Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1610: Testosterone… the Hormone That Divides Men & Women With Carole Hooven
Episode Date: August 2, 2021In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Carole Hooven, author of T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us. How just because you weren’t a stellar student early ...on doesn’t mean you can’t change your path moving forward. (1:54) The differences between humans and chimpanzees. (8:47) What drew her to the field of testosterone? (12:16) Why chromosomes do NOT define sex. (14:28) The masculine framework of the brain. (19:50) Does culture follow biology? (26:59) Why women are more attuned to people’s emotions. (38:35) Why men may be more prone to risky behavior. (47:52) How emotions drive our lives. (50:50) The interesting dynamics of same-sex relationships. (58:50) The problems with polygamy. (1:02:32) The challenges that come with her field of expertise in our current climate. (1:05:55) Her issues with the term ‘toxic masculinity’. (1:10:55) What would society be without masculine traits? (1:18:30) The importance of testosterone when it comes to athletic performance. (1:23:39) The negative effects of testosterone. (1:26:27) The file drawer effect in science. (1:31:20) Featured Guest Carole Hooven (@hoovlet) Twitter T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Strong and MAPS Powerlift 50% off! **Promo code “AUGUSTSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** The Selfish Gene Joe Rogan Experience #1665 - Carole Hooven The Sex Difference on Mental Rotation Tests Is Not Necessarily a Difference in Mental Rotation Ability Genes influence ability to read a person's mind from their eyes Think Science Proves Men Take More Risks Than Women? Think Again Mind Pump #895: Do Transgender Athletes Have An Unfair Advantage? Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships Knuckle (2011) - IMDb Watch Snatch | Prime Video Finger length 'could provide a clue' to one's sexual orientation, study finds The file drawer effect | studying psychology Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned James Roney | Psychological & Brain Sciences | UCSB Joe Rogan (@joerogan) on Instagram
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts.
Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast.
This is Mind Pup, right in today's episode.
We interviewed Carol Huvin, the author of the book, the story of testosterone, the hormone that dominates
and divides us.
This is a very illuminating episode,
especially in today's climate,
where people are arguing the differences
between men and women, are they biological,
or are they purely social and societal.
She really sheds a lot of light on this
and it's all based off of empirical research.
It's a phenomenal episode.
One of my favorite conversations I know you'll love it.
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So Carol, thanks for coming on.
I'd like for you to give our audience a little bit of background to yourself.
Then I'd like you to go into why you studied and wrote a book on testosterone of all things.
Great. Okay. First of all, thank you so much for having me. It's a thrill to be here and
me all of you. As far as background, how far back do you want me to go? I can talk about
not being the ideal student in high school. Maybe some of your listeners could relate to
that. Yeah, sure.
So I like to talk about where I came from because I think it's important for people to know
that just because you weren't a stellar student early on, that doesn't mean that you can't change
direction and kind of try to sort things out and get to where you're meant to be or where you,
you know, have to work hard to go, but you can work hard and focus and change things. And so
hard to go, but you can work hard and focus and change things. And so in high school, I was pretty crazy.
I, yes, I was definitely pretty crazy.
So all my great high school friends who are helping me now on Facebook and stuff and supporting
the book know exactly where I came from.
And that is somebody who skipped so many classes that I didn't have a diploma in my folder
when I graduated.
And so I was not a star student, like almost all of my Harvard students.
So it feels weird to be there teaching them when I came from such a different place.
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I eventually, I did get into a great college, but it was a different college, Aniott College,
which I loved.
And then that's when I started to become curious
about the ways that biology shapes are behavior.
And so that just kind of planted the seed.
And then it took 10 years for me,
just having a job in software and kind of trying
to get my shit together and just having an apartment, have a job, just
have a life, and I did a lot of traveling and reading.
That's how long it took me to figure out that I really wanted to go to graduate school
and study the evolutionary basis of human behavior.
I didn't really have a super strong focus at that point.
I ended up, I read a couple books. One is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins about how genes and evolution motivate behavior.
And then I read another one by somebody named Richard Rangham,
which was about trying to focus on trying to understand human aggression using
using an evolutionary perspective.
And he had a field site in Uganda
where he studied wild chimpanzees.
So I read that book, quit my job, and applied to Harvard
because to grad school, because I wanted to work with him.
And I got rejected because I know relevant experience.
And but I had already quit my job.
So I was like, you know what, this is what I'm doing. I'm not giving up. And so after I got rejected, I went up to meet with him and a few other people
in the department, which at the time was biological anthropology. And they, you know, said, you have
to get experience. So I was like, all right, give me some experience. This is what I'm doing. How do I do, what can I do? So I just kept kind of pushing,
and I just really didn't give up on that goal,
and ultimately, Richard offered me a job,
getting some research experience,
and running the field site,
the chimpanzee research field site in Uganda for a year.
So that was thrilling.
My friends and family were very nervous about it
because this was a very tumultuous time in the region
of Africa that I was in.
There was a couple civil wars going on.
There were a lot of people being attacked with machetes
and there was also like a huge number of rapes
and murders and so it was a little bit tricky, but I went out there and got to watch chimps and learn
about chimpanzee behavior and how to research it.
And so that was what really got me interested in testosterone. Because if you are somebody,
anybody who's spent time with chimpanzees in the wild,
notices right off the bat that there are massive sex
differences that in a lot of ways parallel
what we see in humans.
So, you've probably seen videos or maybe you've seen in person,
adult male chimpanzees sort of going on
what look like rampages,
and like doing these threatening displays
and beating up some females
and definitely competing for status
and beating up other males potentially.
So there's a huge obsession with status.
There's a lot more physical aggression
than you would see in the females
who really, on average,
are just put on average before everything I would say, are much more peaceful, although
they are capable of also being very physically aggressive.
But I didn't see any really extreme female aggression at all, just some very, very low
levels.
But the males regularly, the adult males, every day,
are doing something physically aggressive, getting into physical fights, running around,
screaming, and dragging big branches, and even beating their chests, and trying to threaten
other males. They can also be really loving, nurturing and friendly too, but it's just the
differences in the male and female behavior were so striking. The females are with their families
and they tend to be very nurturing. Given there's no human culture that is among wild animals,
the obvious explanation for the parallels between their sex differences and our sex differences is
Biology is genes and ultimately testosterone. So that's the most
potent biological factor that can explain why the sexes behave so differently, especially when there's no human culture saying
Okay, man. You have to be this way. Exactly. Yes
There are assumptions where there there assumptions that you went into
when you started to watch these chimpanzees
or did you go in completely open-minded?
And if so, what was the craziest things
that you noticed about them?
Yeah, no, I had no, I was pretty, you know,
I read a bunch of books, but I really didn't know a lot about sex
differences or testosterone even.
I wasn't really sure what it was or sort of embarrassing to say now, but or what it did.
So I really had no preconceived notions.
I just wanted to understand human behavior and where it came from and, you know, how
we evolved and how our own biology shapes our behavior.
Is it safe? Would you say this is a safe to say that the differences in sexes and chimpanzees,
although there are parallels between chimpanzees and humans, they're much more pronounced or extreme.
Yes. Yes. And thank you for saying that because that's really, really important. There are definitely much more pronounced human males
are nowhere near as violent as male chimpanzees.
Like we can, one example that people sometimes use is,
I took, I just took a plane from Boston
and there were a bunch of strange adult human males
together on the plane, not beating the crap out of each other.
Like that would never, never happen in chimps.
You know, if you meet a champ from a different community and you're an adult male,
there's going to be a fight.
That's just not tolerated.
There's a high levels of physical aggression in a way, in a way we don't see it humans.
And one thing we have to keep in mind is that humans are weird mammals, obviously,
because of our culture, but also because you guys, I don't know if any of you have kids.
Oh, we're all fathers.
Okay. So that's great. So you know that you are probably, you can feel yourself capable
of extreme aggression, particularly someone messes with your mate or your child.
Absolutely.
But on the flip side of that is you're capable of probably, I'm going to start crying.
Yeah, that's alright.
A level of, because it's so beautiful to see, it's beautiful to see in my husband.
A level of nurturing that you never expected.
And what's amazing is that that kicks in
when you're exposed to the stimulus
or the stimuli that are your offspring.
That kicks in just like it does in male birth.
Now do you think that's naturally
or do you think that's kind of been nurtured
into us over?
Totally natural.
Okay.
I think that is natural.
I don't see the evidence that anyone's telling you
to be aggressive or to be,
I mean, certainly they're social pressures, but you feel that from so deep down in you.
And it's coming out because you have a child and you're going to increase your reproductive
success if you're nurturing and bonded and protected and protecting your offspring and
your partner, you know, and no other man can come near your partner.
So you probably, I mean, sexually obviously,
so sorry to even plant that scene in your head right now.
But so you probably feel at the same time,
physically protective, but also incredibly nurturing
and responsible for the safety and wellbeing.
Would this also be?
So chimps don't have that.
So I just wanted to just start you complete that circle
is that chimps don't have that most mammals.
95% of mammals, the males have nothing to do with their kids.
It's all about status and sex, basically, finding mates.
So that amps up the male male competence.
I was just gonna say because this is a topic I'm so into.
Obviously, nowhere near your expertise at all.
I'm sure I think you probably are, you know.
I do love this.
I read a lot about this.
And human males are remarkably paternal
in comparison to all other mammals or males
where the males often will kill their young
if they don't look like them or extremely aggressive.
Like we're pretty pretty damn good as you know as a parent in comparison to
others. But there is a difference right? There is still a general difference
between men and women in that. So this study of chimpanzees really sparked
your interest in of all things or of all drivers testosterone. Now why was it
testosterone besides you know,
why not estrogen or other drivers?
