I agree with your citation needed for such an extraordinary claim as parent's. However, I suspect that there is a selection bias in looking at women "in science". Because of social barriers to women entering science, those that do would tend to be the more driven ones, as the less driven ones, who might have entered science in a gender neutral world, would not have. I recall hearing that the Army used simmilar reasoning for lowering the academic requirements for black high-school graduates (relative to white ones), because they found that at the same level of academic achievement, the black ones tended to do better in the army. The common explanation for why this was the case was that because black students had more barriers than white students, they would have to be more qualified just to be able to have reached the same level.

christianpascu is asking for the citation! They made an observation, and asked if there was any evidence to support that.

That was exactly my point. I am well aware of our propensity to biased personal conclusions. Many times I have been contradicted in my beliefs by actual data.

Making a sexist remark and asking for someone else to provide the evidence is not acceptable.

I gently agree, except they did qualify their sexist remark. They are saying "This might be wrong; I don't have anything to support it; is there anything to support it?" which is a lot better than saying "Women can't do X because Y. Prove me wrong."

> I suspect that although there is clearly no reason to believe

and

> Is anyone aware of studies conducted on differences (if there are any)

[emphasis added]