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Ann Coulter is a Man, Baby (According to Some Guy and a Computer)

Posted by Bryan Christian

Burton MacKenzie, a blogger in Canada, claims to have cracked open the dark, twisted secret that is Ann Coulter and discovered that she is, in fact, a he. MacKenzie's argument? Not only does she... he... Coulter allegedly have an Adam's apple (pictured right from MacKenzie's blog), but the Gender Guesser, an online writing analyzer ("As Demonstrated at Black Hat Briefings, 2006"), spits out a big fat "MALE" when it takes a gander at her written work. Well, if the Internet says it, it must be true!

Actually, we don't know what Coulter's gender has to do with her making us want to turn off the TV every time we see her, but in the interests of specious, unverifiable science, we ran a couple tests with the Gender Guesser for ourselves. In our limited trials, confirmed-fake-dude-and-writer George Eliot came up "MALE" and romance novelist extraordinaire Barbara Taylor Bradford only came up as half "MALE," half "WEAK FEMALE," which seems unlikely. So all in all, we're pretty iffy on the Gender Guesser's value as, well, what it says it is. Maybe y'all could have a look and tell us what you get?


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Burton MacKenZie said:

You're right that the Gender Guesser software isn't definitive regarding Ann Coulter, but your attempt to argue its invalidity suffers the same common mistake: it's a statistical predictor, not an individual one.  It cannot predict an individual any more than a smoker's chances of getting lung cancer predict a *specific* smoker getting lung cancer.  Rather, the prediction is "in a room with 100 people that are all writing in this style, the majority of them will be male".  Attempting to prove this algorithm false by example is just as erroneous as saying Ann Coulter is definitively a man because the algorithm says so.

That being said, Ann Coulter's manhood is worth a laugh or two. ;-)

For more information, read the paper "Gender, Genre, and Writing Style in Formal Written Texts" by Argamon (Dept of Comp Sci, Illinois Institute of Technology), Koppel (Dept of Math and Comp Sci, Bar-Ilan University), Fine (Dept of English, Bar-Ilan University), and Shimoni (Dept of Math and Comp Sci, Bar-Ilan University).

December 10, 2007 11:13 PM

hotnsour said:

I got 85% male on my last philosophy paper.  Last time I checked my pants, there's 0% penis in there.

December 11, 2007 6:59 PM

Ed said:

I don't care if the software is not accurate. I think she really does look very mannish. The adams apple and that loooo---->ng cow face.

Just picture that in the morning.  

December 11, 2007 11:57 PM

About Bryan Christian

Bryan Christian has worked as a writer for Epicurious, GenArt and ID magazine; a web producer for WWD and Condé Nast; and a cameraman for his friends. He's married and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

in

about the blogger

Emily Farris writes about culture and food for numerous publications and websites you've probably never heard of, including her own blog eefers. Her first cookbook, Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven was published in 2008. Emily recently escaped New York and now lives in a ridiculously large apartment in Kansas City, MO with her cat, but just one... so far.

Brian Fairbanks is a filmmaker living in the wilds of Brooklyn. He previously wrote for the Hartford Courant and Gawker. He won the Williamsburg Spelling Bee once. He loves cats, women with guns, and burning books.

Colleen Kane has been an editor at BUST and Playgirl magazines and has written for the endangered species of dead-tree magazines like SPIN and Plenty, as well as Radar Online and other websites. She lives in exile in Baton Rouge with her fiance, two dogs, and her former cat. Read her personal blogs at ColleenKane.com.

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