Should I move to Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Vermont?

So not really an artsy post so if that's what you are looking for today, I'm sorry. If you don't care, read on and let me know what you think. Either way here is a BEYOND LEGIT SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  To either download or listen to on the player as you read.

Dead Prez vs Grizzly Bear (Two Weeks of Hip Hop)

- "hungyhungymodels.blogspot.com"

Intro & Data Source

For anyone who enjoys polls and facts to back up their arguments this is a goldmine for you. Click here to see what I am talking about (link will open in new window). Whether you are trashing religion, political identity or simply trying to gain your states moral high ground you should enjoy this collection of data. I found this in my Google reader and can't for the life of me remember what blog kicked this out so if you know who the original  author is let me know so that I may cite it. All the data sources are at the bottom of the image if you want to fact check.

And incase you are terrible at clicking links, or only want a snippet here is some knowledge for you.

Some Data

Of all 50 states New Hampshire is only 46% religious and has one of the highest average IQ's (104). Not to mention one of the lowest theft rates and the (shared with Iowa) lowest murder rate. It is one of the healthiest and happiest states with a low divorce rate.

One the flip side most of the southern portion of the "bible belt" has a religiousness ranking in the high 70-80's coupled with a high percentage of conservatives.  Alongside that we see a lower average IQ, higher divorce rate, higher murder rate and lower health and happiness ranking.

My Biased Conclusion

I did not run any statistical analysis on this so I am really unsure if any of these data points are actually correlated, but still some pretty interesting data. I feel like there is a need for more data to help explain the facts. For instance what is the standard deviation on the IQ data? This is important since a StDeV of 5 would mean only Mississippi has an IQ truly under the average IQ for humans (100). Also could mean they can have a high percentage of their population below IQ of 89 which would put them on some scales as "Dull Normal" or right above borderline defective. (The IQ data was generated from standardize tests.) It has been found that there is a negative correlation between crime and IQ in a Dutch study (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient  under correlations with IQ)

Its interesting to note that a low IQ could be due to a high poverty rate. The poverty rate could be indicative of  poor schooling and thus  higher crime rates. Higher crime rates and poverty would in turn mean a high rate of unhappiness, poor health, and broken homes. Now whether any of this can be traced to religion I am unsure of; like I said no statistical analysis done to verify correlation or causation. Though if you look at Louisiana one of the most religious states and then compare its numbers for the other data points it doesn't look promising.

An Important Warning/Caution/Ending

Let me know what you think, give your own conclusions, run a regression analysis on the data and make me eat my words either way I may be moving back east for the land of high IQ's and happiness.  With that being said please keep this PhD comic in mind whenever you read polls.  Data points such as poverty, crime etc, are ones that can change drastically with time (such as in times of recession). And perhaps circumstances such as the one just mentioned can turn the less fortunate to God or crime to ease their suffering while others turn to education and family; and for some people perhaps all of the above.