Horizon: Is Your Brain Male or Female? BBC2 - TV review
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Good to see television's most daredevil self-experimenter has finally met his match.
In Horizon: Is Your Brain Male or Female? (BBC2), Michael Mosley was pitted against co-presenter Prof Alice Roberts as they tested out their contradictory theories on gender difference in the brain. As it stands, science concedes that men are generally better at tasks such as map reading, while women excel at all that feelings stuff, but what is the explanation for these differences?
In the blue corner was Mosley, who believed in something innate, and re-created a famous experiment involving monkeys and toy trucks to prove his point. In the pink corner was Prof Roberts, who thought behaviour differences were learned. She had a worrying conversation with a mixed-gender group of teens who all believed women couldn't be scientists because, they said, the TV had told them so.
Happily, in this programme at least, there were several impressive female scientists on hand to prove otherwise, not least Roberts herself, whose arguments I found most convincing. Although that could just be because I'm a woman.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments