in abilities, interests, and inclinations between males and females*. Back in the early 1990s, I saw a fascinating documentary titled "Brain Sex" that used PET scanners to show inate differences in how male and female brains functioned when doing the same task. It was related to this book.

It isn't unreasonable to point out that, as a group, relatively few women may pursue careers in mathematics, engineering, and many of the sciences. It's also quite reasonable to point out many women who have excelled in these areas. However, they represent a distinct minority of the people who choose to major in these subjects.

As a group, women tend to have superior verbal and nonverbal communications skills to men. Of course there are exceptions, but the observation is still true in general terms. I've long wondered if women would make superior requirements analysts for complicated computer systems, an area that involves extensive communications with customers. A high percentage of computer development disasters are related to poorly developed requirements. If my hypothesis is correct, well trained female analysts should result in better communications with the customers and better requirements. It's a challenging and high paying field with a lot of career growth potential. Am I being sexist for pointing out an area where women may excel and do a better job than men?

*Unless you're in Sweden, which has apparently banned research into gender differences:

The government bans opinions on men's and women's brains

In one respect Sweden's government is unique in the world. It has a definite opinion about a scientific controversy: whether women's and man's brains are different, or not. The first time i realised that the government had involved itself in neurobiology, was when gender equality minister [! - ed] Jens Orback in a speech about sexual deviations and living with horses [!!! - ed], affirmed:

- The government considers female and male as social constructions, that means gender patterns are created by upbringing, culture, economical conditions, power structures and political ideology.

Apart from taking a position on this scientific question, the government has deiced to side with the most extreme researchers: gene theoreticians who for ideological reasons state that biology can not have any saying in explaining why male and female behaviour differs.

This reminds me about the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko. Lysenko was by Stalin proclaimed a scientific genius and his "creative darwinism" was hailed as a huge step forward for genetic research. Lysenko argued that learned traits could be inherited and that by manipulating the environment one could easily cause fundamental changes in plants and animals. Career hungry politicians loved him. Ideology meant everything, experiment and science nothing.

The real scientists, who protested, were cleaned out (and executed).

One of the reasons I write this is that the county government (länsstyrelsen) in Norrbotten has banned the publication of a book about gender equality because it contains an interview with a scientist who argues that the difference between men and women is not only caused by the environment, but a combination of inheritance and environment.

According to professor Annica Dahlström, one of the world's leading neurobiologists, men's and women's brains are different. Thus she has entered an area where Sweden's government has already ruled what is scientifically true and false.

The result is that the book is being censored. The county government has demanded that the interview with Dahlström has to be removed, or there will be no money and no book.