THE GOOD COMMENTS

Professor Todd K. Shackelford, Chair of Psychology, Oakland University, Michigan, Co-Editor of the journal: Evolutionary Psychology, in a review of PRIMAL, Amazon.com (24 August 2013)

“Robin Baker is a living legend in evolutionary science, especially for his groundbreaking research on sperm competition in humans… I always considered Baker one of the very best scientific writers. I now consider him one of my favorite novelists … (weaving) modern evolutionary science into modern-day whodunits.”

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Professor G. A. Parker, FRS, in Reflections Before Dusk, Leaders in Animal Behaviour: The Second Generation, Cambridge University Press, 2010; pp 429-464:

“His approach, from earliest research days, was confrontational, even gladiatorial; he was out to slay the demons of past misconceptions. This did not always endear him to the scientific establishment … He nevertheless showed great originality and flair, and I shall always recall the stimulus of our early discussions with great nostalgia and indebtedness.”

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Desmond Morris, front cover of Fragile Science, 2001:

“A thought-provoking author who forces you to re-examine widely held beliefs”

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Professor T.R. Birkhead in the Preface to Promiscuity, Faber and Faber, 2000; pp 23-29:

“Robin Baker, now retired, was an innovative biologist. He had taught me when I was an undergraduate at Newcastle … For me, Robin’s lectures were electric … As he explained (sperm competition) it was like a light going on. … Robin loved controversy: he had novel ideas and sold them hard … At the International Society for Behavioural Ecology Congress in Princeton in 1992 Baker and Bellis were billed to give consecutive talks in the same session. The auditorium was packed. Wearing skimpy shorts and a shirt open to his navel, Baker kicked off, and put on the kind of show his audience had come to expect. … Simply by standing up there and telling us things few had ever dared discuss in public, Baker’s status was enhanced. I couldn’t help being impressed by his immoderate ideas and his ability to bind an audience …”

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Dr Patty Gowaty (Evolutionary Biologist), Women-the inside story, Channel 4 (Equinox), October 1996:

“There’s Kinsey, there’s Masters and Johnson, there’s Baker and Bellis. They’re giants in the world of sex research. I think they’re heroes. How’s that.” To watch clip, click here

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Denise Watson (Journalist), Manchester Evening News, 15 February 1996:

“I must admit, I was intrigued to find out what kind of man decides to write a book called Sperm Wars … Some kind of sex-crazed maniac? Or simply a scientist keen to find out more about the mechanics of everyday reproduction? On meeting Dr Robin Baker, I realised he was neither. In fact, apart from wearing open-toed sandals without socks, in the snow, rarely have I met a man more balanced.”

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Jan van Gelderen, Algemeen Dagblad, 25 September 1980:

“Robin Baker was even in ons land en orndat deze Engelse hoogleraar biologie nog voor 1990 de Nobelprijs zal winnen, haastte ik me naar de bar van het Americain in Amsterdam. … Baker omdat hij baanbrekends theorieën op het terrein van de biologie om zich heen strooit, sneller dan de supermarkt weekaanbiedingen kan doen.”

(Translation: Robin Baker is briefly in our land and because this English Professor of Biology will win the Nobel Prize before 1990, I hurried to the bar in the Hotel American in Amsterdam … he scatters around him ground breaking theories in the field of biology, faster than the supermarkets come up with their weekly offers.)

THE QUITE BAD COMMENTS

Professor T.R. Birkhead in the Preface to Promiscuity, Faber and Faber, 2000; pp23-29:

“My scepticism stemmed from an incident that had occurred two years previously, at a much smaller meeting … Robin Baker gave a confident performance, but one that was scientifically difficult to defend … The audience response was mixed: sniggering incredulity at Baker’s audacity and, from some quarters, downright indignation … Baker’s approach seemed naïve …”

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Anon, in conversation, on the time in the early 1990s that Robin Baker was proposed for election as a Fellow of the Royal Society:

“He’s the only guy I know to be black-balled by every single voter.”

AND THE JUST PLAIN UGLY COMMENTS

Professor T.R. Birkhead in the Preface to Promiscuity, Faber and Faber, 2000; pp23-29:

“At question time the mood turned distinctly sour … an indignant physiologist hounded me back to my office. What did I think I was doing bringing him across the Atlantic to witness this caricature of science? … Robin Baker and Mark Bellis may see themselves as pioneers in the study of human sexuality, but … The view of human sperm competition they have perpetuated is little more than sexual fantasy – phallus in wonderland – and I have exorcised it here in order to leave the way clear for a more veracious but no less astonishing account.”

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Professor Joe Kirschvink, as quoted by the Los angeles Times:

“To get Baker’s results, one must just be a sloppy scientist.”

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