As we move quickly towards Christmas, let me give you a few book recommendations to put on your list.
First up, Testosterone: The story of the hormone that dominates & divides us, by Carole Hooven.
I just loved this book on so many levels.
In world of biases and cherry picked data, Carole Hooven goes through the data with a honest open mind and a critical view.
She also makes a point of looking at the social scientists that believe we are simply a blank slate and every little difference between men and women are because of societal norms/culture.
The key bits of evidence that show us the reality of the huge power of testosterone on our behaviour and thoughts into a few parts.
– Animal experiments: One of the key pieces of information I got from this book was how testosterone exposure levels in-utero effectively programmes/primes a male’s brain to behave in masculine ways.
In rats studies they inject mothers with lots of testosterone so the female baby rats brains are exposed to far higher levels of testosterone than normal for a female. Then at birth they remove the rats ovaries and when puberty should kick in they inject the females with testosterone to the same levels as the males.
These female then go onto behave exactly as male teenager rats do and try to have sex with the female rats.
Now to make sure it wasn’t just the testosterone at puberty in the female rats that created the behaviour, they took other female rats who had normal testosterone level exposure in-utero, but had the same ovary removal and testosterone injections at puberty.
And these females did not try to mount other females. This suggests it was the priming/programming in-utero of testosterone in the other group that means when they get a hit of testosterone later, the brain knows what to do.
Now rats are not humans, and we can’t subjecting female fetuses to excessive testosterone for the sake of experiements but nature has given us our own data set – Congential adrenal hyperplasia.
Female in-utero with congential adrenal hyperplasia, their brains are exposed to huge levels of testosterone. Luckily it produces other symptoms which are picked up early and they suppress the excess testosterone.
But this allows us to follow these children and look at their play patterns, behavior and more to see if the priming/programming of the brain really is occurring.
And as they look at the data, it is clear these girls have far higher rates of rough and tumble style play, that is to say more masculine. Not to the point of boys but significantly more than the average female.
We also now have people with gender dysphoria who have choosen to transition and take cross-sex hormoes.
The personal stories from female to male and male to female, plus some that had de-transitioned make for fascinating reading.
Wild changes in sex drive and emotional lability.
Any female or male that had a sudden drop in hormones during the menopause, and then had some form of HRT, will tell you the difference in all areas of their lives physical and emotional.
Testosterone is so powerful at creating drive and building muscle that naturally occurring issues like poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in females may be driving them to the top of sports.
Females with PCOS often have high normal or slightly above normal testosterone levels.
In normal population, PCOS levels are somewhere between 5-10%.
In a study of Swedish female Olympians, 37 % of them has PCOS 
Overall, this book really gave me a deep respect for testosterone and really cemented my love of evolutionary biology.
Her synopsis’s of the literature on both sides of the argument were a breath of fresh air.
Just to clarify, evolutionary biologists do not think everything in behavior is just hormones and hard wiring. They 100% recognise the role of society and culture, they believe it is a mix of both.
You should also check out Troubled: A memoir in foster care, family and class by Rob Henderson.
He blends his experience in the care system and foster homes in USA with insights of research into what allows people to move up the social ladder.
He is the developer of the concept of “luxury beliefs”, which once you have understood it, you will see it everywhere in people behaviour.
Read it 👇
Bitten: The secret history of Lymes diease and biological weapons by Kris Newby.
Did Borellia break out in Lyme, CT, USA by mistake after a biological experiment went wrong? Was it released on purpose by a USA agent paid by Russia?
This is some mind bending stuff right here 🤯
Last but not least, White Gold by Giles Milton
During the 16th to 18th centuries, the Muslim Barbary pirates of North Africa, specifically from cities like Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli, engaged in widespread slavery, capturing and selling white Christians, as slaves. Over this period over one million Europeans were taken as slaves.
They captured boats, sold the goods and then sold the people. The people were so valuable they were known as “white gold”. They decided to go direct and would raid the shores of France, Spain, England, Ireland and more, enslaving families from their homes and transporting them back to Africa.
The story follows Thomas Pellow a 12 year old captured at sea and taken to Morocco. There he is forced to convert to Islam and served his master Ismail the bloodthirsty (his name is a clue to his temperament).
It is just brilliant as a story and the author blends in history around Pellow’s story.
FUN FACT: Ismail the sultan of Morocco, aka the blood thirsty dude, holds the world record for the number of biological children fathered at 888 !
I bet he was full of testosterone.