derivative work

Last weekend I was listening to a program on “Testosterone” on “This American Life” (archive) and, predictably, my interest in the topic was equaled or surpassed by my exasperation and annoyance at its handling. “This American Life” is a one-hour show, that aims to do something rather cool: Shed some light on a topic by [...]

christ what a crock: The London Times reports that: We all know that women like pink and men prefer blue, but we have never really known why. Now it emerges that parents who dress their boys in blue and girls in pink may not just be following tradition but some deep-seated evolutionary instinct. I guess [...]

Some mathematicians have finally pointed out the really, really obvious problem behind a popular theory of sex differences: Men are purported to have more sex partners than women … but the math doesn’t add up. Folks loving the idea that men and women are intrinsically, inherently, biologically, different have long loved to cite things like [...]

Last week a copyright imbroglio broke out at a science blog which had written a post critiquing mainstream coverage of a science article; the blog had posted a figure from the paper to demonstrate bad science writing in the mainstream media. Wiley sent a C&D; the blogger agreed to take the material down (actually took [...]

Years ago, my partner read some of Nicholas Wade’s NYT articles and shook her head at the shallowness of his analysis. It hasn’t gotten any better since. The NYT is running a lot of articles right now about sex, gender, and sexuality, and Nicholas Wade’s latest article is crap. He writes like the answers have [...]

Remember the kerfuffle about the stupidly titled NYT article on bisexuality? (Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited) The study, to be published in Psychological Science in Aug. 2005, was described by NYT science writer Benedict Carey as suggesting that there are no truly bisexual men, and indeed it seemed as if the study’s authors fostered [...]

I never cease to be astonished by how smarmy politicans can be: today, leaders in the Smarm Community, the anti-choice people (‘pro-lifers’). The latest RU-486 story in the NYT, sensationalistically titled “2 More Women Die After Abortion Pills”, covers two recent RU-486 deaths (two, for a total of five; four of which were probably infection-related). [...]

The NYT profiled a new study that claims that bi-identified men really are either attracted exclusively either to men or women. And another new study is reported in The Scotsman about sex differences in the experience of and tolerance for pain. As a rule I don’t think very highly of research on sex differences; research [...]