Secular Societies are safer... Part II

[semiotic_pirate]

As an update to this post, I found the source of the study that the article was based on through shogunhb. More comments on this?

Comments

[surelle.livejournal.com]

I think that the study's concept is a humungous undertaking, and I'd like to know more about the methodology. It doesn't seem like they are using a lot of data sources; while they say it's "a first look", I would want to look at different data sets documenting "societal success" , preferably those that aren't gathered through the UN or WHO, in addition to the original data sets. Something like the Human Relations Area Files (http://www.yale.edu/hraf/about.HTM), for example. Someone mentioned quality of life in the earlier post and I think that would be worth looking at. It's just that there is SO much material to go through, statistically... so many parameters in this study... I think it would be wise to break it down into smaller chunks.

The charts are interesting... but I'd need to see more info :D

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's the thing... it is fascinating (as a concept) but not too believable when you know it was one person collating all this data. and yes, more sources would be better... as well as perhaps breaking the whole down into smaller independent chunks that don't know what the other teams are doing getting results about etc.

good concept/idea, I'd want to see all of whatever it is that got him to this point.

oh, and I think I'm going to need your help to get ideas on where to get data for types of things I'm trying to ascertain for my non-thesis research paper.

[surelle.livejournal.com]

Only one person? Yikes.

Sure, I'd be glad to help! We can brainstorm at the Big E or something ;)

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

Again, I think the study is bogus. Any study comparing the United States to countries like Denmark, Holland, Austria, and Sweden that doesn't take into account the fact that there are more people in California than in all those states combined isn't going to be very informative. How about comparing individual U.S. states to some of these countries? There are more people in Massachusetts than there are in Austria - why not compare them? The U.S. is too big and too diverse for comparisons to small, unitary societies to be informative.

I'd be willing to speculate this researcher probably already had this conclusion in mind, and found data and methodology to support it.