I have not read the book. And I don't plan to.
But I thought I should note that Vagina: A New Biography, by the feminist writer Naomi Wolf, has drawn scorn from science bloggers and literary critics alike. The book traffics heavily in neuroscience, we're told, and...
I have not read the book. And I don't plan to.
But I thought I should note that Vagina: A New Biography, by the feminist writer Naomi Wolf, has drawn scorn from science bloggers and literary critics alike. The book traffics heavily in neuroscience, we're told, and various parties suggest that Wolf got the neuroscience wrong. In a review in The New York Review of Books, the writer Zoë Heller notes the dangers for those who wade into neuroscience without a life vest:
Like many who have drunk shallow drafts from the fountains of evolutionary biology and neuroscience, Wolf is so excited at the idea of explaining complex, overdetermined features of human behavior with simple reference to the prehistoric savannah or the hypothalamus that she often ignores the promptings of...
It's always distressing when a smart writer makes a mess of a science story. Tough...
It's always distressing when a smart writer makes a mess of a science story. Tough reporters who can't be conned by the wiliest of politicians often seem to produce nonsense when they try to write about science.
The latest example of this sad phenomenon comes from the smart and influential feminist writer Naomi Wolf, in a post on CNN's Global Public Square entitled "Is pornography driving men crazy?" She begins by noting "how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways."
She goes on, in the third graf, to lay out her hypothesis:
What is driving this weirdly...
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