Ah … everyone loves a statistical map, and this collection takes the cake!
A Kansas State University geography PhD student, Tom Vought, created density maps of the seven deadly sins across the US. The operationalizations of some of these constructs are unquestionably up for debate, but this is a totally fun demo to play around with, anyway. Interesting how the Bible Belt seems to be most deeply entrenched in sinful behavior … if asked for a retort, I bet they would point out that the seven deadly sins is a catholic concept, anyway.
The first article linked below describes the project, including the statistics that were used to index each of the 7 deadly sins. The second link goes straight to interactive maps of the US for each of the seven deadly sins. Classic!
RTFA: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/26/one-na…
The question of evil and where it lurks has been largely ignored by the scientific community, which is why a recently released study titled “The Spatial Distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins Within Nevada” is groundbreaking: Never before has a state’s fall from grace been so precisely graphed and plotted.
Geographers from Kansas State University have used certain statistical measurements to quantify Nevada’s sins and come up with a county-by-county map purporting to show various degrees of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride in the Silver State. By culling statistics from nationwide databanks of things like sexually transmitted disease infection rates (lust) or killings per capita (wrath), the researchers came up with a sin index. This is a precision party trick – rigorous mapping of ridiculous data.
Interactive Graph for the US:
older post