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, and yeah, to be honest, it's because the, I loved being with
the females partly because it was just so beautiful to sort of the, the peacefulness and the
nurturing and it's quiet. You know, you the birds and the insects and she'd just be there.
And the little, you know, they're so cute.
The little chimp babies and juveniles are just adorable.
And you can just sit there in the jungle and watch them play and twist around on the branches
and cuddle with their moms.
And that's wonderful.
However, when you're with the males, it's just a whole different ballgame and it's really
exciting.
And I liked watching the males because you never knew what was going to happen and it
was going to be exciting and kind of like, oh my god, you know, there's so much activity
and screaming and beatings and sex.
And that's testosterone.
So yes, there aren't some incredible, mostly women primatologists who focus on females and
estrogen.
That's just not what I was drawn to.
I grew up with three older brothers.
I was a pretty, I think I am or I was kind of on the masculine side as a kid.
I played baseball.
I was just really more boyish in some ways.
And I don't know.
I think I just, also, just my sort of experiences in high school and college and sort of having
some bad interactions with men,
like staying out all night at parties and stuff,
which was stupid from a lot of points of view,
I think just got me as a woman,
like I get females in a way that I didn't get men.
And I think that I just was driven to understand that.
So that is what drew me to testosterone.
Okay, so here's a question I've been wanting to ask you
because I heard you on Joe Rogan.
This is why we called,
except that was so fascinating what you wrote back,
wrote about, and I did read a lot of your book.
And here's something that's very interesting
and I want to ask you about.
So when we're in utero,
we're essentially, we look the same until our genes tell us to get this
injection of testosterone. And then there's this traumatic change in the fetus. But before that,
I mean, they're almost identical. Unless you go and see, look at their chromosomes, you can't tell
the difference, but then testosterone comes in and we get this huge influx of testosterone and it changes the fetus into this into a male from your standpoint from what you've read.
What are the evolutionary, I guess, drivers or advantages?
Like, why does this even exist?
Why have this hormone that changes our behaviors so much?
What are the advantages and what were the advantages and do these advantages
still exist? Do we still need them? Okay, you're going to have to remind me all the different questions
that I want to get to all of them. So I want to start out with what happens in utero and us
basically being the same. So the male and female thing is determined when if there is a first,
obviously, you know, most people already know this, but if there is a, first obviously most people already know this,
but if there is a Y chromosome,
almost always, there are exceptions to this.
So the chroma, I just wanna say also
that the chromosomes themselves do not define sex.
So people get confused, they think that XX equals female
and XY equals male, That's not always true.
And that's definitely generally true in mammals,
but certainly that's not the case in other taxa,
like birds around fibions.
There's different chromosomal arrangements.
So the second thing is it is the action of the SRI gene,
the sex determining region of the Y chromosome,
which is a specific gene that produces a protein.
And that protein is what's called a transcription factor.
So that protein in the cells,
in the, there's an undifferentiated gonad up until about six weeks.
So it could become an ovaries or it could become testicles.
So if that gene is present,
it produces this protein, SRI,
and that protein goes around to all the different chromosomes
basically and up regulates other genes that produce
other proteins that cause the cells in those
undifferentiated gonads to go in the testicle direction.
So you can have the Y chromosome,
but if that gene isn't working or any of the
important downstream genes that need to be up-regulated aren't working, there's one called
like SOX9 that it up-regulates on chromosome 17. So say there's a mutation in SOX9 on chromosome
17. Then even if you have S-R-Y, even if you have the Y chromosome and S-R-Y, you still
won't get testes, you will get ovaries because ovaries,
the undifferentiated gonads,
go in the ovaries direction in the absence of SRI.
Interesting, so they have to be told to become testicles
of why they remain or that's the default ovaries.
That is correct.
So that is why some people say female is the default.
In a sense, that's true.
It's not quite that simple, of course, there are other genes that have to be expressed,
but they're going to be expressed in the absence of S or Y.
So that is the first way that we differentiate is not by testosterone, actually.
It's by the action of this S-R-Y gene. But then, once, you know, after six weeks,
once the gonads differentiate into testies.
So real quick,
within the absence of testosterone,
let's say the genes get differentiated,
you get this protein that signals become testicles,
but no testosterone later on comes into the body.
You still get testicles.
Yes.
Oh, interesting.
Yes.
So that is what happens essentially
in the case of complete androgen
and sensitivity syndrome.
Interesting.
You get your X, Y, you have testes.
Everything's going fine, but your androgen receptor
has a mutation.
The gene that codes for the androgen receptor
has a mutation.
Wow.
If it has a disabling mutation, your testes produce testosterone,
but it can't be heard by the body at all.
So you have a completely female phenotype,
100% female.
I mean, you don't have all of the internal reproductive organs.
There's no uterus, but there's a totally normal vagina,
that is what's called the blind vagina that doesn't connect to.
Interesting.
A uterus, but yeah, so you can have testes, but without testosterone, you do not develop
a male phenotype in terms of the internal and external genitalia in terms of secondary
sex characteristics in terms of brain masculinization. So once you get the testes,
then a couple of weeks later,
those cells, specifically the lady cells,
start cranking out testosterone,
and that is what then, it's also a transcription factor.
So it also goes around to other chromosomes
and regulates other genes that cause the development
of apenis and of the vast deference and starts
to masculinize the brain.
Now, what is that?
So you're talking about masculinizing the brain.
I saw an article recently that made its rounds.
It said, essentially, male and female brains are the same.
It's funny because you dive in a little deeper into the study and they really kind of cut
out differences and said, those really aren't big differences.
Although, from what I understand, if you took two brains and you took two very, you know,
smart biologists, they could probably tell you if one was male or one was female, what do
you mean by masculinizing the brain? What changes in the brain that makes it male, I think the male level of testosterone will
generally will masculinize the brain in ways that are detectable in behavior and that
yes, and expert, a computer program from what I understand would be is able to differentiate male and female brains
with something like 80 to 90% accuracy.
So because the issue is that there are lots of differences,
but they are their widespread and they're a high number
of them, but they're not as pronounced
as they are non-human animals.
Where an expert could just go, that's a male
and that's a female.
So you have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face. Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
That's right. Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
That's right. Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
That's right. Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face. You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more.
Like a face.
You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more. Like a face. You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more. Like a face. You have to add them all up, cue me to a little more. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. Like a face. testosterone acts in the brain to change the populations of neurons in different parts
of the brain.
It definitely in non-human animals and apparently in humans acts on an area in the hypothalamus,
which is called the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the hypothalamus.
And that area, testosterone causes that area of the hypothalamus to enlarge
or actually prevents the death of neuron populations in that part of the brain.
Oh, interesting.
So the female brain prunes it whereas the male brain or the masculine brain.
I'm not 100% sure if that's due to increased growth or due to pruning, but one of testosterone's
most pronounced actions is to prevent apoptosis of or cell death of neurons in certain parts of the brain. What do we know that that part of the brain? What do we know in terms of so? Okay. Sex.
So like sexual, sexual identification? No. Well,'s interesting, because they don't, so sexual identification
and non-human animals
isn't really a thing,
except for a couple species,
except for like sheep,
you know, there's some gay sheep.
But otherwise, there's,
as far as I know,
there aren't any instances
of exclusively gay animals.
There's lots of homosexual behavior,
like I saw it in Chimps all the time.
They would be basically blowing each other.
Wow.
Sorry, can I say that?
You can say whatever you want.
I'm so nervous.
We're going to pop that video up real quick.
No problem.
You know, bonobos are like,
tons of homosexual behavior.
Chimps have, you know,
male bonding will frequently involve sexual behavior, so, but that doesn't
mean that there are homosexual, you know, humans have these categories, which is interesting,
and I think a lot of that does have to do with culture, the exclusive homosexuality.
But anyway, that, so testosterone increases the size somehow of this sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area,
the SDN PoA, and in order for the male to express male typical sexual behavior, so in a rat
that's mounting. And what's cool is you have this extreme differences in sexual behavior,
not like you do in humans, where we, you know, men and women can do a bunch of different crazy things.
But in rats, the male, you know, pursues and mounts, the female, and the female has to
stand still and basically stick her butt, like archer back and stick her butt up in the
air.
That's Lordosis.
So estrogen, so no testosterone in her brain in utero, plus estrogen in adulthood activates
that behavior in the presence
of a sexually interested adult male,
and he will only engage in mounting behavior
if he had high testosterone in utero,
if his sexually demographic,
the new place of the pre-optic area is big,
and if he gets testosterone in adulthood.
So that's the organizational,
activational framework, which apparently also applies to human males.
You need it at both times. You need it in utero and in adulthood to be, have male
typical reproductive behavior. You brought up apoptosis and like
self-protective sort of like that being more of a focus in the male brain.
Like do you think that's more, you know, geared towards like the risky behavior
part of that with males
as far as mechanism for survival?
Yeah.
So, the masculinization of the brain in utero does seem to be associated.
It's definitely associated in non-human animals with aggression and rough and tumble-planed
little kids in juvenile animals.
So lots of juvenile animals, the males have much more
physical play than the females, just like we see in humans.
Like everyone knows that happens in humans,
but a lot of people try to argue that this happens
in humans because of like the patriarchy
or socialization.
That's just not the case.
There's just way too much evidence,
and I can happy to talk about any of that evidence,
but it is
testosterone exposure in non-human animals that causes them to, in the right environment,
have these high levels of rough and tumble play because they have to practice to compete
for mates physically as adults because that's how evolution shapes them.
