Geographers from Kansas State University have used certain statistical measurements to quantify the nation’s sins and come up with a national map claiming to show various degrees of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.
The article that sets forth the statistics that were used is here:
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.
Some of the logic behind the mapping seems rather dubious. For example, “gluttony” was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita. How about mapping the per capita number of five star restaurants?
Hat tip: Alan Jacobs and Andrew Sullivan.
Peeling Dragon Skin 