In January 2005 Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, caused a furore when he said that innate differences in scientific and mathematical abilities between men and women MAY underlie the relative dearth of top ranking female scientists. You can read about the controversy here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/

The upshot. Summers was forced to resign.

The latest issue of Discover, a respected popular science magazine, contains an article titled "20 Best Brains Under 40." Two qualifications are in order.

--They mean the best scientific brains; and

--The article is confined to scientists working in the US.

With that out of the way, I counted just 4 women among the top 20 "best brains" in science. A simple binomial test shows that the probability of this happening by chance is less than 1 %.

Note that these are scientist born in are after 1969. I doubt they would have experienced much, if any, gender discrimination against top scientific talent.

OK, folks any theories?

What, if anything other than chance, caused the relative dearth of women among Discover Magazine's "20 Best Brains Under 40?"

Sheeeh, I guess alot of women were home minding the kids, cooking,
cleaning and doing laundry. Somebody has to do it :)

I forgot to post a link to the Discover Magazine article. Here it is:

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/20-best-brains-under-40

I subscribe to the "leaky pipeline" theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_science#Statistics

I have known many women who had the brains to perform just as well as any man as a scientist. However, it's not very easy for women to develop a research group if you are even married, let alone have kids. The professional women I have had the fortune to know tend to marry men of the same educational level, with many marrying within the same career. It's unfortunate, but they also tend to subordinate their careers in favour of their husbands career.

It has nothing to do with their brains.

Dear Steven,

Interesting thread.

Historically women were excluded from the
"boy's club" of science, but women
scientists date as far back as ancient Greece.

According to a report on the statistics in
the academic profession (American Assoc. of
university professors webpage), 4 times more
men held faculty positions. Women faced
tremenduous adversity.

There was prejudice in hiring and promotion.
Exclusion from networking opportunities.

Family/career balance - women, especially ones
of child bearing age, were still seen to be a risk
in hiring.

Forty years ago women made up only 3% of
America's scientific and technical work force,
but by 2003 they accounted for nearly one fifth.

In addition women have earned more than half of the
bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering
since 2000.

So it is surprising that so many women are still being
devalued in their research work, and not gaining
recognition in their chosen fields.

It is surprising that today the fear still exists
that given equal rights and freedoms
women may overshadow their male counterparts.

FOXY,

You seem to be assuming that women do suffer discrimination in the sciences.

I for one doubt women suffer discrimination in technical fields. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise if you have can produce HARD evidence.

To me the "leaky pipeline theory" (thank you BUGSY) seems more credible.