And we have evidence from humans.
So first of all, we have the sex difference where males are exposed to high levels of testosterone
and they have much higher rates of rough and tumble plan, obviously physical aggression
and adulthood.
But also we have cases where girls, so female fetuses are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone
in utero, and they have higher rates than average of rough and tumble play, and they're
more likely to want to play with boys and more likely to want to play with boys' toys.
So we know, and they're more likely to be lesbians, too.
So we can see those effects in girls
and part of the reason is that females are super sensitive
to increases in testosterone.
Whereas if you have males with the same disorder,
which is called congenital adrenal hyperplasia,
there's really no effect on behavior
because males already have so much
that when you add more to that,
and this is true in adults too
except for muscle development as you guys probably know when you add more it doesn't really have a big effect if any on like
libido or aggression but if you do that to females you're gonna see
changes. Wow very interesting you know you mentioned the the culture aspect of it and
in my opinion I think I think obviously culture plays a role in how we act and how
we think we're supposed to behave. But I do think culture follows biology. In other words,
the roots of it, you know, the roots of us believing that boys like rough and tumble and
like to jump off things and girls tend to. And of course, this is general. There's always
exceptions. I think the roots of it are in biology. So we observe this through
thousands of years and then we develop culture around it. How do you feel about it?
Well, then we try to deny that. Sorry, what? Oh, I was going to say that a lot of times,
like, I see now too that in culture, we're trying to deny the fact that we are animals
at the end of the day. And then culture has then we've been trying to kind of move forward
in the Southern direction. Isn't there a big movement right now of like not sexualizing the day and then culture has then we've been trying to kind of move forward in this other
direction. Isn't there a big movement right now of like not sexualizing your kid at all
and not giving them specific toys for a certain amount of time? So colors that voting that
like. I have to just I want to come back to all of this. First of all, you guys I'm totally
serious. You're so impressive. It's even making me like what's happening to me. No, what you just said is such a
I think it's such an important point and it's it's kind of and it's a nuanced point and a lot of people just
just
assume that
Culture and patriarchy and the things that we teach boys, you know, it's just obvious which is true that yeah
We do if you think a baby is a boy baby. You're gonna be rougher with him or it even if it's a girl if you think it's just obvious, which is true, that yeah, we do, if you think a baby is a boy baby,
you're gonna be rougher with him or it, even if it's a girl, if you think it's a boy, you're gonna
treat it differently. But the fact is, it's this, this, these sex differences are this way everywhere in
the world. These natures, you know, are different everywhere. And so you're answering the question of like,
well, that would be weird if every single culture had the same kinds of standards and the same norms
and the same expectations.
Of course, it's coming from the bottom up
and we're responding to it and shaping it
and nudging it and there's different cultural norms
that definitely do shape how people are able
to express their natures or allowed
to express their natures, right?
But yeah, I think that's such,
I think it is a sophisticated and important point that needs to be acknowledged.
It's the same everywhere. It's just and it's consistent with non-human animals. So I like to play this game. I don't want to take a soft track, but I like to play this game of,
this is from Evolution. I do this with my wife all the time and annoys the hell out of her.
She's very intellectual and so we get to do this and we have fun.
And so here's a great example, right?
And this is a common stereotype, although I, every guy, I know,
it gives us the hunting and gas.
Oh, yeah. Like, I'll go, I'll be like, honey, where are the pickles?
She'd be like, it's in the fridge and I'll open the fridge and I seriously don't see it.
I'm like, they're not here. Where are they?
They're right there. No, they're not.
She'll walk over the fridge, move four things and it's right there. Yes. And I'm like, I can not here, where are they? They're right there, no, they're not. Shall walk over the fridge, move four things,
and it's right there.
Yes.
And I'm like, I can relate to that a hundred.
I know where everything is.
And I'm like, why didn't I make this?
And I work, I have a full-time job.
I work my ass up.
I'm just as busy as my husband.
Why doesn't he know where I'm at?
Yeah, and so I'm like, why didn't I just move?
And it happens all the time.
And I thought, so here's my, here's my explanation,
and I made this up, by the way,
as no evidence to support this.
But I said, you know what, honey?
It's because men evolved as hunters,
and when you're out in the wild,
you don't wanna disturb the environment.
So you just look, you just look,
and if you don't see it, it's not there.
Yeah, and women were gathering.
And you move these around like,
it's not as good as colors and it's just,
you know, there's no way to do it.
There is evidence actually.
Oh, really?
So, yes.
So first of all, here's one area where we can't compare humans to non-human animals because we have
this intense sexual division of labor. Chips do actually have duhont and I got to see a few haunts
and that was amazing. They hunt monkeys and then they rip them to shreds
and eat their inside.
So that's really cool to see.
It is intense and they have first priority for the meat
to eat the meat and then they can give it to whoever they want.
But anyway, so for my dissertation,
which I did at Harvard and I was in biological anthropology
and cognitive neuropsychology at the time.
So I was kind of bridging disciplines,
but I looked at sex differences in cognition
and how they relate to testosterone.
And the biggest sex difference
is something called mental rotation.
So that's the biggest sex difference
in cognitive ability. So most people have no idea what it is. I had no
idea what it was. I was like this is totally boring. I don't want to do it. Who cares?
However, I was trying to... Can I just tell a little... Do it.
Everyone's intrigued. No, so this... Okay, so for my graduate work, you kind of have to, as a graduate student, sometimes try different
things and see what sticks or where you're going to get results or what you really like
or what's feasible to do or whatever.
So I wanted to see, there was some evidence that one could manipulate testosterone levels
through pornography.
So I had read one paper and I have since learned that one paper just isn't good enough.
You need a lot of work that's replicated and there's where you have a robust finding.
So I saw one paper showing that men's testosterone levels went up when they viewed pornography. And now I can't even remember.
Okay, so I was going to try to get local men baseball fans to come in.
Sorry, I had so many different projects.
Now I'm getting confused.
Forget about the baseball things, a different story.
So I had local men come in.
I was just going to manipulate their test
us around and then test them in some different cognitive tests and my...
Manipulate through pornography.
Through pornography to get it to go up and dental surgery videos to get it to go down.
Wow. So I was like, I'll just...
What a tough decision.
Okay. So...
It's going to be...
That will be it.
No, they didn't know what they were going to be getting.
So they came twice and it was counterbalanced. So some men would come the first time in It's going to be more poor. It's going to be more poor. It's going to be more poor. No, they didn't know what they were going to be getting.
So they came twice and it was counterbalanced.
So some men would come the first time and they got dental surgery and they didn't know that
they were going to get pornography the second time and then the guys who got porn the first
time would get dental surgery the second time.
Now I can't even remember why I'm telling you this story.
Oh, just that's okay with the fact you're here.
I have something I want to ask you about this because we've got to discuss, because it's the hunting and gathering in the fridge thing. Okay. So this
is I'm going to connect. So, but what is funny about it is I had to, there's something called
the internal review board, the IRB. So you can't do human subjects research at a university
unless you clear it with the IRB. And, you know, so, this woman, I won't say her name,
she was the head of the IRB.
I had to go to her office and watch the pornography
with her, and it was lesbian porn,
that I was showing, that I was showing the guys,
because, yeah, no, it was bizarre.
And as you can, like, imagine.
Sure. I'm picturing it. And, no, it was bizarre and as you can like imagine. Sure.
I'm picking it.
And we were very different.
Like she was, you know, a dean type and I was made and much younger and it was just
weird.
And yeah, we didn't include men.
I didn't want to have pornography to have men in it because I didn't want the men to
feel to have any competitive response to it at it. Oh, that's a good point
So what you're referring to is that there are studies that show that when men feel sexually competitive to another man
It's you can reliably see testosterone levels rise. It can happen. Yeah, but anyway, it didn't work
It just doesn't work and now I've since read other studies
It just that doesn't happen testosterone And now I've since read other studies, it just doesn't happen.
Testosterone does not go up while in sexual contexts,
unless it's competitive,
unless there's like an attractive woman
and you're trying to show off
or you're competing with another guy in some way
or whatever, then James Rooney has done this research.
But the point is, so I learned a lot about mental rotation
and I learned that I just had to throw in the pornography thing
because I think it's funny.
I'm glad you actually went there though
because we've actually theorized the opposite is true.
So I told you before we got on air
that one of the first conversations we had
was the decline in testosterone and men.
Right.
Right.
And one of the things that we theorize
as the possibility is watching too much pornography.
To sensitization, just having too much access to it.
Oh, that you don't have to work for it.
You don't have to keep for it.
So you don't need the testosterone.
And also that it's still the normalizer.
That is fascinating.
Yeah, that was a theory that we have.
No, I think that's interesting.
I mean, of course, there's the theory about fallets.
Fallets.
Oh, yeah.
There's a lot of reasons why people think testosterone levels
are declining.
No, but that's interesting.
Yeah, that was what we actually listed a bunch.
We actually go home.
And just using apps.
Yeah.
Also using apps instead of real life.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And just think about the amount of it that you're getting.
What we were talking about, we're all 40, right?
So we were talking about, man, when we were a 17 year old boy, you got the JC Penny Center
catalog was all you got, you know what I'm saying?
And you had a high deal, so I got to go to the beach.
You got to look at it once a month if you were lucky, you know, or maybe if your parents
worked a lot, maybe a couple of times a week, but boys now have access on their phone to
just a plethora of this. I have a 12 year old boy, so I'm very sensitive
to what he will be encountering.
Oh, yes, that was one of the theories
that we thought contributed to.
