Joe Herbert

“Why would someone like me, a scientist and not a journalist, write a book about my subject? A simple reason: someone reporting on a subject is not the same as someone doing it. Journalists are incredible: they pick up a story about which they may know nothing to begin with, quickly and effectively, and write lucidly and informatively about it. But it’s not the same. A scientist hasn’t thought about his subject for a few days, or weeks, but for years. So a scientist has a point of view: moreover, he/she knows that science is not simple, and there are often many points of view about a particular piece of scientific research. Mulling over your subject results in a state of mind that is not easily reproduced in any other way: a sort of maturation of thought. That doesn’t mean that the scientist is necessarily right in his/her views; in fact, one of the important endpoints of this state of mind is the realization of what is not known, and how far what we think we know is incomplete or uncertain. It’s also the ability to recognize the next big question. So writing a book such as this is not simply an account of the facts, but an interpretation and an acknowledgment that, in any part of science, there are huge pieces missing from the puzzle. You tell a story, but one full of twists and turns. No simple message or bottom line.”
― Joe Herbert, Testosterone: Sex, Power, and the Will to Win