Daylight Savings Time: The Controversy Grows

Today is the most glorious day of the year, marking the emergence from the winter darkness, as we go again into the light — as daylight is saved once again.

I spent about 20 minutes “doing research,”as Aaron Rodgers would say, to write this post, and discovered the following:

(1)There’s a giant ongoing nerd fight — the kind the internet was invented for– about whether Daylight Savings Time is Worth It. There are dozes of studies, purporting to show it has this or that beneficial or harmful effect, all contradicting each other, as science does, which is why we should turn to the Bible for guidance on this issue.

(2) It is written:

And the Lord looked upon his people, and he said,

“Why dost thou stumble in Darkness, when I have given you Light?

You are a stiff-necked people; walk into the Light, or my wrath will blaze up against thee,

And you shall be destroyed utterly, and your former dwelling shall be a place of lamentation.”

I would say that’s pretty definitive.

(3) What’s odd about the literature on this topic is that it seems focused almost exclusively on whether DST is worth it. What about asking whether Standard Time, so-called is worth it? Why don’t we just have DST all year long? Why aren’t people in favor of more light, as opposed to less? This seems totally perverse.

(4) I had always heard vaguely that “the farmers” were against DST, because it made the cows harder to milk or something. Apparently what the farmers didn’t like wasn’t DST per se, but switching the time twice a year, since this was disruptive to the rhythms of farm life. Leaving aside that there are no farmers anymore, this problem is solved by just keeping DST all the time. Again, it’s an extra hour of daylight! Who is in favor of less light? Wake up, sheeple!

But honestly the arguments for switching the time twice a year seem pretty lame all in all. But I’d much rather do that than keep Standard Time all year (shudder).

OK let’s do a poll.

(a) Keep the status quo

(b) Standard time all the time

(c) DST all the time

(d) Have DST in the winter and Standard time the rest of the year. (I would actually prefer this to either (a) or (b).)

(e) Some alternative you freaks come up with that I can’t imagine now.

. . . Andrew Gelman.

Interestingly, support for the status quo seems practically non-existent.