by Kieran Healy on March 18, 2007
Tyler Cowen asks,
bq. So why *are* women more religious than men? Is it just greater risk-aversion?
According to my colleague Louise Roth, in an article from the current ASR co-authored with Jeff Kroll, the answer to the second question is, “No.” Here’s the abstract:
bq. Scholars of religion have long known that women are more religious than men, but they disagree about the reasons underlying this difference. Risk preference theory suggests that gender gaps in religiosity are a consequence of men’s greater propensity to take risks, and that irreligiosity is analogous to other high-risk behaviors typically associated with young men. Yet, research using risk preference theory has not effectively distinguished those who perceive a risk to irreligiousness from those who do not. In this article, we evaluate risk preference theory. We differentiate those who believe in an afterlife, who perceive a risk to irreligiousness, from nonbelievers who perceive no risk associated with the judgment after death. Using General Social Survey and World Values Survey data, multivariate models test the effects of gender and belief on religiousness. In most religions and nations the gender gap is larger for those who do not believe in an afterlife than for those who do, contradicting the predictions of risk preference theory. The results clearly demonstrate that the risk preference thesis is not a compelling explanation of women’s greater average religiosity.
by Harry on March 18, 2007
I used to give blood, less often than I probably should have done, but willingly, and without much personal cost. Needles don’t bother me (as long as I am the victim) and whereas I’d feel tired at the end of the day, that was about it. There’s nothing special about my blood, and I’m sure it’s a drop in the ocean, but a recent conversation about why I no longer give blood has prompted me to wonder whether I should start again.
Why don’t I give any longer?
[click to continue…]
by Eszter Hargittai on March 18, 2007
What do you get when you sort approximately 800,000 published papers into 776 scientific paradigms? If you have an interesting visualization expert working with you on the project then you get this map (or click here for an even larger version). Seed Magazine has more on the details and Brad Paley’s Information Esthetics Web site tells you how you can get your own copy just for paying shipping and handling charges.
This map is just one project of Katy Börner’s cool Places and Spaces: Mapping Science initiative at Indiana University. Check out that site for more goodies.
Brad also has some other intriguing projects, like this calendar (an alternative to what we usually use). One of my favorites, however, remains his TextArc work for alternative ways of visualizing text. For example, check out his representation of Alice in Wonderland.
UPDATE: I’ve been meaning to blog about Jim Moody’s related work as well so I should’ve remembered to include a link to his visualizations, too: co-citation of physical and bio sciences, dynamic visualization of sociology co-authorship network.
by Henry Farrell on March 18, 2007
The recent “profusion”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/03/12/skin/ “of”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/03/14/gift-exchange/ “posts”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/03/15/how-about-my-gift/ on beard shaving has attracted a slightly more sophisticated class of comment-spammer to CT than the usual midget-porn purveyors we hose out of the moderation queue every morning.
I’ve been hiding under my facial hair for so long because of life circumstances it was no point in getting involved. Now life is starting to look better and I’m not under such stress and crap. I might just have to get back in the game… How do I attract women? I suppose I need to do more than just shave or use the ever-popular [name of pheromone product deleted]. I’m gonna have to ditch my caveman culture and transform myself a little I guess. The secret is that i use pheromones [url deleted] for attracting women. They are like magic.
It’s unclear whether this is a good or a bad thing.