But I want to make sure I say about
the sexual division of labor and the evolution thing.
So this thing, mental rotation is a skill
where you can imagine objects, like if I hold this thing, mental rotation, is a skill where you can imagine objects, like if I hold
this up, you could imagine what these, if I held it to the side and I turned it around.
You could imagine what these letters maybe look like from the, if they were upside down,
or what this bottle would look like upside down when you envision it, and you rotate it
through your mind.
Instead of just regenerating the image, like upside down, you actually rotate it. Anyway, the test involves more complex objects
than this.
Men really blow away women consistently.
You have nowhere on the list.
Really?
This is a test you can take online.
They'll show you shapes, and then they'll have options.
What does the shape look like from another angle?
From like, if you were to twist it,
move it 180 degrees in three states.
And men do that significantly better than women.
Now here's a test.
Yes, and it's so robust.
It's a large, it is the largest sex difference in cognition.
So what is the, what's the, what's, what's,
Okay, so the, so the one hypothesis is that it is hunting,
which I am skeptical about,
so I just want to get back to the hunting thing
because it's fascinating, because what you said is right on.
So when you're driving, say,
you're gonna, when you give, when men give directions,
they're more likely to say, go east, south, north, west on this,
and that's straight.
Women are more likely to say,
turn left at the church,
and then you'll see a big tree with blah, blah, blah,
and there you're gonna take a right. then you'll see a big tree with blah, blah, blah, blah, and there you're going to take a right.
So there's like a dead reckoning that that men tend to use to get from A to B also.
So if you're hunting, you are really not, you have to have a sense.
Not intentional other stuff.
You're following your prey, right?
So you have to have a sense of, um, geographic, where you are geographicallyically and you have to be able to recognize the environment
from a completely different perspective because it's not the environment that you saw when you were
going out, you know, you're going to see something different when you come back.
So here's one I want to ask you about that since we're on this topic. I read that there's this
test that they can run where they'll show just pictures of eyes. So just people's eyes and women are able to much more accurately tell you what that person's facial expression is.
So happy, sad, afraid, terrified, whatever.
And men tend to fail that much more often. Is that true?
That is true.
Okay. Now, I would assume that the evolutionary roots of that would be because women were the society builders, right?
They were the ones building the connections back at the tribe. And so they really had to understand how to read each other very well. Where's the man not so much because we're out hunting?
Would that be a... I mean, yeah, I think it has to do with nurturing and family and the need to be sensitive to emotional states,
probably in Cannes or something.
Yeah, with the nurturing is something,
that would be the main thing.
Be know the Rita babies face if they're happy, they're sad.
Yeah, just really tuned into relationships,
human relationships.
But obviously, the need for men to bond
and understand each other
and the enemy say in war,
which is not just a human trait.
That's also really intense.
So men have a whole other set, I think,
of mechanisms to work out status, for instance,
in a way that females cannot.
We have a lot of trouble working out conflict.
Men get in a fight, it's resolved,
status tends to be resolved,
and then there's harm, it tends to be harmony,
until it's not anymore, until somebody challenges it.
But that facilitates a bonding very quickly and intensely.
And so I think there's something there
that you have to read threat,
like you have to be able to be,
and then are better at responding to threat
and being attuned to signals of threat.
That is so weird because if I go to a bar,
I'm at a restaurant, I can tell,
we better leave, this isn't feel safe.
Whereas my wife will go into a room
and then we'll hang out with people and we'll leave
and be like, oh, did you see how she was?
Or did you see what that, what he was doing?
He was giving so much attitude, I'm like he was,
I didn't notice any of that.
And it's, what's interesting about these conversations,
I do wanna say this, I wanna preface this,
that at the end of the day, we're all individuals, right?
So, there's always a...
Yes, it's all on average,
on every, all these different things on average.
Yes, however, and I hate the fact that we run away
from this topic so much,
because we're so afraid to, you know,
fall into those, or encourage gender norms, stereotypes.
So, yeah.
But for me, it actually helps with understanding,
because anybody who's married for a long time
knows that oftentimes you just don't understand each other
and understanding this kind of stuff helps.
Really helps me a lot because we kind of get
each other a little bit better because she'll say,
well, okay, he's a man.
He's not gonna quite get this the way I do.
Or vice versa, I may say, well,
she might not feel the same way as I do because she's a female.
It brings in another perspective.
It does.
It just adds more richness to our understanding.
Yeah.
So I want to say two things.
So one is just to finish up the hunting and gathering thing.
And that is that, yes, women have better, so men have better mental rotation, better
navigation skills, and women have better object so men have better mental rotation, better navigation skills, and women have better
object location memory. But the size of the sex difference in object location memory is
not as large as the male advantage in say mental rotation. But yeah, so it's funny because
in my house, every, you know, the men seem to be losing things and for whatever reason
I'll just know exactly where it is, probably because I'm the one who's doing more
of the cleaning and putting things away, et cetera.
But the second thing is, and this is something
that I have talked about before,
but it is very important to me.
And it is what you just said, which is that the insights
that you can glean from understanding the forces that
shape us, whether they're environmental, biological, obviously it's both, right? So that we express
our genes in the context of a given environment. And so that shapes how we express ourselves.
But understanding those forces, for me, I was just personally really important,
partly because I, and this is weird because I've been teaching about hormones for a long time,
but until I wrote the book, I hadn't sort of made the connection between my nudging and pushing my
British relatively unexpressive, relatively to me, which isn't hard to be
unemotional, relative to me, pushing him to express himself
more and to figure out what his problem is,
like why isn't he able to access his emotions
and like tell me about how he's feeling.
And I let up on that after writing the book,
during writing the book,
during writing the book, because one of the things is because I studied the litter on transgender people
who changed their testosterone levels.
I interviewed some of them for the book
and I also got into this literature.
And one of the things is that when you take testosterone,
if you go from female to male levels,
like from my level to your level,
you do on average tend to become less emotional, crying basically evaporates from many people.
I have firsthand experience.
So I, so the point is that I then learn to accept him more and stop bugging him.
That's just who he is.
We're different and it helped our marriage. And it's really, really improved that I just had an explanation that helped me to just
accept that we're different.
He doesn't need to be more like me.
So I didn't mean.
No, I was just adding to what you were saying.
I have firsthand experience of that being a bodybuilder who took copious amounts of test
austereon to become this pro bodybuilder and then to go off of it
and then just have it crash.
You went off it entirely.
Yes.
And you weren't producing your own
because you shut your boss out of it.
Yes.
And so I went through this huge emotional roller coaster.
That was one of the craziest things I ever felt.
I mean, I even battled a little depression over it.
I was crying over commercials.
Like, it was a wild ride.
Can you say more about what that was like?
Like did that give you an insight into what it's like
to be a woman?
No, I mean, yeah, no, I don't know.
Absolutely.
I mean, as silly as that may sound,
up into that point in my life,
never has a movie or definitely not a dog food commercial
made me get emotional.
You know, and I felt myself holding back tears
and I'd be by myself sometimes going like,
this is weird, this feels really different to feel.
Did it feel good or scary or overwhelming?
So I'll tell you some of the things I liked.
I was much more empathetic with my wife.
I think her and I, I was just, I felt calmer.
I felt, I mean, there's definitely,
there's definitely a huge difference that you feel
when you go through something like that
where your hormone levels drastically change.
I imagine people that go through things like menopause
and stuff have similar type of feelings
of a rollercoaster on that.
So I felt inconsistent
for me. I felt way more mellow. I lost a lot of aggression. So the drive to lift heavy
weights and to push like that. What about sex? Yeah, sex was plummeted because, yeah, no,
it was that was actually the main driver to get me back into using a therapy dose was
because then it started to affect our relationship
because then she thought I wasn't attracted to her because I wasn't chasing her like
I used to chase her all the time.
It was I then was the one that was kind of more reserved with that.
She had to have to come after me and then she felt insecure like I didn't find her beautiful
anymore.
So that was it.
This is all hormones.
What's amazing is everything you're talking about, which is so important to our lives, is all about hormones. It's just differences in hormones that
have such profound effects. And we don't notice it in men because you guys are just, you know,
have high T all the time. It doesn't fluctuate, right? It's not like in seasonal breeders, which I talk about in the book, where you can see
the changes with the red deer growing antlers and getting aggressive and having sperm and
then high testosterone to outside of breeding season, living peacefully with other males,
not having weapons on their heads, etc.
Because you can see it, but you guys you can't see it, but you got the chance to experience it.
Yeah, it was an awful experience, I mean, it was enlightening because it made me
more in touch with maybe more of her emotional side and empathy that she carried and calmer,
and less aggression. So, at that side of it, I think I appreciated, but it did it.
I lost a lot of drive, sex drive, drive,
and just drive in general.
In general.
So that's fascinating.
And that's what caused the, I think, the depression was,
I lost the drive in general, the drive,
to be more successful.
And I didn't go from a guy who cared about being successful
and lifting weights that absolutely nothing,
but I could feel a significant difference. It became less of a priority or a thing I thought about.
You know Carol speaking of drive, I remember reading this article a while ago that really
made a lot of sense to me in the sense of why? Because if you even now today, if you look at the craziest
risk taking behavior, anything, sports, jobs,
whatever, they tend to be dominated by men.
If there's somebody that's gonna jump a bike
over flaming cars and do a back flip,
it's usually a guy that's gonna end up doing this
and risking his life, right?
Like, yeah, yeah.
So it's just crazy and then empty.
I mean, there are definitely women who do that stuff too.
Right, because we are individuals.
