Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society

This is well-written and well-researched. My major problem with it is that it's not always clear what thesis she's critiquing. At times she seems to be attacking the claim that hormones determine behavior, but what she means by "determine" is vague. Some of her arguments are targeted against a kind of hard determinism (which is so implausible as to be easy to knock down), and at other times the causal relationship seems to be one of influence, but not necessary connection (as Hume would say). Still, she covers a lot of research that illustrates the complexity of the relationship between hormones, genetics and behavior, which is important to recognize, given the oversimplification of their relationship in popular media (as she notes time and again). If you already grasp that the relationship is complex and there is no simple causal line from hormones to gendered behavior, the book feels like a sustained attack on a dead opponent. But definitely it's worth a read if you think there's a simple causal link and are willing to be challenged, or if you want to gain a greater appreciation of the complex interactions between hormones and behavior.

A lot of the same tired arguments are trotted out when equality for women is discussed, and right now they tend to boil down to the same things: We've done enough; women can get those better jobs if they _really_ want them; and we can't fight Human Nature.This book attacks the premise that men are dominant in the workplace and the world because of the Almighty Testosterone, and it doesn't throw evolutionary biology out the window while doing so. Instead, a picture is painted wherein behavior is influenced by a complex combination of adaptive genes, hormones, and developmental environment.The most interesting bit to me was when she picked apart the studies on male and female behavior and pointed out how they were poorly designed, and how way too much was extrapolated from somewhat less than impressive data.I worry this book will bounce right off the people it's intended to debunk though- it even states at one point that it's easier to say testosterone = male superiority and call it a day than it is to examine the huge network of environmental and social factors that drive gendered behavior.Still, it was a worthy effort and an interesting read.

Very densely argued points on “maleness v. Femaleness.” With the occasional funny aside. Guess what? They’ve been trying to fool us......

Had to read for a class and actually enjoyed her wit. Well researched and thoughtfully put together!

Extremely fun and you get to learn quite a bit.

A delight of cold hard science and snark! Everyone should have to read this book, great structure and very informative.

beautifully written and full of wit

I am fiercely devoted to Cordelia Fine, yall. She is my feminist spirit animal. Full of daring, thoughtful, well-meaning insight and I love her attention to detail and wit.

A book for my book club otherwise I would not have bothered reading it

Wonderful book, promptly received - thank you!!! 😊

The author cherry-picks anecdotal evidence favourable to her views, while ignoring much more persuasive and well-established evidence that is contrary to her views. As a result, she gives a highly misleading impression of the current state of knowledge in evolutionary biology.She rails against strawmen arguments that no one actually believes (i.e., she argues against men and women having two totally different types of brains, with no overlap at all in competitiveness between males and females), while ignoring the more subtle arguments that people actually promote (i.e., that even a modest difference in competitiveness between the sexes on average would result in large differences in the sex ratio at the tails of the distribution).She also makes preposterous claims that demonstrate her poor understanding of evolution. For instance, at one point, she claims that reproduction is not the primary purpose of sexual intercourse in humans. This is clearly wrong. Regardless of how few copulations result in fertilization, and regardless of whatever other purposes copulation serves (e.g., pair bonding), to the extent that the word "purpose" has any meaning in evolutionary biology at all, then the "primary purpose" of sexual intercourse is CLEARLY reproduction.In general, the style of writing is poor and distracted, and attempts at humour fall flat.In short, this is not a good book. It is largely an exercise in water-muddying, in which the author presents little tidbits of contradictory information, hoping that you ignore larger trends. To give just one example of the ludicrous style of argumentation in this book, the author calculates that the probability that a man could successfully fertilize 100 women in a year is 0.0000000000000000000001 or some similarly small number. Therefore, she concludes that the classic argument in evolutionary biology that male reproductive success is limited by the number of females he can fertilize must be false. She ignores the general point that a male clearly has a much, much greater chance of fertilizing two (or three, or four) women in a year than a woman has of being fertilized by two (or three, or four) men in a year. Males do have greater variance in reproductive success than females, but you wouldn't know it from reading this book.However, I did appreciate the discussion of how males and females might perceive risks & rewards differently based on societal factors. The book is at its best when it is discussing social issues rather than biology.

In her very amusing writing, she explains the difficulty of unbiased research- especially when dealing with the sensitive topic of humanity itself and its understanding of gender and sexuality. She explains, why asking the right question is so important and why choosing a proper trial makes all the difference. In conclusion, it is clear that the long standing myth that women are inferior and weak and risk averse is actually NOT scientifically proven. And that the cave man- myth is just that: a myth.

Well- researched and written, accessibly and ascerbic. Excellent book and great arguments with which to meet the conservative and misogynist promotion of transgender ideology.

Elijo esta valoración porque ha sido fácil dar con el producto. Se ha cumplido el plazo de entrega y el pedido se ajustó perfectamente a lo solicitado en la compra.

Much as expected the differences between male and female are not as great as they are made out to be and are heavily influenced by societal differences . What i don t understand from a scientific point of view is how bioneurologist go from physical data to huge psychological leaps of interpretations and no-one seems to indicate that psychological data is time sensitive rather than immutable facts . From my point of view this is something i needed to know even though it was suspected and the evidence was much stronger than i would have thought .

Hello. Please read this book immediately and then shut up forever about males and females having sexed brains.Thanks.Xo