Testosterone Rex
Myths of Sex, Science, and Society
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Narrated by:
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Cat Gould
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By:
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Cordelia Fine
About this listen
Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in our development. According to this familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures - women are more cautious and parenting-focused, men seek status to attract more mates - re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains. This, in turn, is the basis of supposedly entrenched inequalities in our modern societies.
But in this entertaining and rigorous exploration of the latest research, Cordelia Fine draws on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy to reveal a much more dynamic situation. Testosterone, for instance, is not the potent hormonal essence of masculinity, and received wisdoms about differences between the sexes, from toy preferences to financial risk taking, are turned on their heads. Moving beyond the old "nature" versus "nurture" debates, Testosterone Rex reinvigorates hope and determination for a more equal future.
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- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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In Cool, the neuroscientist and philosopher Steven Quartz and the political scientist Anette Asp bring together the latest findings in brain science, economics, and evolutionary biology to form a provocative theory of consumerism, revealing how the brain's "social calculator" and an instinct to rebel are the crucial missing links in understanding the motivations behind our spending habits.
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Some Useful Ideas
- By Carson on 07-20-17
By: Steven Quartz, and others
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The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One
- By: Satoshi Kanazawa
- Narrated by: Paul Neal Rohrer
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Satoshi Kanazawa's Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (written with Alan S. Miller) was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a rollicking bit of pop Science & Technology that turns the lens of evolutionary psychology on issues of the day." That book answered such burning questions as why women tend to lust after males who already have mates and why newborns look more like Dad than Mom. Now Kanazawa tackles the nature of intelligence: what it is, what it does, what it is good for.
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Very entertaining
- By Liz W. on 03-01-20
By: Satoshi Kanazawa
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Blindspot
- By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.
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Difficult to interpret.
- By Ryan Arnold on 12-21-15
By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, and others
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What Love Is
- And What It Could Be
- By: Carrie Jenkins
- Narrated by: Carrie Jenkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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What is love? Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components.
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What Philosophy Is and What It Could Be
- By Amazon Customer on 03-09-17
By: Carrie Jenkins
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The Rational Animal
- How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think
- By: Douglas T. Kenrick, Vladas Griskevicius
- Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?
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Good book
- By Justin on 02-17-17
By: Douglas T. Kenrick, and others
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The Mind of the Market
- Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.
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Good ideas overshadowed by obnoxious polemics
- By Philo on 09-15-13
By: Michael Shermer
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Our Political Nature
- The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
- By: Avi Tuschman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.
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A Trivial Version of Haidt's "The Righteous Mind"
- By Curt Doolittle on 10-29-13
By: Avi Tuschman
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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The Genetic Lottery
- Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- By: Kathryn Paige Harden
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces listeners to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.
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Mix of Genetic Science and Ideology
- By James on 10-12-21
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The Science of Happily Ever After
- What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love
- By: Ty Tashiro
- Narrated by: Chris Chappell
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In this playful and informative exploration of the science behind how to choose a great mate, acclaimed relationship psychologist Dr. Ty Tashiro explores how to find enduring love. Dr. Tashiro translates reams of scientific studies and research data into the first audiobook to revolutionize the way we search for love. His research pinpoints why our decision-making abilities seem to fail when it comes to choosing mates and how we can make smarter choices.
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Simplistic advice...
- By R. Steiner on 02-14-17
By: Ty Tashiro
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Big Gods
- How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
- By: Ara Norenzayan
- Narrated by: Paul Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
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Great read
- By paro on 02-27-24
By: Ara Norenzayan
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On Human Nature: Revised Edition
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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This revised edition of Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?
With characteristic pungency and simplicity of style, the author of Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the nature-nurture debate.
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A Heralding Voice...
- By Douglas on 07-22-14
By: Edward O. Wilson
What listeners say about Testosterone Rex
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Simone
- 02-01-17
Ground Breaking research wryly written
Articulate and funny and provocative research into gender science, fascinating and should affect Policy makers. Well read.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Tim
- 01-19-18
A cure for the delusion that gender is simple
Neuroendocrinology is complicated as all hell, yet we have a profound social tendency to speak in reductive absolutes about the differences between males and females (both within our own species, and generally across the animal kingdom). This book doesn't seek to deny those regularities that do exist (at least within specific species), but instead explores areas of biology and behavioural science that most laypeople never hear of, to inject some much needed nuance into discussions of sex differences, and make us more aware of the biases that help sustain oversimplified and reductionist views on the topic.
A must read (or listen) for anyone who professes to approach sex and gender from a scientific perspective.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lina
- 03-25-23
Recommended
An interesting read. A bit obvious as someone who probably knows more on this subject than most. The information was well told and thorough. Lots more questions raised than answered, but with a subject like this that’s not surprising. Overall it was good.
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- Carrie
- 11-17-18
Very interesting book and excellent narration
Great book filled with interesting details, insights and analysis. The writing is complicated in some ways, with a lot of citations and explanations of scientific data. Gould's narration was fantastic at keeping me totally immersed and interested. I look forward to reading more from Fine and seeking out more from this narrator.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 04-17-17
Men and women are both from earth.
Terrific attack on dogmas of sex evolution. It should challenge some who fall into or build up edifices of over simplification. It may make enemies in all the right places. But study and think about the evidence in this book.
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- Erickson
- 04-08-17
It was good
It was good and okay, and me being a raging feminist I agree to everything. Content is nice and sound, but I didn't think it was as impressive as her last book. I do not regret having listened to it, but I would recommend something else for a friend. #feminism #culturalcritic #tagsgiving #sweepstakes
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1 person found this helpful
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- Hardin
- 04-03-17
time to reorganize
effectively makes the argument that gendered behavior is socially organized not biologically determined. worthwhile listen
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1 person found this helpful
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- Hector Murillo
- 09-07-21
Book about the lack of differences of genders
This book was a very eye opening, intriguing and down right brutal in the explanation of the science of man and woman and how it can not be defined solely by one gene. This is not a book that spews false narrative. There is fact behind everything Cordelia Fine writes in this book. everything is backed up by experiments, neuroscience, evolutionary science, and endocrinology. Testosterone plays a huge role in a man or woman's lifestyle I would recommend it to anyone searching to fine out more about ones science and how your body works for you!
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- Addi
- 09-06-23
Good content, but I felt like it was lacking a very clear, actionable conclusion
She gives lots of examples of areas of research where sex differences might not be what we think they are, but it’s hard to walk away feeling like she did a wholistic analysis. Some areas were never addressed.
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- Josh Schlossberg
- 11-20-17
Not Science
This book makes a good case for not assuming everything is about biology, but does a disservice to science by encouraging us to pretend we're not animals.
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2 people found this helpful