Whether it’s voting results, vaccines or space lasers, many Americans cling to dramatic stories long after they’re shown to be nonsense.

As I saw during our recent trip to Portugal, Americans are not alone. People everywhere prefer a good story to a factual one.

Two of our guides there told us the same amazing, but false, story. When I questioned them about it, one guide avoided the conversation and the other told me I was ruining his narration. They undoubtedly found me annoying even though I was right.

The story involved Portugal’s high rate of divorce. Daniel, our guide in the university town of Coimbra, shown above, said 94 percent of married couples got divorced during the Covid pandemic. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, 23 or 24 of every 25 married couples got divorced? That couldn’t possibly be true, no matter how stressed out people were from Covid.

“Are you sure that’s right?” I asked Daniel quietly.

“Oh, yes,” he responded confidently. “I saw it on television. Portugal has a really high divorce rate. It’s a big problem for us.”

I’m sure it is, but 94 percent? My BS Detector, which I cultivated during my career as a science writer, began blaring in my head.

I lagged behind the group, pulled out my phone and checked the facts. Portugal’s 94% “divorce rate” was an actual statistic but not what Daniel and our subsequent guide in the Douro Valley wine region said it meant, namely that 94 percent of couples got divorced.

Instead, it was a comparison of the total number of divorces to the total number of marriages in a given year. During the pandemic, divorces rose while marriages declined, so the ratio climbed to 94 percent. The odds that a specific couple would divorce, however, remained much lower.

Sure enough, after the pandemic ended, Portugal’s divorce-marriage ratio decreased dramatically to normal levels.

As we continued walking, I whispered to Daniel that I had uncovered the discrepancy and could explain it to him after the tour ended. He gave me a tight smile and, as soon as everyone dispersed, he left.

Our Douro Valley guide, Carlos, couldn’t escape since we were in a car together. After he told the same story, he had no choice but to listen to my brief explanation of what “94 percent” actually measured. Carlos laughed that he still preferred his version even though it wasn’t true.

I knew I was coming across as a know-it-all American retiree.  But having spent much of my career assessing scientific claims before agreeing to write about them, I’ve developed a sixth sense about statistics being misused. I’ve written or edited countless articles about research findings and consider accuracy more essential than popularity, even when my wife reminds me we’re on vacation.

This all happened two weeks ago but I’ve kept wondering about it, even though it’s hard to imagine anything that affects my own life less than Portugal’s divorce rate.

Am I just being a mansplaining jerk? Or did this episode highlight something deeper about human behavior that informs the situation we face here in America? As I’ve tuned in again to our angry political controversies and “fake news” accusations, with politicians peddling scary anecdotes that misrepresent larger realities, much of it sounds to me like the Portugal divorce story — catchy, unnerving but wrong.

I’m not sure what to think. For now I’m assessing my own uncertainty level at 94 percent. I’m also keeping my BS Detector turned on.