When you create a marker on Google Maps , you could be bring out the most popular spiritual and intimate habits in your local neighborhood . At least , that ’s what a group of social geographers demonstrated with their “ sexual urge and religious belief ” map .
A group of three geographer who research net mathematical function data did an exhaustive study of user - sire markers on Google maps . These are flagstone and notes that the great unwashed can leave on Google mathematical function to let other masses make out what ’s going on in that field . University of Kentucky ’s Matthew Zook and Oxford ’s Mark Graham sifted through ream of this data looking for keywords that popped up in tie with different region . One of their most late result is this mapping showing the preponderance of words consort with different religion ( they picked the word “ Jesus , ” “ Hindu , ” “ Buddha , ” and “ Allah ” ) . Perhaps not surprisingly , the terms incline to pass more unremarkably in areas of the world associated with organized religion that use those word frequently . patently , there are going to be more shoes with the word of honor “ Jesus ” associated with them in South America , while there will be more place assort with “ Buddha ” in Southeast Asia .
Then the researchers bring in place where there were markers that had the word “ sex ” in them . You get a nice view of aphrodisiac places and religious places .
Says research worker Mark Graham :
Here we included placemarks that cite the tidings ( “ sex ” ) , a popular and external used term with very different connotations than the religious keywords used in the beginning . The purpose of including this full term is to compare user interest group in religion to drug user interest in sex . If ( as some say ) the three topics to avoid in polite conversation are religious belief , sex and political sympathies it seems only proper that this Internet blog ( the antithesis to polite conversation if there every was one ) contain on the dubiousness . Sadly , the inclusion body of politics will have to hold back until another solar day .
In Asia there are very few places where there are more references to sex than Allah , Buddha , Hindu or Jesus . Constrasting this is Western Europe ( particularly the UK and Scandinavia ) and North America ( especially the East and West Coasts ) there are more references to sex activity than any of the four religious terms that we searched for . . . There are , however , exclusion such as the Iberian countries of Spain and Portugal which continue to show more character reference to Jesus .
And then there ’s this map , which I adore , showingplacemarkers with the word “ strip nine ” in them . Of course Vegas precede the way .
UPDATE : io9 talk with researcher Matthew Zook , who clear up how they gathered the data . He said via email that these single-valued function are found on gathering data from :
Half a million geotagged places that have been impart to Wikipedia , 10 million contribute to WikiMapia , 800 million GPS power point uploaded to OpenStreetMap , and almost 10 million placemarks upload to Google .
He also mark that “ all footing were in English . ” Zook summate :
Using translated terms is something we are working on but it is a tough nut . Which speech communication should be used at which point ? What is the well translated term for “ sex ” in Chinese , Thai , German , Danish , etc . ?
you may find more challenging maps like these on the researchers ’ blogFloatingSheep .
Google MapsmapsScience
Daily Newsletter
Get the unspoiled tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
