random book meme

Lifted from Chas Clifton:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

My book is Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, lent to me by a friend. I still haven't got around to reading it because I object to its biologically deterministic model of gender, but it is the only non-technical work to hand. So, here goes:

The best parkers are German men with 88% doing it successfully on the first attempt. Parking tests at driving schools show that women generally do better at reverse parking than men during driver training, but statistics show women perform worse in real life situations. This is because women are better than men at learning a task and successfully repeating it, provided the environment and conditions under which they do it don't change.

What a load of pseudo-scientific psychobabble. What about the other variables in the situation; and look at the way that the authors have made an unjustified conclusion based on a few random statistics which may mean something completely different than what they say they do! "Statistics show women perform worse in real life situations" does not justify the conclusion that women work better under circumstances that don't change, or necessarily suggest that that is the cause of it. It could be caused by the fact that some women tend to process many stimuli at once rather than focusing in on one particular stimulus.

Anyway, I tag Liz Williams, Joe Gordon, The Silver Eel, Methodius and Balador to do the same (and post a link in the comments when you've done it, if you choose to accept).