Cordelia Fine
| Cordelia Fine | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1975 (age 41–42) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Oxford University BA Hons Experimental Psychology, Cambridge University MPhil Criminology, University College London PhD Psychology (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) |
| Alma mater |
Oxford University Cambridge University University College London |
| Period | 2006–present |
| Genre | Psychology |
| Subject | Neuroscience |
| Notable works | A Mind of its Own, Delusions of Gender |
| Relatives | Anne Fine, Kit Fine, Ione Fine |
| Website | |
| cordeliafine |
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Cordelia Fine (born 1975) is a Canadian-born British academic psychologist and writer. She is the author of three books on neuroscience and psychology, several book chapters and numerous academic publications. She wrote the introduction to The Britannica Guide to the Brain, is active as a journalist and wrote the column "Modern Mind" for newspaper The Australian. She is notable for coining the term "neurosexism".
Born in Toronto, Fine spent her childhood in the United States and Edinburgh. Fine has a BA with first-class honours in experimental psychology from Oxford University (1995), M.Phil in criminology from Cambridge University (1996), and PhD in psychology from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (2001).
Fine's first book, A Mind of Its Own, synthesizes a large amount of cognitive research to show that the mind often gives a distorted picture of reality. Her second book, Delusions of Gender, argues that conclusions that science has shown that men's and women's brains are intrinsically different in ways that explain the gender status quo are premature and often based on flawed methods and unexamined assumptions. She also challenges the common assumption that a gender-egalitarian society means that differences in social outcomes and interests must be due to biology. "With still such different contexts and circumstances for men and women, it's simply not possible to compare the choices they make and draw confident conclusions about the sexes' different inner natures." Fine's approach to gender has been criticised by those who think it behaviourist, and for not accounting for what psychiatry terms gender identity disorders. However, as Fine pointed out in The Psychologist, the book is concerned with scientific evidence presented as support for the idea that males and females are, on average, 'hardwired' to 'systemise' versus 'empathise', rather than the question of the extent to which core gender identity is 'hardwired'; and that she does not subscribe to a behaviourist or social determinist view of development, but rather "one in which the developmental path is constructed, step by step, out of the continuous and dynamic interaction between brain, genes and environment." Professor Ben Barres, a Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University, wrote in a review of the book for PLOS Biology that Fine's "analysis of this data should be required reading for every neurobiology student, if not every human being." The neuroscientists Margaret McCarthy and Gregory Ball, have said that Fine presents a one-sided picture of the study of sex differences, and that Delusions of Gender threatened to "severely hamper" progress in this field. However, neuroscientists Geert de Vries and Nancy Forger of the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University cite the work of Fine and colleagues in noting that "unsubstantiated claims about the nature and function of neural sex differences continue to be made and such claims may do serious harm". Together with Barnard College sociomedical scientist Rebecca Jordan-Young, Fine has rejected the claim, based on quotations of her criticisms of popular misrepresentations of science, that she is "anti-sex differences". Fine and Jordan-Young, with other co-authors, have published recommendations and guidelines for improving the quality of scientific investigations of sex/gender differences in research.
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