Let's put one thing out on the table to start with. The fraction of individuals interested in going on in science is exceedingly small compared to any of the percentages listed, and by no means are successful scientists going to represent an unbiased cross-section neurologically.
Number_6 said:
And to quit screaming about why women are "underrepresented" in those fields. Because the one big reason why there aren't as many women in those fields is because female undergrads don't choose to go into them.
However,
why many female undergrads don't choose to go into the field has everything to do with how the courses are taught.
For example,
physics programs may dramatically increase the number of female majors to ~50%.
Note that female majors prior to the changes in their curriculum averaged 19%, on par with the
national average for such.
The primary deterrents seem to be social. One thing worth particularly noting is how dramatically the numbers have continued to shift over time. Read the second article in detail; you'll find that there have been a very large number of studies conducted on the specific issue of women in physics and education. The problem starts in high school, and with the social pressures of high school.
These studies have indicated that a large number of specific and quantifiable barriers exist, deterring women from deciding to study physics, widely known as the most masculine of the sciences demographically. (While 60% of biology degrees at the BS level are awarded to women, only 19% of physics degrees are awarded to women.)
As a curious and incidental side effect of making programs "woman-friendly," we find incidentally that racial minorities within the physics field as well as other traditionally under-represented groups are represented in greater quantities... and the typical male student does better as well.
What is the case here is at least as much a difficulty
of the educational techniques as any biological tendency. It is not that women have difficulty grasping physics (as even noted misogynist, sexist, and world-class physicist [deceased] Feynmann notes) as much as they have difficulty with the
educational techniques traditionally used in the sciences.
Now, to talk numbers as to
what that study really says...
Examine, if you will, the problem of the "male" or "female" brain. You're presented with a random brain, and you're to guess which one it is, based on the study originally cited above.
Your chances of guessing correctly whether it is a male or female brain based on how it's acting? 70%.
Thus, even if the scientific process
was a "male" process (as some feminist philosophers have suggested), we would expect
from that study no worse than a 70-30 split on pure biology in general terms.
Considering the slightly greater percentage of women who survive to adulthood and are admitted into institutions of higher education (crime, military, etc etc - all pull men away in far greater numbers), 2:1.
At the top levels of biology itself, however, we see a 90-10 split, if I'm to trust the figures in that article. This isn't something you can try to explain with that study... the biological effect simply isn't dramatic enough.
