Mark Reece's Blog - Posts Tagged "neuroscience"

The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain by Gina Rippon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Although this book focused on reviewing purported sex differences between male and female brains, it also gives an introduction to some aspects of neuroscience, such as child development. The central argument is that sex differences in brain structures are generally smaller than are typically supposed, and that even where they exist, their connection to social behaviour is often unclear.

The main reason why I think that the book is a success is because Rippon has a good understanding of the social sciences, which enables her to question how to structure categories, and which of the variables being measured is dependent on the other. For example, Rippon gives many examples of situations where a brain difference has been described as the cause of social behaviour, as if the causation is beyond question. However, in such a case, there are many possibilities, including:

1) The brain differences cause the differences is social behaviour.
2) The social behaviour causes the brain differences.
3) The brain differences are incidental to the social behaviour.
4) The metrics used in the differentiation are social constructions rather than properly discreet categories.
5) There are errors in the study's design.

Given what Rippon states about brain plasticity, that is, the ability of the brain to 're-shape' itself as a result of experience, determining the chain of causality, that is, distinguishing between 1) and 2) in the above list, may be more of a philosophical rather than scientific task.

It seems to be the case that most humans believe that identifying sex is very important- Rippon gives example of this in infants, who are able to tell the difference between male and female voices. That phenomena is also apparent in other circumstances, such as the worry that is sometimes felt by people who don't know the sex of someone they meet. I wonder whether this urge is behind the passion by which the topic has often been pursued.

The structure of the book is a little wayward at times, filled with digressions, but not in a way that I found distracting. The author is witty and urbane, making the book easy to read, despite the complexity of the topic, and the large weight of references in relies on. The wider perspective that Rippon brings to the topic makes the book enjoyable and interesting.



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