I will read and review Cordelia Fine’s Testosterone Rex

Posted on March 17, 2017 by gcochran9

But only if somebody pays me enough money.

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37 Responses to I will read and review Cordelia Fine’s Testosterone Rex

  1. reiner Tor says:
    March 17, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    How much? I’m willing to offer you $50 for this. How many other readers need to join me? Are ten of us enough?

    I wasn’t even aware of this book five minutes ago. Now a Guardian article wiser I want it seen smashed to pieces by your review. I also want to see its author and anybody approvingly writing articles about it stoned to death, but I’m deeply immersed in humanism not to act out these desires.

    Reply
  2. Space Ghost says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:02 pm

    I’m in for 20.

    We could all just paypal it to you, but something like https://www.gofundme.com/ might help with publicity and tracking progress toward the goal amount.

    What’s your target? I wouldn’t do it for under $500 and I’m nobody.

    Reply
  3. Nathan Taylor (praxtime) says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:25 pm

    Looks like Jerry Coyne is going to review it. Or at least read it. See his post from just over a week ago
    https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/03/09/when-ideology-trumps-biology/

    So you may as well just wait for that. But for $300….there may be other books I’d get my entertainment value/money’s worth to have you review. Maybe you should add some possible other authors you’d be willing to review. I might take you up if you have a good one. Or perhaps someone else who reads your blog.

    Anyway, here’s key bit from Coyne, from that post.

    Quote:
    I read her first book, Delusions of Gender, and found it a mixed bag: some of her targets did indeed do bad science, and she properly called them out; but the book was also tendentious, and wasn’t objective about other studies. I’m now about to read her second book, Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society. Judging from the reviews, which have been positive, it’s just as much a polemic as the first book, and has an ideological aim.

    Because I haven’t finished it, I won’t judge it as a whole, but I do want to concentrate on one argument Fine makes that reviewers have found congenial. That is her supposed debunking of the claim that men have often evolved to be promiscuous, and women to be more choosy, because of the potentially greater reproductive payoff for multiply-mating males compared to multiply-mating females.

    Reply
  4. Aidan Kehoe says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:28 pm

    I’m in for 50 € too. Lots of good entertainment is more expensive!

    Reply
  5. Frau Katze says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:29 pm

    I can spare $50. I will PayPal it to you if you get enough responses to go ahead.

    Reply
  6. Anonymous says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:29 pm

    I’ll chip in 20 – there’s value to

    Reply
  7. Paul says:
    March 17, 2017 at 4:31 pm

    I’m in for $20

    Reply
  8. Frau Katze says:
    March 17, 2017 at 5:03 pm

    Crikey. Even the usually more sensible Financial Times has written a glowing review. Mind you, the three reader comments are critical of the review. One person even called the author a “creationist.”

    Reply
  9. caethan says:
    March 17, 2017 at 5:34 pm

    Can’t you get the NYT to commission a review from you?

    Reply
  10. jd016 says:
    March 17, 2017 at 5:47 pm

    Do you still take Bitcoin?

    Reply
  11. ilkarnal says:
    March 17, 2017 at 6:01 pm

    You should try Patreon. People get a lot more money in the long run from fan subscriptions as opposed to one off donations and donation drives.

    Reply
    • Anon says:
      March 17, 2017 at 6:09 pm

      Patreon would also be a good way to motivate people to chip in for a semi-regular podcast, if you were interested in doing one. I think there would be a market for it. Your interview with Future Strategist was pretty good and I know some folks were disappointed that certain things got cut out.

      Reply
  12. ursiform says:
    March 17, 2017 at 6:19 pm

    There is a five star review on Amazon from a woman who writes “Chick Lit”. Her description. Irony.

    Reply
  13. benespen says:
    March 17, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    I ponied up for the GoFundMe. I saw that book in the library, leafed through it, and immediately thought it was a bunch of bollocks. I look forward to Greg’s inimitable style.

    Reply
  14. Anonymous says:
    March 17, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    Donated 26$.

    Reply
  15. Telemachus says:
    March 17, 2017 at 11:14 pm

    Perhaps you should set up a counter fund, a bidding war of sorts.
    A fool and his money…

    Reply
  16. RCB says:
    March 18, 2017 at 8:48 am

    Could you do Jonathan Marks next?

    A few weeks old.

    Reply
    • gcochran9 says:
      March 18, 2017 at 8:52 am

      We’ll see. I was once at a physical anthropology conference and wanted to lead the attendees in a charge against Marks, but Henry talked me out of it.

      Reply
      • RCB says:
        March 18, 2017 at 9:04 am

        I was recently in a facebook debate (yes, a waste of time) with other PhDs about race and intelligence. One professor offered to pre-order this book for me – she was looking out for my soul.

        Marks is the pioneer who gave us the essential truth of “non-concordance”, derived from genetic first principles. As everything geneticist knows, non-concordance means that “different individual traits in the human species don’t share the same patterns of variation across geographic space… because genes are inherited independently of one another.” Hence, darker skin can’t possibly be associated with anything else.

        I had to TA this kind of thing to undergrads.

        http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-01-08.htm

        Reply
  17. James Thompson says:
    March 18, 2017 at 9:27 am

    Dear Greg, Do I have to start a counter-fund, paying you money not to waste your time? Instead, tell me what you think of Tsimané lifestyle and diet as a guide for West Hunters. http://www.unz.com/jthompson/lifestyle-advice/

    Reply
  18. Jerome says:
    March 18, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    Sorry, I don’t see the value of your reading and dismissing what I can dismiss without bothering to read. The dizzy bitch believes there is no difference between men and women. Maybe she should try to grab me by my pussy. Or maybe not.

    I do find it encouraging that when I google-searched testosterone, “rex” was not one of the suggested additions. Let’s hope it stays that way.

    Reply
    • reiner Tor says:
      March 18, 2017 at 2:10 pm

      You seem to be oblivious to the world around us. This baloney will get tens of thousands of Facebook shares and millions of likes. It’s not always easy to argue with them – not all of us combine the knowledge and wit of Professor Cochran in ourselves. Besides, it’s difficult to debate someone who is citing a work which you yourself haven’t read. Someone has to read and review it, or else the nonsense will take over. In fact, it’s already taken over, we have the difficult task of regaining the upper hand.

      Reply
    • Frau Katze says:
      March 18, 2017 at 3:00 pm

      This book has attracted glowing reviews the New York Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian and even a short, positive review in Nature.

      Some comments at FT and the Guardian were negative. This means the “prestige press” is reflecting the approved “elite” view, but there are still heretics (who are still allowed to comment in some venues).

      The “elite” of everything is in danger of a complete takeover, even to closing off free speech outside the USA (the only country in the West with free speech in their constitution).

      We have to fight back. It seems hopeless, but better to go down fighting. Maybe a later generation will overthrow the idiotic “elites” (rather as Communism was tossed). The more truthful accounts we can leave the better.

      Reply
  19. James Miller says:
    March 18, 2017 at 9:22 pm

    You might also want to review this Slate article on twin studies: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/twins/2011/08/double_inanity.html

    Reply
  20. AllenM says:
    March 19, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    Elites must always have shibboleth to separate their followers from the masses- so they reward them to control the rest of society.

    Truth and reality are not what they require, but loyalty, utter loyalty.

    That is what makes a nice sociopathic leadership function in our world.

    The Bunker showed the end game for it.

    Truth is always anathema to the Priest Leader Class, because it has already been revealed to the Dear Leader- so if you have it, you must be destroyed.

    It is amazing to see it in action, but the sad part is so much of our civilization is run by such fools.

    Reply

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