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Liberal Areas Greedier, Bible Belt Excels in Envy, Wrath, Lust and Pride ?
By Bruce Wilson Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 11:24:54 AM EST printable version print story
As described in a story at Wired Magazine, an enterprising team from the Geography Department at Kansas State University has created a series of United States maps that purport to show incidence of the seven deadly sins mentioned in the Bible: greed, envy, wrath, sloth, gluttony, lust, and pride. Now, there are some methodological questions in terms of what proxy data the team chose as representing incidence of deadly sins. For example, the proxy data for "sloth" are "Expenditures on art, entertainment, and recreation compared with employment." And, do STD rates really correlate with lust ? But the maps are certainly intriguing.


Because I love these sorts of maps, I'm including a series of maps I generated several years ago, for a story I was writing on gay marriage in Massachusetts, which depicted state-level rates of divorce, STD's and other social data. These are somewhat dated but still interesting. [Click on the thumbnail pictures for full size images. Dark red=highest incidence/worst ranking. Light tan or green=lowest incidence/best ranking. most data is from 2003 and 2004]

Infant Mortality, by State
Infant Mortality, by State

Incidence of Gonorrhea, by State
Incidence of Gonorrhea, by State

Incidence of Syphilis, by State
Incidence of Syphilis, by State

State Health Rankings, overall
State Health Rankings, overall

Incidence of Umarried Births, by State
Incidence of Umarried Births, by State

Incidence of Teen Births, by State
Incidence of Teen Births, by State



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Liberal Areas Greedier, Bible Belt Excels in Envy, Wrath, Lust and Pride ? | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
I think this is correct (5.00 / 1)
I live in Mississippi and believe that this study is right on. For example, the popular rumor here is that West Point, MS has the highest incident of STD's in the state. It's a small southern town, one would not think that.

It seems to be a case of 'do as I say, not as I do'.

by COinMS on Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 06:34:40 AM EST


I'm very curious (5.00 / 1)
I've had classes on GIS (ArcGIS 9.2 to be exact), and I'm very curious as to how the data were handled- if there was compensation for population density and so on.

These are revealing charts, and even if they don't compensate for other demographic factors; they are very informative (and well done, although I'd like to see captions showing the values as compared to color, with the calculation involved).

(Please excuse me from being somewhat of a perfectionist! (GRIN!!!))

by ArchaeoBob on Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 12:37:06 PM EST

Compensation for densities... (5.00 / 1)
I always like seeing the maps contorted to show the true demographics, but I'm sure that they take more time than most are willing to put in.

by trog69 on Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 03:51:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Depends... (5.00 / 1)
With the software I'm aware of, it only requires downloading the proper datasets and then using the right commands.  Basic demographics are easily acquired.  The datasets used here might actually take more time to find than the basics, so a majority of the work has been done.

At worst, it would require doing a two or three-stage process, and that isn't that lengthy or time consuming.

by ArchaeoBob on Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 04:31:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]




Liberal Areas Greedier, Bible Belt Excels in Envy, Wrath, Lust and Pride ? | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)

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