Cautious reporting
The trail of
reporting
on Louann Brizendine's assertion that women talk (much) more than
men has now led to
Harper's Magazine,
where the "Findings" page for February 2007 mentions it.
("Findings" is a string of very brief summaries -- usually just single
sentences -- of research reports.) For a change, the version in
Harper's is suitably cautious.
From "Findings":
A giant tsunami was observed passing
across the face of the sun. Yet another black hole was observed
eating a star. New studies found that the brains of psychopaths
are abnormal; that new mothers are more likely to go crazy; that
left-handed people are better at multitasking. A female
psychiatrist claimed that women talk more than men. Researchers
at Los Alamos National Laboratory taught bees to sniff out explosives,
and computer scientists claimed to have developed a self-aware, curious
robot that can diagnose its own problems and take concrete steps to
heal itself.
Note that "Findings" reports some items as observations or results, but
others as claims: the LANL folks
taught
bees to sniff out explosives, while the computer scientists
claimed to have developed a
self-aware robot. Brizendine gets the more cautious
treatment. And her claim that women talk three times as much as
men has been toned down to merely "more than".
Probably
Harper's found the
item worth reporting because the claim came from a woman; "A
psychiatrist claimed that women talk more than men" wouldn't have been
nearly as newsworthy.
Annoyingly,
Harper's doesn't
provide sources for the items in "Findings", though some of them are
easy to search for. Googling on {self-aware robot} gets you to
news reports on the Cornell research. And {"female psychiatrist"
"women talk more than men"} gets you to stories about Brizendine.
By the way, Brizendine's
web site now
subjects you to a welcome message from Brizendine herself. If you
go there, be prepared to turn off the sound file. Then you can,
among other things, read comments (all very positive, of course) from
readers of
The Female Brain,
order a copy of the book, and sign in to receive a "FREE Gift!"
[Addendum: Bob Hay notes that this is not the first time that Language Log fodder has appeared in "Findings". From the November 2006 column: "Scientists concluded that teenagers are physically incapable of being considerate, British cattle have regional accents, elephants mourn their dead, and nicotine sobers drunk rats." Hey, they just report what they find in the media. Still, they deserve a hearty chorus of moos (boos in Cattlese).]
zwicky at-sign csli period stanford period edu
Posted by Arnold Zwicky at January 16, 2007 10:47 AM