Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Thursday, March 26, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Beyond the Sun
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.
Their findings were presented Tuesday at the Association of American Geographers’ annual meeting at the Riviera, where Kansas State geography research associate Thomas Vought fielded questions while standing next to a poster of his research. Seven maps of Nevada, in seven different colors, for seven different sins.
The darker a county, the more evil it is.
Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line. On this map, done in yellow, Clark County is bile (see map on Page 2).
Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts — robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars. Rendered in green, of course, Clark County is emerald.
Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes — murder, assault and rape — reported to the FBI per capita. Vought and his colleagues used the color red to illustrate wrath, so Clark County looks like a fresh welt. Washoe is slightly statistically duller. Everywhere else is a friendly pork pink.
Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases — HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea — reported per capita. Here again, Clark and Washoe counties are worst. Carson City County is a close third.
Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita, and this is one category where Clark County is bested. First in deep fry goes to Carson City.
Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment. Here again Clark County is beat, scoring only average on the scale of sloth.
And pride, lastly, is most important. The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data. Vought and his Kansas colleagues combined all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil. So pride, mapped in purple, shows the states two darkest bruises: counties Clark and Carson City.
Yet, in the grand scheme of things, maybe we’re not that bad. While Vought and his colleagues spent four weeks on the detailed Nevada study, they also ran the numbers on some 3,000 counties across the country, a nationwide survey of sin.
Turns out Nevada is unremarkable when compared with other states. Sure, we have a little discoloration around Washoe and Clark counties when it comes to wrath, and Southern Nevada as a whole stands out in the nationwide map of greed, but other than that, we’re almost colorless, boring even, when compared with Texas, which ranked high for gluttony, or wrath, which was concentrated in Florida and surrounding states.
Moreover, the Kansas geographers also compared the level of sin in 10 top casino markets, and while the Las Vegas Strip ranked first for greed, it could muster no better than third place for pride, the aggregate of all sins. It was the southern gambling cities — Lula, Miss.; Biloxi, Miss.; and Shreveport, La., that came out on top of the bottom. Why, exactly, remains to be seen. The Kansas geographers started this project, it seems pretty clear, for the erudite amusement; something to stand out at a 6,000-person convention consumed with the world’s heavy questions. But if Tuesday’s convention crowd was evidence, the sin study was interesting to other scholars as well. So Vought and colleagues plan to continue their national study of evil.
“It’s too much fun,” Vought said, smiling in a way that suggested, if not pride, then a good deal of pleasure.
One of my least favorite sins is when journalists cannot write. A study is titled, not entitled.
Teaser,
Methinks thou doth protest too much! I could agree with you that "titled" might be a better choice of words than "entitled", but both are correct and acceptable.
entitle definition
entitle (en tit'l, in-)
transitive verb entitled -tled, entitling -tling
to give a title or name to
People have too much time on their hands.
I have to question your premise that sexual lust is "evil." It is only considered as such from a religious conservative point of view. From a secular view, there is nothing wrong with consensual sex.
Also, the study is wrong to measure sexual activity by rates of venereal disease. In Europe, venereal disease is much less prevalent than in the USA. Its not that they have less sexual activity in Europe. It's because they are more likely to use condoms. In Europe they have a more rational approach to sex.
First, you are wrong about Europe.
According this worldwide study in 1999, it says that Europe the STD rate is higher than North America.
http://www.avert.org/stdstatisticsworldw...
From a purely health secular point of view, having sex with many partners often even with proper condom usage is like playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun that just has one chamber empty.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), proper use of condoms are not highly effective in preventing the transfers of some of the more common forms of STD's, like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. Proper condom usgage use has a poor prevention history against syphilis and herpes simplex virius-2.
There is also a significant amount of improper implementation of condom usage. 15 of 100 of such instances result in pregancy. Of course, STDs are higher amount these instances, too.
Blacks have a far greater rates of STD's. Over half of black teenage girls with get a STDs. Blacks make up 13% of the population. Half of all HIV cases are black people in USA. Of HIV cases for people under 25, 65% are black. Many black men who practice bi-sexuality do not accept that they are gay and therefore are hard to reach in safe sex gay education programs.
STD's are associated with throat cancer and cervical cancer.
Bringing home a STD to your wife and then she getting the STD is sad. Her getting cancer because of that STD would be extremely tragic.
So if you are young and want to have a lot sex with a lot of people then you should use condoms for it is effective in preventing some STD's and preventing pregancy.
Still plan to get some STD.
So horny dog......Go study up. Use condoms correctly. Get check out frequently. Follow the doctors advice on dealing with your STD.
