Sometimes scientists say some pretty incredible things. Like the geologist who said – without a doubt – that he’d discovered indisputable proof while digging in the mud in the Amazon that South America was once part of Africa, ten million years ago.

Or like the statistician who said he’d proved with a certainty of three thousand to one that the bones of a skeleton a headline-grabbing journalist had found in a crypt in the Holy Land was Jesus.

Now, Professor James Pennebaker of the University of Texas has joined the queue. He says with absolute conviction – based on his scientific study of college students – that women do not talk more then men (AP, 7-5-07).

“This,” Pennebaker says, “was one of those urban myths.”

Men, he adds with laser-like precision, speak 15,669 words a day. Women 16,215.

Here’s a link to the article on Professor Pennebaker’s study. And a very unscientific proposal. Next time you’re at the dinner table and your wife says, Don’t just sit there like a lug, talk to me, pull out the study and say, Here’s scientific proof we men are doing our share of the talking.

Then duck.

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