Christine Kenneally: Men and women are from Earth

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October 16, 2007

Men and women are from Earth

A great review of Deborah Cameron's new book, "The Myth of Mars and Venus." From the reviewer, Susannah Herbert:

[Cameron] cites the slew of news reports last year claiming that women on average utter 20,000 words a day, while men on average manage only 7,000. This “fact”, from a popular science book called The Female Brain, turned out to be based not on research, but on a self-help book, which itself cited other self-help books, each featuring wildly varying figures. As Cameron concludes, “All the numbers were plucked from thin air. The claims were so variable because they were guesswork.” The invented figures were quietly deleted from reprints of the book — without headlines.

Posted at 06:17 PM in Men, women & language | Permalink

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BOOK

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, The First Word is about the quest for the origins of human language. Although language is a distinctly human gift, it leaves no permanent trace and its evolution has long been a mystery. It is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being. The First Word follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why language evolution was considered a scientific taboo for more than a hundred years and why scientists are at last able to explore the subject.
Amazon.com
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Powell's
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Penguin 75

The cover of The First Word is featured in "Penguin 75."

REVIEWS

from THE JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
"The task she has undertaken... is formidable. Kenneally does it very well."
from NEUROLOGY TODAY
"In addition to its astonishing breadth, this book is up to date, educational, and entertaining."
from AMERICAN SCIENTIST
"...a lucid, readable, comprehensive account."
from THE FINANCIAL TIMES
"[An] admirably serious update on the [language evolution] debate."
from THE NEW YORKER
"[An] accessible account... including many provocative findings."
from THE BOSTON GLOBE
"Kenneally's reporting and interpretation of this research, whose implications for the study of language and human nature are immense, occupy center stage in 'The First Word' and generate real excitement on the page."
from THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
"...a cogent and often compelling account... As Kenneally dissects each scholar's theory, a wonderful evolution occurs on the pages: She explains, understatedly, what it means to be part of human nature."
from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
"...an elegant exposition."
from THE NEW YORK TIMES
[A] lucid survey of this expanding field... covers an enormous expanse of ground as she brings the reader up to date on developments in a wide variety of disciplines touching on language evolution... explains difficult ideas concisely and clearly... scrupulously fair-minded... zeroes in on a host of fascinating experiments.
from THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"[The] scientists who study the origins of language are a passionate, fractious bunch, and you don’t have to be an egghead to be tantalized by the questions that drive their research: how and when did we learn to speak, and to what extent is language a uniquely human attribute?... Much of what [Kenneally] describes is fascinating."

Book list picks

The Plain Dealer
Summer's bliss: Our picks for reading that will carry you away, July 2008
Los Angeles Times
Nominated in the Science and Technology category of the Los Angeles Times Books Prize, February 28, 2007
USA Today
2007's Best SCI-TECH Reads, Angela Gunn
Newsday
2007 in books: Best reads of the year
The Edge
Third Culture Holiday Reading, 2007
Science News
A new and notable book of scientific interest, September 15, 2007
New York Times Book Review
An Editors' Choice column pick, August 19, 2007
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A Staying In column 'Read This' pick, Saturday August 11
selected by the Reader's Subscription Book Club
selected by the History Book Club

Advance praise

Steven Pinker
"A clear and splendidly written account of a new field of research on a central question about the human species."
Steven Johnson
"'The First Word' is a rare and delightful mix: both a probing exploration of one of the great remaining mysteries of life, and a riveting story of the battles and breakthroughs that drive scientific progress."