Better advice is to have to long term monogamous relationships with people who also practice long term relationships. In those relationships, you can even have sex without condoms.
Hmmmmmm....I wonder why most religions encourage monogamous relationships.
CharlesDarwin, you're right. Sex isn't the sin, not wearing a condom is and passing on the STD's. Instead of a million Escort magazine stands in Vegas, they should have a bunch of condom machines. And those illegals slapping the girly brochures should be passing them out as well. The religious right hate sex, yet their towns are number one in rented porn and number of kids. Hypocrits!! This whole survey is stupid, more time should be spent on things that matter. Sounds like something Gillespie wuill use to send justify more cops on hooker busts.
Different studies show different results:
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/PUBLICA...
Anyway, the point is that you can't determine rates of extramarital sexual activity based on STD rates since condom use does in fact significantly reduce the risks.
Why do most religions encourage monogamous relationships? It surely has nothing whatsoever to do with fear of STDs. Religions have all sorts of irrational prohibitions. For example, the Jewish and Islamic religions prohibit eating pork. I would lump prohibitions on non-marital sexual relations in with all the other irrational religious beliefs.
For everyone questioning whether "SEXUAL LUST" is evil, you are being irrelevant... The fact is that this study was based on the "7 deadly sins" which incorporated Lust... Really you can almost question all of them...Really who thinks these things are EVIL.."GLUTTONY, PRIDE, ENVY, or Sloth." While it is true that these things can cause evil actions they can also create amazing results...Pride and Envy for example may cause people to work harder or even stop destructive behaviors so that you can provide for your family.
CharlesDarwin -- what you said!
In the first place, science has zero to do with "sin" and "evil." The history of the Inquisition and the Dark Ages would be instructive on this point.
For we existential deists the entire premise of this article is repugnant to legitimate science.
Um, yeah KillerB, the purpose of the study was kind of the point you were making...and it worked. It received good enough publicity to get into the paper, received comments from people who obviously found enough interest to read the article, and Thomas Vought is now a celebrity for a day.
loverotom -- must be all that Nietzsche I've been reading lately.
really does this study amount to anything? I admit it was a great idea but still did they take population into consideration? Areas that are more heavily populated will of course have a higher crime rate, a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases, and even more fast food places. Any basic statistics class can show you the problems with this study.
they should do one of these in washington dc and see what they come up with......LMFAO....the list will go on and on and on
I've decided that most posters don't read beyond the title and the first paragraph before publishing an opinion. The authors clearly describe this as a "parlor trick", not a scientific study. Gluttony is determined by the number of fast food restaurants, never mind that that the locations having the most fast food restaurants are also the areas of the country where most people not only eat at home, but eat from their own gardens. It is simply a bit of fun, not an excuse to bash Christians, as too many narrow-minded posters are wont to do.
Most of the determining statistics in this study can have many causes. People who spend on luxury probably worked to get the money. The slothful people can't afford luxury. The luxury spending might be a better determination for greed. Gluttony may be better determined by obesity. Theft can be caused by slothfulness or greed. Lust is more than sexual promiscuity. It also can mean any selfish desire. The sin of pride may be defined as an inability to admits faults. That is hard to measure by these statistics.
This is by far one of most uneducated uses of GIS technology... not only are the geospatial relationships poorly addressed in this project, the true power of GIS lies within the ability to relate massive amounts of geospatial data into several geospecific determinations.
For example the "Greed" map was produced from Census Bureau data of total per capita income compared to the total number of inhabitants below the poverty line. Key factors such as the geographic locations of high technology producing US regions, social and political values and highly motivated social classes were not taken into consideration. Highly successful people, driven individuals or corporations do not equal Greed. One interesting point is the key regions outlined as "Greed" regions also spatially relate to "Blue Party - Democratic" and "Green Liberal" regions as well... smart, liberal, democratic, green minded and rich, does not = Greed. Moreover, geospatial distinctions between regions of high terrestrial, coastal and geographic beauty were also not taken into consideration. The only geospatial determination I related from this highly illogical use of GIS, is that that the people with the highest per capital income also live in the most beautiful places in the US. This is not Greed
Kansas State University needs a hard and strong lecture on the true powers of GIS.
Karl Engstrom - Chief Technology Officer
Pacific GIS - Terra Imaging - La Jolla, CA
The last comment here is hilarious. He criticizes the correlation of a subjective judgment (greedy) with objective data, yet offers as an alternative explanation another subjective judgment (beautiful). Thank you for living in La Jolla. Please stay there.
Sorry FGHJ... Nothing is "subjective" about the regions in the map. They are beautiful!
-Karl
Where can you download .jpg files of these graphics?