You're right, we're individuals, you're absolutely right.
But there's generally speaking, you know,
and risk taking behavior general,
like men's car insurance is more expensive
because we tend to speed more on it.
And get in more accidents are more likely to die in car accidents.
Right, and so I read this article,
it made perfect sense to me in this,
I remember what the number was,
but it said something like a society could lose something
like 60 or 70% of its men
and still survive, whereas if a society lost,
I think it was like 30% of its females or 20%,
it would have trouble thriving because,
of course, one man can impregnate X amount of women.
You've got to be a good one if you like it.
Right.
And where women can only have one baby
essentially in nine months,
and I'm like, maybe that's where the risk taking comes from,
is that we're more expendable.
Like, we should take the risk
because if we die,
we're gonna be on a sausage fest.
Yeah, if we go and die,
then it's not as big of a deal,
but if a bunch of women die,
holy cow, that could be a big issue.
Well, yeah, no, I think that's correct.
Basically, that women need to have a long life
and be healthy to maximize their reproductive success.
So that's what we're all designed to do.
Estrogen helps her do that.
Gives her more body fat.
She doesn't have the testosterone
converting energy into muscle.
She's taking in energy and converting
much more of it into fat. So we're
designed to convert energy into offspring, right? So for men, yeah, risk taking can pay off
with higher reproductive success in a way that it does not for females. Females are competitive and
can be aggressive, but it tends to be not in a way that puts their physical health at risk.
So we can be extremely, as you probably know, nasty to each other in a way that men tend not to be.
You know, it's an indirect kind of mean girl type of aggression, but it's low physical risk.
And men have a different type of aggression, and that risk taking, yeah, is gonna play out on the highway
in a modern environment and all these different ways.
I think, you know, obviously that's why,
like mixed martial arts and violent video games
and football and all that,
are like so popular.
So if you just look at the money involved in, like,
you know, female, the sports compared to male sports,
I mean, it's too bad for women athletes,
but there's just a huge difference there.
Yeah, and now you had brought up studies
on transgender individuals.
So I think it's fascinating because,
especially today,
because more than ever,
we're able to study behavioral changes
in biological men and women who then change
the hormones radically.
What does that do to their brain?
What does that do to their behaviors?
You mentioned something about blunting emotions.
We had a while ago, we had a transgender athlete
and a transgender lawyer on the show.
And this was...
Trans-lummin athlete?
The trans female and then trans male.
And the reason why we had them on the show
was because we had said that being born biologically as a male and then going through puberty and then going on hormones, you still retained a large percentage of your advantage.
And so they came on to discuss this and debate it with us.
But one of the things that really fascinated me was the transgender male, so this person went from female to male, they said that when they went on testosterone, that they noticed that it was like you took the emotion, like if you had a light switch where your emotions are on, dimmer switch.
Yes.
Turned away down and he goes, yeah, all of a sudden felt like my emotions went from this
wide rainbow of colors to like three emotions.
Is this common when you studied this?
Yeah, no, I literally, my hair is standing on end as you're talking about it. Just to hear you say that, because even though again, I've been researching hormones and
teaching about them for so long, the work that I did for this book on, you know, interviewing
transgender people who told their stories about what it is like, including a non-binary
is about what it is like, including a non-binary male,
someone who's born male, who is now non-binary, who is on puberty blockers, and a female who transitioned
to male and then back to female.
So she could report on it as a woman.
So that is intense, but it was that work
that was most sort of striking and powerful to me, probably because I hadn't been as
familiar with the details of that literature. But what you said is, yes, that is what the scientific
literature shows that testosterone does have this dampening effect, again, on average. But it's
what, you know, it's what you experience.
The reason it puts my hair on end is because emotions are such an incredibly important component
of our lives, how we feel, our drives, our sex drive, our ability to experience joy and
pain and vulnerability.
It tends to be the more vulnerable emotions that are squashed.
But also, there's something about joy I also heard coming up. Anger is not squashed. It doesn't
necessarily amplify, but it is one that people still have access to if they, when they transition, say, female to male, a lot
of their emotions are dampened, but not anger.
That's one that people still feel that they're in touch.
The trans male also brought it up, too, that he noticed his view of women started to
change a bit, too, terms of like objectifying them,
and that was pretty interesting.
Like their sexual life, and yeah.
You remember ramped up and...
Okay, so remember this is somebody who,
I don't know what age this person transitioned.
They had gone through puberty as a female.
Oh, they were 30s.
Yeah, I remember that.
Okay, so this is someone who like every woman knows
what it's like to be sexually objectified.
We don't like it.
I mean, some people do.
Some people like a little object, sexual objectification here and there.
That's the truth.
But overall, yeah, it's not pleasant.
We want to be considered for our entire humanity.
So that's annoying when we know that men are viewing us
as sexual objects.
However, here's another area where the literature
really blew my mind and changed how I view this entire thing.
This entire issue, it gave me empathy towards that feeling
that and the struggle that men have.
Because I saw
Wait a minute this is has to do with this hormone. It really does. It's not just the patriarchy
It's a struggle that men feel and sometimes feel very bad about it and
Needs I think it needs to be acknowledged that men view the target of their sexual attraction on average in a different way
Men view the target of their sexual attraction on average in a different way than females view the target of their sexual attraction It's not that we don't find you know whoever we're attracted to totally hot and we have you know high libidos etc
But it seems to be a very different sense of urgency and a different feeling and it's more physically
based and I feel like that needs to be discussed and understood so that for men who we want to help men
Navigate that territory. I hear men say like I don't know how to talk to her
I don't know what to say. I don't know how to talk to women
And I've always been like what are you talking about just talk to them?
But if you think like from a woman's point of view if you then think wow this guy of course
Has no how to talk to her because that involves her brain and her personality
and her whole humanity.
And he's just really like physically attracted to her.
How do you put those things together and be normal?
Yeah.
And you know, it's funny, you're saying this.
And any guy who goes through puberty
knows what a radical and confusing shift that is.
Well, that was the most emotional time of my life
was 15 to 18-ish, and I remember
being in high school.
I remember crying over this.
I remember being so emotional that when I would leave my girlfriend's house, I was
crying because we both grew up in homes that were religious and sexual behavior was not
accepted.
And so, but I had this urge so bad, she would be telling me no and I would be like,
oh my God, and then I'd be trying to do,
she said, focus on the movie on this.
I just, it was the weirdest dynamic
of feeling this uncontrollable urge,
but then also knowing that it's supposed to be bad
and I'm not supposed to do it and she doesn't want it
and then trying to wrestle that as a young teenage boy
and not knowing.
Did you have any, I mean, this probably a stupid question,
but sort of resources or anyone you could talk to.
No, not that.
So my father committed suicide when I was seven
and so I didn't have a dad.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
No, it's okay.
I said, my mom remarried into an abusive relationship
after that, so my stepfather and I did not have a relationship
like that to where I could go to him for advice. My mom was very young
when she had me, so even her understanding, so they and they weren't
big readers. So I was on my own to kind of figure this stuff out.
And I just remember that being one of the most difficult times of my
life. And then it's just it's not socially accepted, right? It's not
something that would be okay for me to be that way. Or at least I
wasn't told that it's okay. By the way, I want to make a comment on
this because we do have these evolutionary and
biological drivers, but we're also conscious, social, intelligent beings.
So this doesn't excuse bad behavior.
I want to be clear on that.
Just because we have this hormone that drives men to potentially look at things and sexually objectify women and have this drive,
you're still responsible for your actions.
No, no, no, no.
That's the thing, it's the behavior,
the thing I'm getting at is the feeling
that you were struggling with.
That's right, yeah.
And I know where you're going.
Yeah, we can judge and condemn whatever,
the behavior, the consequences, but no.
No, I know exactly where you're going.
There was nobody there to talk me and say,
it's okay, this is normal, son, nobody there to to talk me and say it's okay
This is normal son or this is yes, and it's fine. It's it's you have to learn how to be like a bad person
Yes, yeah, you know, I'm saying like I felt like something was wrong with me because this was so hard for me
And I yeah, it was such a powerful thing that no matter how many times I was told that no or told that we shouldn't
I was still struggling
with that.
And so it put me on this emotional roller coaster as a young team.
Now Carol, did you look at same sex couples because the reason why I'm asking that is because
this is me guessing, me speculating, okay, is that when you have two men in a relationship
or two women in a relationship, do you see the male aspects
amplify what you man and I would guess so. I would guess you probably see more risk-taking
behavior in male relationships, more sexual promiscuity whereas with the women probably
less. Now did you look at this? Yes. Okay. Okay are some of the things that you would see? Well, it's just so great to have these examples of male sexual behavior and male sexual
culture and female sexual behavior and culture unrestrained by the limitations or needs of
the opposite sex.
Yes.
So what do you see when you take the, you know,
when a man can have sex the way he wants
because he's having it with other men, right?
I just think that's great.
I'm just thrilled that we're going in the right direction
socially on that front to just allow that to be expressed
in healthy ways, of course.
Well, from a scientific point of view, of course, we're seeing male nature expressed in a more
pure way.
And what's interesting is people expect gay men to have lower testosterone because they're
feminized in some ways.
But the sexual nature is 100% masculine.
It's no different.
It's what men want.
Gay or straight. They want to have a
Lot of sex and they prefer to have a higher number of sexual partners and if you're you know in gay culture
You can and of course I am not saying that this is what all gay men want or all gay men do
There's lots of monogamy in gay sexual culture too
But there's it's more often there are agreements
that having affairs or extrapear sex is more acceptable.
Because they get it.
