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Comments by Harvard’s President Lawrence Summers regarding the scientific prowess of females compared to males prompted us, father and daughter educators, to address our own impressions about the scientific abilities of the genders. The senior author of this letter looked back on 33 years as a chemistry professor plus another 12 as a chemistry student to find that his impressions had undergone a transformation favoring male superiority in the early years and female superiority later. However, the junior author felt there was no gender-based explanation for scientific ability or academic success. Enrollment and performance data from 33 years of general chemistry grade books were treated statistically to determine if either gender has exhibited academic superiority. Gender-based enrollments, GPAs, and attrition rates were treated by linear regression to reveal that neither males nor females can claim to be better chemistry students, now or in the past. The only significant trend in the data is the population reversal. More females take general chemistry these days than do males. An interesting suggestion is that one tends to attribute superiority to the gender that is in numerical majority. This explains why the impression of male superiority is being dispelled and might be supplanted by the impression of female superiority.
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