The Female Brain
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
John Schumann's big read of the summer is Louann Brizendine's The Female Brain.
To him it adds another dimension that needs to be addressed when we consider brain development and learning and thus by extension language acquisition. And I will not argue against that.
However, over at Langague Log, it looks like Brizendine has played a little fast and loose with her reading of source articles. Here's a pretty list of fact checking entries that mount to a pretty damning picture.
In my mind, it's a shame that it has to be this way. I think that there is merit to do sex-differentiated studies of brain development, but Brisendine's "breezy" approach isn't rigorous enough to get traction (or it shouldn't be).
More if I find the energy.
John Schumann's big read of the summer is Louann Brizendine's The Female Brain.
To him it adds another dimension that needs to be addressed when we consider brain development and learning and thus by extension language acquisition. And I will not argue against that.
However, over at Langague Log, it looks like Brizendine has played a little fast and loose with her reading of source articles. Here's a pretty list of fact checking entries that mount to a pretty damning picture.
In my mind, it's a shame that it has to be this way. I think that there is merit to do sex-differentiated studies of brain development, but Brisendine's "breezy" approach isn't rigorous enough to get traction (or it shouldn't be).
More if I find the energy.
posted by Andrea Mates at 8:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home