You can still be in love with each other
and have your primary partner,
but have a little sex on the side.
Oh my God, Carol, I have an uncle who's gay.
He passed away, but great guy, love the guy.
And I was younger, obviously, he was, we were close
in age. I remember we were hanging out and we were watching at the time MTV's, when MTV's
to have those spring break, you know, shows or whatever, in the girls and all that. And
we're watching it. And obviously, he's my uncle, we're close. And so we tease each other.
And this girl comes up in a bikini and I'm looking at him. I'm like, man, look at that.
Like, look at what you're missing. Like, you know, we're joking. And he says, he looks
at me and he goes, you have no idea. And I said, we didn't know, obviously, I'm looking at him, I'm like, man, look at that, like, look at what you're missing. Like, you know, we're joking. And he says, he looks at me and he goes,
you have no idea.
And I said,
we didn't know obviously it was good.
I did know.
Yeah, I knew he was getting it.
Or you said, look at what you're missing.
I get it.
Okay, so we're teasing each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're very close.
And, you know, it was a great relationship.
And he goes, you have no idea, Sal,
you have no idea what it's like.
I'm like, what do you mean?
He goes, imagine you go into a bar
and you see a hot girl across the bar
and you walk up to her
and without saying a word, you grab her butt.
What do you think's gonna happen?
I'm like, she's gonna yell at the bouncer to kick me out
or I'm gonna get arrested.
He goes, that doesn't happen in gay bars.
And I was like, oh man, I forgot, you guys are all guys.
I guess it's all like, yeah.
Right, right, exactly.
So that's an interesting, that's interesting
because it suggests to me it's not about,
necessarily, about testosterone.
There might be a role somehow prenatally, but even there we don't see any evidence
for a difference.
The sexual nature is 100% masculine and it's just great that you can sort of see it unleashed.
And then, of course, in lesbian sexual culture, you basically have the opposite.
There's just much, much less sex.
Have you read sex at dawn?
Yeah, ages ago.
Christopher, what's his last thing?
I can't think it's, I'm just curious to what your thoughts get.
So his whole philosophy is that we have evolved to not be monogamous, that we were,
had many sexual partners.
And that's kind of, and there's a huge,
especially in the health and fitness space.
There's kind of this movement that's been going on,
and this, yes, in this direction.
Now, my argument against that, as always,
and I would love your input on this, Carol.
My argument has always been that monogamy
has been practiced widespread in very large
popular societies.
And I believe-
And polygamy.
Polygamy as well.
So polygamy is more common.
Yeah, so polygamy much older, right?
But later on monogamy.
And to me, it's like, okay, this also,
yeah, there it is by Chris Rein.
Yeah, Chris Rein.
This points to the fact that yes, we are driven by our biology,
but also we're smart enough to say,
this is beneficial for society and culturally.
Yes, that is, I think that's exactly right.
So there are a lot of problems that come with polygamy,
and it's, you know, the highest status males
who can acquire the most resources are able to and can and legally can acquire the most females.
But that leaves a lot of young men without the ability to acquire a mate.
What do you do when you have a young, high testosterone guy who can't get a mate?
You get violence, probably.
You get violence. You get a lot of bad behavior.
So just trouble some aggressive, competitive behavior and high levels of violence
in a society that has that social system. So yes, this is culturally socially-apositive
move, I guess, towards monogamy and having that be the legal form of long-term partnering.
But in terms of the evolutionary evidence to what we're
kind of designed for, there's really no evidence that the sort of evolutionary, most relevant
evolutionary mating system would have been monogamy.
But serial monogamy is what we're thought to have practiced because that's
what's most beneficial for the survival of the offspring is for the pair to be together
until the kid is something like four years old till it's weined basically. And because
we are sort of designed to breastfeed for much longer than a year,
anywhere from like one to three years.
Well yeah, because a human baby is born as a fetus
essentially.
You can't do anything for yourself.
The mom really is not really in a situation
to go hunt and provide.
So it makes sense that the male would stick around
for us to survive.
And there's also facultative paternal investment,
which means that, you know, for some men
in some environments, it's going to make sense to stay with one female.
Maybe for her whole reproductive career, maybe for a part of it, but in other environments,
you know, or for other males, a better strategy may be to just compete out on the open market,
you know, or he may not have any other choice.
So there's a huge amount of variety.
And I think that probably represents differences
in social systems that we had in our evolutionary past
in different environments.
Now, you've been studying hormones for a while.
I've been talking about this for a long time.
I can't imagine a more challenging climate than now
for someone like you who studies what you do and talks about what you do,
what are some of the challenges that you've been encountering?
Because you're literally talking about the differences
between men and women from a hormonal and biological standpoint,
which seems to be taboo these days.
Is this, I mean, are you worried about what you're talking about
or have you been attacked?
And especially since now you've got more of a public persona.
Yeah.
So I came, I really had a very small life before this.
I mean, I was just teaching at Harvard.
I had my little family.
I didn't do anything really publicly.
But the reason that I wrote the book is because it's a challenging time.
Oh, I love you.
So it is because I felt like I'm in a position to speak up.
I have a, we're financially secure, basically.
So I do, this is so important to me because it's science, which is I love, has changed my
life from somebody who is confused and lack direction to someone who is learning
to understand the world with this incredibly powerful tool.
And I feel like people are trying to take that away
and that the favored viewpoint that gets repeated
in the media, in the New York Times, in the Guardian.
There's these favored interpretations of reality, which are not true.
And it's what seems, you know, I hate to say it, but what seems politically correct, and sort of these
feel good stories that we're basically all the same, and sex isn't real, and that should give us hope, and that
should increase the rights of people with, like, of gender differences and we can accept each other better if we believe the biology that biology isn't that important.
And that's just completely confused. We can do all that stuff and pay attention to biology and understand the facts, right?
And as a science educator, as someone who came really from the bottom up, from literally like studying chimps
and just being fascinated by how all this works,
like I didn't come in with an agenda.
And I don't, the only agenda that I have is that
science is the one place where I feel like people
can come together and can agree on the facts.
And that is being taken away.
Where are we gonna come together?
There's so much divisiveness
and I'm really, really bothered by that.
So I wanted to step into it.
But amazingly, I'm getting so much positive feedback.
That's good.
That's good.
Because I think when you tell people the truth, you're respecting them.
I was respected as a young scientist, when I became emotional, there was a seminar I attended as a grad student
when I became really emotional about a hypothesis about whether rape was an adaptation in humans.
I said, this guy's an asshole, the guy who wrote the paper.
I rejected the hypothesis because it made me upset. It felt wrong.
But that's not how you're supposed to work to understand the world as a scientist. You're
supposed to look at the facts. You're supposed to dispassionately evaluate hypothesis.
It's supposed to be amoral. Like, you got to remove that.
Yes. Yes. You want to understand how the world works. And if it is an adaptation, I certainly
want to know even if it is hard. So the professor in that seminar, instead of saying, oh, are you okay in like coddling
me, said, look at the data.
What do you think of the hypothesis, evaluate the hypothesis?
And I realized in that moment that, yes, some truths can be painful, but I'd much rather
know them and learn how to think critically about the facts and the world. And that is what I want to try to give to anyone who's interested through my book is the truth,
but still being compassionate and fighting for human rights and the rights of people with all kinds of differences,
which I am very passionate about.
And I really think you can do both.
So I'm trying to do that and I'll take whatever's coming.
But I've had a little bit of blowback
about like appearing on Joe Rogan
or the people who sub-tweet me
had said something transphobic at some point.
But I would, first of all, I think Joe's great.
I think you guys are great.
And what if you said, if you made some comment
like two years ago that I don't agree with, I don't really care. Like that's not what it's great. I think you guys are great. And what if you said, if you made some comment like two years ago that I don't agree with,
I don't really care.
Like that's not what it's about.
You're trying to do the right thing.
You're trying to understand the world.
And so I don't like this idea that if you are associated
with someone and other people don't agree
with all of their ideas, like you're a bad guy
for associating with them, that's ridiculous.
We need to come together and talk.
So that's why this you doing this is great.
Thank you.
What comes to mind, Carol, or do you have concerns when you hear things like toxic masculinity?
Yeah, I understand why people want to use that term, because it seems like,
and there is some truth to this obviously,
the sort of most dangerous aspects,
and maybe to some degree,
most disturbing aspects of human behavior
are committed by men.
Predominantly.
Like murder, rape, et cetera.
But you guys aren't murderers as far as I know and
rapists and I serve my time. I'm good. But you know, most men are not those things. And that's
the extreme end of bad male behavior, right? That's out on the extreme. Some cultures, there are some differences,
but also we were talking before you started taping about,
I think before you started taping,
but even while we're taping about you guys,
your devotion to your kids.
Oh, yeah.
And I know that part of why I love my husband
is because of his masculinity and his feeling protected.
And I'm not saying this is true for every woman,
but his stoicism.
That is stuff.
Yeah, bothers me here and there.
But ultimately, I think that we're a pair.
We fit together.
We complement each other.
There's so much beauty and masculinity.
And I have a 12 year old boy and the term toxic masculinity
pisses me off because it's it's um I think
it has become associated with just plain masculinity and um people are feeling there's no one
should feel bad about their nature's it's behavior and if we could I don't want masculinity
to be toxic I want the behaviors associated with that to be toxic, but women do a lot of nasty stuff
that really hurts people too.
Should I just be called assholes?
Thank you.
But there's like a particular, yeah, I mean,
no, I agree that's what you wanna deal with is assholes,
but there's like a particular brand of asshole
who's like, okay, this morning, I'll just say,
because I went for run, I've never just say, because I went for run,
I've never been here before.
