Comments on: And Then the Lord Sent Two Research Angels, Versed in Statistics and GIS

By: Michaelray6583

Michaelray6583 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Totally interesting/ironic that the Bible-Belt is devilish-red!

By: Tammyguerra

Tammyguerra — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:33:00 +0000

Would it not be interesting to see how sin has increased and decreased over the past 40 or so years? To see how society has evolved in the sin areas… hummm food for thought

By: driver81

driver81 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:29:17 +0000

Look on the bright side, Brew. ,

By: 6 degrees 02_09_09 « 53 degrees

6 degrees 02_09_09 « 53 degrees — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:53:05 +0000

[...] Together at last: Geographic Information Systems and the Seven Deadly Sins. “Cancel that fire and brimstone [...]

By: Edie Frederick

Edie Frederick — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:46:30 +0000

It would be interesting to see a map of the virtues overlaid over the map of sins. I won’t speculate …

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:41:14 +0000

I guess it is a pretty difficult construct to measure. I imagine that the General Social Survey has some pretty good questions that could operationalize sin, but the region wouldn’t be included in the publicly available data.

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:35:19 +0000

Ben, you are coming very close to the mistake you say this study is not making by applying an ecological study to individual traits with this: “Just like in an area near to fast food restaurants won’t necessarily make you a glutton, but according to more rigiour geographic analysis, it does contribute to higher rates of obesity(especially when controlling for the location of supermarkets)”

That could just be another measure of SES. The dearth of grocery stores and plethora of fast food restaurants are typical of low income neighborhoods. And obesity is correlated with SES. We still don’t really have any indication that thin people in those neighborhoods are eating any differently.

You are attributing cause with the word “contribute.” Is associated with would be much more appropriate. You absolutely cannot attribute cause with an ecological study.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:04:45 +0000

How exactly do you propose a better way to map sin would be?

By: Tintin LaChance

Tintin LaChance — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:40:50 +0000

I wish the chart was a little bigger; I can’t tell if the Twin Cities are represented in the Sloth category, and considering that they’ve got the highest number of theater seats per capita in the country (outside NYC), I would have expected to see them with something of a red spot. The ones that could either be on the western edge of Wisconsin or the eastern edge of Minnesota don’t seem like they’re quite north enough to be Minneapolis-St. Paul.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:09:06 +0000

If you expanded it a bit and ignored everything that wasn’t in the south.

But you could basically say that about all of them, if you ignore the right parts.

By: John Stark

John Stark — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:12:08 +0000

The lust map is practically a mirror of black demographics http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2006/jan/images/05_0055_02.gif

By: MeToo

MeToo — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:54:31 +0000

“At least they didn’t use obesity rates as their measure.”

Thank God. Though it’s seriously depressing that it’s remarkable to find a study on consumption habits that’s *not* blatantly fatphobic.

By: Anomie

Anomie — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:21:54 +0000

–>”But I think you made a mistake in your analysis of what the map means.”

Nah, it just means I wasn’t clear enough. My point was not to criticize the study by judging it according to standards more suitable for micro-level analyses. Rather, it was to show that this study is a good teaching tool for those of use who teach Introductory Sociology, and need good examples for trying to explain to our students the difference between micro and macro.

The fact that this study was done tongue-in-cheek is part of the allure of using it as a teaching tool. I think that makes it more interesting for the students.

By: ben

ben — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:12:18 +0000

I’m a geographer by trade, so I guess I should add to this a bit.

First, the Kansas State study was a joke (in a good way). It’s the equivalent of a talk at MLA or the ASA that has at least 5 words in scare quotes.

It was presented at the 2009 Association of American Geographers annual meeting in Las Vegas. It looked at sin because we were, you know, in Sin City. For whatever reason, this study was picked up by the media, which presented it as one of those quirky studies. I’m not sure they’ll submit it to a journal, I doubt it’ll get accepted.

But I think you made a mistake in your analysis of what the map means. It doesn’t try to apply the findings to individuals, but rather regions. Geographers in general, and GIS people in particular, are very aware of the ecological facility and the micro-macro divide. Living in an area with a high crime-rate doesn’t make you more likely to be a criminal, it just means that there’s more crime in the area. Just like in an area near to fast food restaurants won’t necessarily make you a glutton, but according to more rigiour geographic analysis, it does contribute to higher rates of obesity (especially when controlling for the location of supermarkets).

This is one of the dangers of using geographic analysis without understanding the theoretical background of geographic thought. So, in conclusion, the world needs more geographers!

By: chuk

chuk — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:11:28 +0000

It would be interesting to project onto some of those maps, some of the maps we’ve already seen on this blog that showed religious participation and affiliation. Methodists and Lutherans seem to be doing fine ;)

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo200/religion.html