authority when spilling information or because of the response they get from the people they tell, a feeling of importance and acceptance.
Yeah, well I wonder
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Who funds crap research like that? And to put the name "wines of chile" on the research project? Clearly some chauvenist that wanted some scientific backing for a fight he had with his quite rightly pissed off ex-girlfriend. Lame.
Now everyone is going to know my super-secret sandwich spread recipe
What kind of BS "research" is this? Why not simply test lots of, uhm, people... and *then* look if you can find any interesting correlations between sex, income, whatever?
If you think "males, contrary to women, keep secrets", you live in lala land.
Pardon me while I repost those links. . .
Theodora Lau's Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes. (A good book for Eastern Astrology).
Susan Miller's website is a fairly robust example of the Western model.
-FL
Yes, James Randi is good at pointing out how humans can be easily fooled. The video you linked to is an apt example of why common newspaper astrology is pretty useless. It's also a good example of how a flakey astrologer with a turban and a crystal ball can con people. This is all very true, and I've seen countless versions of this argument, and the example Randi offers in that classroom video was an excellent presentation of that feature of the human psyche.
But it brings to mind the logical fallacy, "All cows are animals, therefore all animals are cows."
Randi is missing one key detail, as is everybody else who thinks that the above example is all there is to astrology. --And that detail is this: When you remove the con artists and the vague newspaper horoscope section, astrology actually works.
When you read a real astrology book, it is actually not so vague as one is led to believe all horoscope material is. A good book is filled with very specific descriptions which cannot apply to everybody, filled with key details which match up with the individual being described and which totally fail to describe those it does not apply to. I've never seen Randi look at that kind of astrology, and because he's such a giant ego himself who has based his entire reputation and self-worth on being right about his many assertions about reality, he will probably continue to avoid such sources. Some of his arguments when has been cornered have been childish and ridiculous and petty in the extreme. That's what happens when somebody cannot let go of their sacred cows.
If you want to test this out for yourself, (if you aren't scared of letting go of your own sacred cows), then I would recommend this book. Amazon appears to have used copies available for less than a dollar plus postage. You can probably own your very own for less than the price of a food court lunch. Most people will not do this, precisely because they assume they know everything already, or worse, they don't want to risk being wrong, but this is the kind of research I am talking about and which needs to be done before a valid opinion can been obtained. --It's easy to read all manner of studies and watch James Randi videos, but the research which skeptics never seem to do is to actually find a competent source and read a few horoscopes and gauge for themselves the accuracy. There's a very big difference between vague bullshit descriptions about what geminis and cancers might be like, -and having very specific details about your life described to you in a single paragraph.
In the book linked above, every eastern sign with its specific element is given a two paragraph specific treatment which is quite upsetting for the hardened skeptic because it blows them out of the water by describing them down to their shoelaces with stark accuracy in terms which cannot be handed back over their shoulders to accurately describe the student sitting behind them. It just doesn't work. --And it's a little humbling to discover that there are only 60 basic human templates walking around. Of course, there are infinite variations on each theme, but the hard specifics are frighteningly nailed down. This is something people find very upsetting, as it should. Everybody, with very, very few exceptions, is a slave to their robotic, automatic nature and astrology makes this plain. People hate that truth and so they fight it at every turn, but the only way to truly fight it is to look it straight in the face and learn how it works. Only then can one attempt to stop being a robot. But that's the advanced stuff. We're still on basic astrology at the moment. . .)
Now, you bring up a fascinating point. . . The fact that the stars have moved over the last thousand years or so.
However, in Western astrology this simple doesn't represent any difficulties. Western astrology is based not on stars but planets, and the planets
What's the length of time that men can keep secrets? What a rubbish piece of research: "all women are the same". Mind you I am guessing that "Wines of Chile" is not exactly up there with the major universities or research councils in terms of its peer-reviewed journal publishing record.
Where's the news in that?