I went for run, which I thought was going to be, sorry, I don't want to insult anything,
but there's some park near her where I thought I could go for like a long time.
Yeah, here you're like, you got to be careful where you go.
But so I went and I started feeling really nervous and I started feeling like, is this
a safe place to run?
I'm by myself.
I don't see any other women.
In fact, I don't see any other runners.
And I, nobody can see me.
Nobody can hear me if I scream.
And people know a lot of, like men might not understand
that that's just, so the whole way I was nervous,
I was like, am I going to get raped basically?
So that maybe is toxic masculinity,
or men like Horace, I have a gay friend
who is saying that he goes to the gym and he's small
and that he gets harassed by these big tough guys at the gym
and he's like, no, because we had this conversation
about toxic, toxic masculinity and he's saying,
no, that's what that means.
So I get it, but I don't like it because it's not
fair to masculinity. Yeah, and there's a difference. I don't like it because it's not fair to masculinity.
Yeah, and there's a difference.
I don't think it's helpful.
Who is that?
How is that helpful?
No, I'll give you an example.
Like, aggression could be labeled a masculine trait, but aggression is not the same as violence.
Right.
So physical aggression.
Yeah, right, or drive, or risk taking, but risk taking can be taking a chance with my business, or
it could be me doing crazy drugs on the street with a dirty needle or something like that,
right?
Which men were more likely to do.
This is such a fascinating subject for me, and I love looking at the differences between
generally between men and women, and especially the dysfunction.
This is why I think you see a lot of interesting things. For example, you're going to see generally speaking more men who are violent towards other
people physically.
That's a very, I guess, to my estimation, a maladaptive form of, maybe masculinity.
But then with women, there are cases where you see, for example, what's that disorder where
the mom will poison their kids slowly?
Which have?
That often doesn't happen with man.
That's much more of a common and it's almost like a maladaptive dysfunctional, you know,
part of being a feminine because you want to take care of, you know, you want to be
nurturing.
So you're making your kids sick so that they constantly are.
We're bullying people on social media
so they end up killing themselves.
Yeah.
That's more of a thing that women are doing,
men aren't doing that as much.
But I do think it's important to say that
in terms of differences, men and women
compared to other mammals,
there's really small general differences.
That's right.
Where you see the big differences are on the extremes.
That's right. So if you look at like in the middle we're pretty similar
But if you go to like the most violent people in the world the like the number one like a 1% violent people
It's probably 90 something percent
Well, that's the problem that I have with that the toxic masculinity is you then you you get a
Your son who's only 12 years old, who hears that term throwing around.
And he's a sweet, he's a sweet,
and then he starts questioning,
so if some of his behaviors is following that category,
which he probably has no business
even having to worry or think about it,
because he's not that in this category.
No, and I love what you said about how you felt
going through your adolescence.
You know, women are always celebrated
for becoming a woman, right?
Going through that period, we celebrate that.
We need to celebrate that in men too.
It's the same.
That should be a beautiful thing for you
to go through that and to become
like a sexually viable adult
that has other responsibilities associated with that.
You know, that should be positive.
Well, you know, cultural,
lots of cultures have coming of age things for boys because with girls. I mean, I have an 11-year-old daughter
She's probably gonna get her period soon. So you get this very physical sign of oh, I'm now a woman right what do we what do guys get like we get Harry
I mean, you know, it's there's really nothing uncomfortable boaters. Yeah, seminal missions. Yeah, exactly.
There's not this big like, you know, like,
or not turtle, sorry, not seminal, not turtle.
Not turtle, not turtle.
So, but lots of cultures have those,
and I think that's probably what you're talking about.
So the guys will always know, oh, this is the next.
And also with toxic masculinity,
what is the term for you guys taking physical risks
to help people you don't even know and putting
your own lives at risk.
You do way, way more of that than women.
Women certainly do it, it happens, but that's overwhelmingly like a male territory.
And that's an amazing part of masculinity.
Is that kind of physical heroism?
Yeah, although you take a, you put a mom's child at risk.
That's right. No, that's when you see a mom's child at risk. That's right.
No, that's when you see,
that's when you see moms putting their lives at risk.
Oh, I saw my, my, my mom who is,
she's definitely afraid of dogs.
She's not a dog person.
And she had, at the time, my son was a baby,
putting him in the back of the car.
And the neighbor's German Shepherd jumped in the,
friendly dog, jumped in the back of the car. the neighbor's German shepherd jumped in the back, friendly dog,
jumped in the back of the car and my mom physically threw this dog out of the car and stringed
like a lion and I was like, I heard in the house and I was like, that you did that.
I could totally relate.
Yeah, I know that was because she was being protected.
Yeah, no, that's true.
I mean, so women definitely will put themselves at risk for their offspring, but men are much
more likely to do it for total, you know, just strangers, which is amazing.
So now these differences, these general differences that we have, let's focus on just because
you're the books on testosterone and because I feel like masculinity is much more attacked
these days than femininity, what are the benefits or why do we need a lot of these masculine
shrites? First let's list them off and then what are the benefits today? We don't
hunt anymore. We're not at war all the time. Society's far more safer than it's
ever been. Like, why do we need them in the first place? Why can't we just
homogenize and all become the same?
First of all, boring, boring. And I would just say that the practical impediment there is that we are designed to be through
natural and sexual selection to be attracted to our complement in a way. And that's even, you know, to some degree within homosexual
relationships where there's kind of a...
Yeah, there's normally a very opposite, even if it's the same sex, the one partner takes
on certain traits.
Yes. And I think that there's a separate question about what society would be like,
if, say, we castrated men, right?
So first of all, I think it just wouldn't work
because we have these needs, right?
But second of all, the things that you guys have all been talking
about, although I can't say this study found that we need,
that testosterone causes this thing that seems to be like this drive
towards a goal that seems to be different, right, between the sexes.
This need to create, to take risks.
One year in my class, I asked my students just to have a conversation about what would
the world be like if we cast
rated men.
And somebody said, I don't think we'd have tall buildings.
And I thought that was really interesting.
And who knows?
It's possible that that kind of, those kinds of like technological advancements.
I don't want to say that women don't play a role
because of course they do.
I think the risk taking involved with that
is probably where you're at.
Yeah, but something to do with that,
we get to have babies.
I made a baby in my body.
I created a human with my husband's DNA, whatever.
But I'm the one who grew it inside of me.
I'll tell you what.
I used my boobs and the milk that I made to grow one who grew it inside of me. I'll tell you what. I used my boobs and the milk that I made
to grow him after he came out of me.
Oh, watching that is.
What else do I have to do after that?
I made my kid.
I'll tell you what, watching that as a man,
I'll tell you what, I'm a very involved father,
I have three children, and watching my,
I just had it, we have an eight and almost nine month old now,
and watching her, and I remember this distinctly
with my oldest son, right?
That because this was the first time I had a kid.
I remember, you know, at the time,
this was my ex-wife, she was pregnant.
And, you know, I knew that there was a baby.
I knew that we were gonna have a kid,
but I was jealous because of the connection that she had
that I didn't feel till he was born.
Like until he was born, it wasn't,
I wasn't connected like she was,
and I think that that's something that isn't valued
or celebrated enough.
Like that is a remarkable thing that men just,
who knows in the future, if we'll be able to experience this
with, you know.
I feel like motherhood in general
isn't celebrated enough.
Oh yeah, I agree.
I agree.
A decline on that for the last 100%
Yeah, two.
100%.
Yeah, no, I have a lot of mixed feelings about that
because like, I just, you know, I teach,
I just wrote a book, I'm super busy, you know,
that's rewarding, I'm trying to make an impact,
you know, in the world now and not have my tiny little life, but at the same time
I do and that's all been great and I've challenged myself and grown from it, but the most important thing to me is I want, you know, to have more time
I feel like oh my god, I'm don't have enough time with my kid and my husband and it's, you know, I feel pulled in so many directions, but if I had to choose
I'd totally choose being a mom
and just have my family.
Yeah, no, that's a struggle.
I think a lot of people go through it.
I think generally speaking, you see that a lot with moms,
whereas with dads, maybe not as much, you know.
Well, because you know that you have someone,
I mean, a lot of really successful men, of course,
just know that their kid is being loved
hopefully, you know, and cared for, and they have the support to go and pursue what they
want.
So there's that too, but I think that is a real constraint on women.
But I mean, it doesn't have to be a constraint.
It's a joy for so many women.
Yeah, and I think that needs to be celebrated and respected, and it would be great if we
could get paid for a paid, you know, for that and have more
economic independence.
Because that's a big part of it.
A lot of women, you know, it's very, very tough to have to be economically dependent on
somebody else.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's an excellent.
Carol, was there anything that when you, that, that since we've been talking that we
haven't covered that you feel is something that's
grossly misunderstood about testosterone.
I know we've talked about a lot of different things right now, but in your research and writing
the book, is there something that we haven't touched on or talked about today that you feel
like that is still misunderstood about testosterone?
Well, there is one point that a lot of critics of the importance of testosterone in athletic
ability try to use as a sort of counterpoint, and they will say that individual differences,
you know, if you look at testosterone really doesn't help sporting performance because
if you look at testosterone levels among men, it's not always the case that the one with
the highest testosterone level beats the one with the highest testosterone level
beats the one with the lower testosterone level.
Boy, what an oversimplification of athletic performance.
So I just wanna say that in some case,
for some sports, that is the case.
But that's not the issue.
The issue is why do men just totally blow away women
in sports, which they do?
