Welcome!

An overview of my blog.

In this blog I will analyze and provide my thoughts about various patterns in humanity, and whatever else catches my interest. Below I give an overview of my blog.

History of Science

In one of my hobby projects, I have looked into the history of science, mainly in Europe.

1. The Rise of the West. In this post I document the onset of the West’s ascent in the period 1000 to 1500 AD. I combine multiple sources to reveal many changes: the establishment of universities, growth in schooling and human capital, technological adoption and innovation, urbanization, book production, violence, and the economy.

2. Notable People in Science, 1000–1850. I show maps of where notable people in science were born, revealing geographical structure of scientific progress. I list the most notable people in each period, and also give a summary of the history of science in Europe.

3. Which European Nations Are Overrepresented in the History of Science? Having observed geographical structures of notability in the previous post, I analyze whether this can simply be attributed to differences in population density. I find that some nations are greatly overrepresented even on a per capita basis.

Crime

I have analyzed patterns in crime from multiple sources.

1. Crime in the USA. This post is my primer on crime in America, giving a brief overview of many of the most important aspects on the topic.

2. Quantifying Racial Disparities in Homicide Perpetration. In this I post I propose a method that combines CDC homicide victimization data with FBI perpetration data to yield more reliable estimates.

3. Constructing Missing Crime Tables. In this post I take the raw data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and produce tables missing from recent summary reports; tables which in particular left out Asian victimization counts.

4. Mental Health and Social Stratification. I review some evidence of the importance of mental health as a determinant of social success, and also touch upon the evidence regarding the association between mental disorders and crime.

5. The Effects of Immigration in Denmark. In this post I combine publicly available Danish census data with criminal conviction data and estimate violent crime conviction rates of immigrants by nation of origin.

6. Racial Homicide Disparities Since 1910. Here I document the existence of substantial racial homicide disparities since high-quality data has existed in America.

Psychology

1. Understanding Greater Male Variability. Here I look at the greater male variability hypothesis and make some suggestions for how it should be conceptualized and evaluated.

2. Mental Health and Social Stratification. I review some evidence of the importance of mental health as a determinant of social success.

Misc

1. Man the Hunter. I take a look at hunter-gatherer data, confirming commonly held notions that hunting is a practice that exhibits marked sexual division of labor in traditional hunter-gatherer societies.

2. Geographical Distribution of Ancestry in the United States. Here I make a bunch of maps which illustrate how ancestry is distributed in the United States.

3. When Lightning Strikes... Literally. Here I quantify the risk of various causes of death from extremely rare to less rare, such as deaths from lightning strikes, being killed by police, being killed by an animal, and deaths from falling.