Book Review: Brainstorm
Title: Brainstorm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences
Author: Rebecca M. Jordan-Young
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: September 2010
My version: Hardcover, 394 pages
Book description (back cover):Female and male brains are different, thanks to hormones coursing through the brain before birth. That's taught as fact in psychology textbooks, academic journals, and bestselling books. And these hardwired differences explain everything from sexual orientation to gender identity, to why there aren't more women physicists or more stay-at-home dads. In this compelling book, Rebecca Jordan-Young takes on the evidence that sex differences are hardwired into the brain. Analyzing virtually all published research that supports the claims of 'human brain organization theory,' Jordan-Young reveals how often these studies fail the standards of science. Even if careful researchers point out the limits of their own studies, other researchers and journalists can easily ignore them because brain organization theory just sounds so right. But if a series of methodological weaknesses, questionable assumptions, inconsistent definitions, and enormous gaps between ambiguous findings and grand conclusions have accumulated through the years, then science isn't scientific at all. Elegantly written, this book argues passionately that the analysis of gender differences deserves far more rigorous, biologically sophisticated science. 'The evidence for hormonal sex differentiation of the human brain better resembles a hodge-podge pile than a solid structure...Once we have cleared the rubble, we can begin to build newer, more scientific stories about human development.'
This book stood on my shelf for a long time, but when I was moving I started to read it in case I could get rid of one more hardback. Well, I didn't finish it before the move... It was recommended to me by Ginger Campbell of the Brain Science Podcast (there is also a GoodReads forum). I had just read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender, which I thought was interesting, well researched and just a pure joy to read. Ginger recommended this book and also Lise Eliot's Pink Brain, Blue Brain, which I started to read, but didn't think was as interesting mainly because it's more about practical advice on parenting and also I found it a bit repetitive. Anne Fausto-Sterling's book Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men is also something I would be interested in reading. I just found it while looking at some references for this blog post. If anyone has read it, I would love to hear your opinion in the comments.
So, let's look at the book in question. The preface starts:
Most books set out to answer questions. This book sets out to question answers. The answers I question have to do with the nature and causes of differences between men and women, and between straight and gay people. Specifically I question what we "know" about male and female brains, or gay and straight brains.
I feel like this is what the book does. It first explains the theories and gives examples of the studies. It gives you an idea what was studied and how the studies failed or succeeded in their goal. The first chapters concentrate on the the theory of brain organization. These were kind of hard for me to read. It's not a book that you read when your concentration is not all there.
The idea of brain organization theory is that the brain is like an extra reproductive organ. Because of this function the brains of men and women are different, so that they are predisposed to behaviors and desires that lead to reproduction. The formation of the brain differences are explained by hormones, mostly the prenatal ones. But the brain organization theory is not only used for explaining the differences relating to sexuality, but also things like spatial ability (considered as a male trait) and verbal ability (considered as a female trait). In the research the brain organization by hormones has been accepted almost as a fact, even though there is very little support for this.
Jordan-Young has read an amazing amount of studies which she compares and tries to make sense of what have been discovered. Mostly, it's a big fat nothing. The is that the studies that find no difference between sexes usually remain unpublished and the ones that are published usually exaggerate the difference. And often they contradict other studies in the field. Sometimes it's also hard to see which studies agree with each other, since the definitions of masculine and feminine vary from study to study. Even the definition of gay is not always so simple. Also the researchers seem to forget that correlation doesn't mean causality. The bigger picture is often forgotten.
For me, this book was definitely an interesting read. The research was thorough and explained to the detail. The most interesting chapters for me were the last 2 chapters, that actually brought some new insight to me. Lot of the other information was somewhat familiar to me after reading the Delusions of Gender and some of it felt a bit repetitive. Although repetition wasn't always bad, it also cleared things up. The biggest problem I had with the book was the language: it just didn't flow. This is often a problem with academic writing, in my opinion. This is meant to be a popular science book, however, and the language made an already hard subject even harder. So, in this sense I think the book could've been better. However, I think this is an important book and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in brain science and sex differences, although if you don't know much about brain science, I would suggest to start with Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender. Still: read this!
Cheese slices:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 kommenttia:
Post a Comment