It's a fact and it's okay, right?
That's how, I mean, yeah, it might suck for women,
but that's how it works.
It will suck for women, of course, if men and women
are playing, have to compete with each other,
women will lose, right?
So the point, I think that's misunderstood,
is that that is a tactic that testosterone critics use,
is to say testosterone is not that
important because within sex it doesn't all you can't predict like libido or aggression
or athletic performance in a lot of cases and that's true but it's not about within sex.
It's about we're trying to explain sex differences in a lot of different things and it's the whopping, you know, 10 to 20 or higher times the level of testosterone that
you guys have in all these different phases of life, you know, in utero, in puberty,
in adulthood, that we don't have.
That give physical advantages that everybody knows about, you know, like way more muscle
and way less fat and, you know, body size and bone strength and hemoglobin.
And it's not about the little differences within sex.
So that is just something to keep in mind that those levels, those differences within
men and to some degree within women, although women, it's more impactful.
Those just aren't anywhere near as important as the differences between sex.
And I think that's also when they make that comparison, I think it's silly because if you take the same individual
and give them more testosterone,
you will see an increase in performance.
But there's also,
In muscle.
Yeah, and there's also Androgen receptor density.
Yes, yes.
Just how, how, how properceptive you are
and your athletic ability.
I mean, I could have higher testosterone
than a pro basketball player,
but he's gonna crush me on the court
because he's so skilled.
Are there any negatives to testosterone?
We're talking about what it does
and potential positives and influences on behavior.
Are there things that testosterone can cause,
that tend to cause detriment?
I know men tend to not live as long as women.
Is that due to testosterone?
Yes.
Okay.
All right, let's talk about some of those.
I mean, it's a cost. So it's an energetic cost. women, is that due to testosterone? Yes. Okay. All right. Let's talk about some of those.
I mean, there's, you know, it's a cost. So, it's an energetic cost. Growing muscle is
very expensive. So, there's the effects on, there's the energy spent on muscle, there's
the energy spent on physical activity, on risk-taking. So, you know, more men die young from accidents
for one thing. So, that reduces life expectancy in males.
There is immune system costs.
So there are different diseases that the sexes get
at different ages.
And testosterone can have some negative effects
on survival, sort of, on longevity.
But I would say the biggest negative is the
is physical aggression and sexual assault. And those I think are ultimately products of testosterone.
The important piece is the power of culture in shaping the expression of those
natures. So we know that cultures that have much
stricter laws and social norms that really strictly prohibit those kinds of
negative behaviors, we see that men are able to control their behavior, right?
So this isn't something that has to be played out. We have to remember how
important culture is. So one big misunderstanding is that people are
arguing all over the place about nature versus nurture,
is it testosterone or is it culture?
It's both and it's so clear that it is both
and that the family you grow up in,
the laws in the country you grow up in,
your religion, all of those things are gonna shape
how we express our nature.
So that's the most important point is
appreciating the power of testosterone and biology in no way means that culture doesn't have an influence.
It doesn't change our natures. We're going to have these different natures and what matters is how we express them.
That's such a great point. One of my favorite examples of that. There was a documentary I watched a long time ago that was just so interesting. I think it was called knuckle. And it talked, it was a documentary on,
they called themselves travelers,
where they live in these RVs and they're in Ireland
and they kind of follow,
that's gypsy, yeah.
And they follow the wrong one.
Wait, what's the call again?
Knuckle.
Sounds interesting.
Okay.
And they, the way that they handle conflicts
within each other's families or with other families
is they bear an uncle box.
Now here's the thing though.
Now here's where the culture comes in.
That's the aggression part, right?
That's the instinct.
The men are gonna fight, right?
But they don't just all attack each other
and kill each other.
It's ritualized.
They have rules.
Yes.
Okay, you pick someone from your family,
we pick someone from our family.
Here's the rules. Doesn't the movie snatch to pick this? Isn't that what that was? Yes, okay, you pick someone from your family. We pick someone from our family Here's the rules doesn't the movie snatch to pick this is that was yes
Sashes that too. Yeah, look at mixed martial arts like yeah, you like that's obviously cultures influence on this natural
Tendency to be violent. We're not just killing each other. We're like put on gloves
You can't poke each other on the eye you have to weigh the same amount and you know and all that stuff
So to be acknowledging the nature and all that stuff. So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing.
So to me, that's a different thing. So to me, that's a different thing. So to me, that's a different thing. So to me, that's a different thing. So to me, thank you. Thank you. Neil.
Hi, everybody else.
I appreciate that.
I highly recommend this book.
If you want to know anything about behavior between the sexes
and just testosterone generals, very, very good.
And there's lots of, it's really written in a way
that the biology, the science, should be accessible
to anybody, even people who don't have a scientific background.
There's lots of stories.
There's my own personal stories in there.
So there's a lot of narrative.
It's like, just like-
I just think it's a very important message right now,
because I just feel like it's, for some reason, it's taboo
to talk about the difference between men and women right now.
It's that we were-
We're surprised that-
I was just back in reality.
Yeah, every but not, there is no difference between the senses.
No.
And you always responsible for behavior.
And we are all individuals.
I firmly believe that, but I think ignoring science
is dangerous.
And as soon as science becomes politicized,
we're screwed because it's one of the last objective
fields that we have, almost nothing is objective anymore.
We work in the fitness space, and I can't tell you
how much information is driven by complete bullshit.
Just terrible.
No science whatsoever.
And it's terrifying from a fitness perspective because I'm like, no, that's not true.
At all what you're reading.
That's obviously driven by somebody's.
People have to know who to trust.
They have to have trusted sources of information.
We're losing those.
Yes.
Oh, I do have one question.
This is interesting.
I read this and I actually read studies on this, that back this up.
I would love your opinion. So apparently this is interesting. I read this and I actually read studies on this, that back this up. I would love your opinion. So apparently, this is weird. The difference between your
ring finger and your index finger. So if your ring finger is a lot longer than your index
finger as a man, that means you were exposed to more testosterone in utero versus if your
ring finger was... Oh, I thought you were going to do a choice thing.
Apparently the size between... No, apparently the size of it is.
No, is that true?
So I have a section on that in the book
and I have a little diagram showing you
how to do the measurement.
So I am a, like.
That's rare for a female.
I am more masculine than something like 90% of men
in terms of my 2D 40.
Yeah, wow.
So that's just because,
so if you measure from the bottom
wrinkle to the top of the bone on this one,
on this your index finger, and then same thing on your ring finger,
and then calculate the ratio.
So I think I'm like 0.89 or something.
And what this actually is, the, so people have published a lot
of studies on this because it's easy to measure it.
And just any time you're looking at, any time you run any study where you have males and
females and you want to be able to say, oh, I got an index of the level of testosterone
they're exposed to in utero and all I have to do, it's easy to do this measurement, right?
You just get a Xerox and then you can measure it. That's right.
I love people probably don't even use Xerox anymore.
So, a lot of people are publishing these studies
and saying it's associated with like,
athletic ability or libido or aggression.
Those are the studies that get published.
The eight Zillion Studies that measured it,
that didn't find it was associated with those things
don't get published.
That's called the file drawer effect.
That being said, there is a sex difference, so that's clear, but to see it, you need a
lot of people.
So, it's not a huge effect.
You need a large sample size, but yeah, what I have is unusual for a woman.
Most women will have, and this is an estrogen effect also, and it's interesting to be cut,
well, whatever, I'm not going to go off on another tangent.
So women will tend to have the index finger the same size as the ring finger or a little bit longer. And that's sort of a feminine
look like their fingers are
important indexes of estrogen. I think that's why the nail industry, you know, is so
popular because you want to have that long sort of slender
look I need fingers.'s fascinating but so I think it's the evidence there is not super robust but there is a sex difference it is related to testosterone
exposure we see it non-human animals it's kind of fun you can you know
Google it but I wouldn't put too much faith in anyone's individual measurement and what
that predicts, but when you're gone, we're all going to compare it.
Yeah, right.
Suzy, why don't you ask us for a question?
What did you call, I want you to, I've never heard anyone say before, that what you call
the file, your effect, what did you call it?
Yeah, it's the fun.
So that is publication bias.
And it is an issue in science and we're making some advances there and people are publishing
pre-registering studies
and what and the hypothesis that they are testing
and the study would then get published
whether or not that hypothesis was supported.
But what happens in publishing is that exciting
unusual results are published.
They may or may not be replicated,
but who cares?
Because it's already been in the New York Times
and on the CNN and everybody's super excited
about this one little thing.
So what we want to see before we
draw in conclusions about how the world works
and plus we should always think critically
about those conclusions.
What we want to see are studies that are well replicated.
Those are robust findings in different populations
with slightly different methods,
not just one or two studies that uses a very narrow range
of methods.
The file drawer effect is what happened to me
with that study on pornography and testosterone.
I never published it because it didn't work.
It didn't show that this manipulation
changed testosterone levels.
There's no study out there showing don't do what she did and try to manipulate testosterone levels. So there's no study out there showing,
don't do what she did and try to manipulate testosterone
levels with pornography because it doesn't do anything.
Because who's gonna wanna publish that?
So what we see are the positive results,
the interesting results.
So that's the file to our effect.
I just put it away.
No, that's fast.
That's like when we see those articles that say,
compound and chocolate burns fat. Right.
You gotta read all the other stories.
Eating chocolate actually makes you gain body fat.
Carol, again, one of my favorite guests.
Really appreciate talking to you.
Thank you so much for what you do and thank you for writing this book.
Great.
Thank you, bud.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
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