[zasz]

People have historically used "scientific" evidence to prop up spurious claims that women and blacks were inferior to white men. [1] OP is probably reacting to that whenever people try to bring in biological explanations for gender gaps. If you want her to be more understanding to your hopefully pure motivations in seeking truth, you should also be more understanding of her recognition that people often hide bigotry behind science.

[1] See "The Mismeasure of Man," by Stephen J. Gould. Broca, a pioneering scientist into brain research, devoted a lot of effort to measuring brain capacity in skulls and thereby "proving" that women and blacks would never achieve as much as white men could.

[yummyfajitas]

You couldn't have picked a worse example.

Go read the article "The Mismeasure of Science", by Jason Lewis et al. It's a fairly detailed analysis which shows that Stephen J. Gould was simply wrong about skull measurements (which were accurate).

From the abstract:

...We investigated these questions by remeasuring Morton's skulls and reexamining both Morton's and Gould's analyses. Our results resolve this historical controversy, demonstrating that Morton did not manipulate data to support his preconceptions, contra Gould. In fact, the Morton case provides an example of how the scientific method can shield results from cultural biases.

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjo...

[zasz]

It's a perfectly fine example. If you read the book, Gould is accurate in reporting that Broca genuinely thought differences in cranial capacity and the racial variations thereof meant differences in achievement. That your abstract reports that Morton's skull measurements were actually accurate actually just reinforces my point.