4. (It is Patently Untrue that) Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

This was the title of a top-selling book a few years ago. I'm sure it is a fine book, although I admit I have never read it. I understand it attempts to explain why men and women sometimes (sometimes?) have difficulty communicating with one another. I mean no disrespect to the book or the author here. None whatsoever. It's the title of the book to which I take umbrage. This is so obviously untrue it is hardly worth discussing. But if you recall from the preface, I had a book published once. I understand the concept of page count. So bear with me while I thoroughly disprove the title of this book.

In the mathematical sciences, there are numerous ways to prove (or disprove) a theorem. Some types of proofs are considered "weaker" proofs than others (think about that one over some decaff, will ya? A weaker proof? "You gonna let him get away with callin' your proof weak?"). You can prove things by induction (basically, start with a known fact and a known relationship, and iterate until you demonstrate that your theorem is just a generalization of this known fact). You can prove things directly (seems kinda self-explanatory, so I'll leave it at that. It's not at all true that I forgot what this means). And you can prove things by contradiction; assume the opposite of your theorem is true, and show this leads to a logical contradiction. This is considered a weak proof, I'm just not sure why. I guess even mathematicians have their macho groups among them.  I'm going to demonstrate my proof by using, uh, well, at the end I'll tell you which method I chose. Ha ha, just kidding, this is a combination of direct and inductive logic. No, actually, it's proof by contradiction. I'll show that if the title of the book were true, the human race could not exist. And don't you dare call my proof weak; my proof'll kick your proof's butt.

Well then, suppose men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. Clearly, for the human race to propagate, we'd have to get the men and the women together, right (presumably on earth)? Let's give the women the benefit of the doubt here; let's suppose, say, 6 out of every 7 women recognized this fact (the other ones were either on the "other team" or they were suffering from PMS and just didn't give a damn, and certainly weren't going to even contemplate traveling all that way to have sex with men, and, well, frankly, there was just no talking to them). Let's say they figured out space travel, cooperated with each other (yeah, right, MEEEOW) and developed a space craft capable of taking them to earth (presumably on 2/3 the salary of what the men would have made for their efforts, if you believe the demographic studies that conclude this). They're on their way. Earthbound. Ready to rumble. Biological clocks ticking away. Nesting instinct kicking in. Knitting booties on the trip, even (just kidding - there are no women of child-bearing age that actually knit - they would order the booties on-line for next-day delivery).

So now, what are our men up to? Well, some of the men would figure this all out, they would realize that they have to develop space travel capabilities, and earth has to be the destination, and they would have to be nice to the women and respect them and form family units blah blah blah. Unfortunately, in my experience these men would be quickly rounded-up and killed by the larger, hornier men who have just one thought: There's women on Venus! YES! YES! PLEASE! YES! NOW! Well, these men would then split off into several groups in a quest to get there first (for whatever reason, men are always thrilled to "get there" first - this probably explains why some women let many men get there "first"). Some of the men would develop such quick and easy ideas such as "Let's run off the highest mountains, and them we'll land on Venus! Yeah!" Well, enough about them. Ya' gotta figure their gene pool wouldn;t have lasted long anyway. Some men would put bigger, more powerful engines in their cars, and start constructing really, really big ramps. The right idea, but also dead meat in the end. Some would run off into the hills together, but that's another story altogether (to again quote Seinfeld - "not that there's anything wrong with it"). However, there would be some big, strong engineers left (not all engineers are nerds. Or so my engineer friends tell me. I've never actually been able to prove this). These guys would build the best damned spaceship money (?) could buy, and load it up with enough fuel to get to Venus. And they would succeed, I am certain. Most likely the bigger ones in the bunch would kill off the littler ones just before landing, I mean, there are only so many women, right?

 So, what do we have now? Dead sensitive men on Mars, along with some dead stupid men. A colony of caring, intelligent, nurturing women on earth. And a small fraction of intelligent, horny men landing on Venus ready to meet up with..... women dealing with bad PMS. Hmm, so now we have dead men on two planets, no men on earth, and basically no human race. Sad, but true. Q.E.D.

Any questions?