Whoever said women and science don't go together! A new study claims that women make better scientists than men and recommends more representation for them in the field.

"Women in formal and informal science," a research paper authored by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) director general R.A. Mashelkar, rebukes prejudiced views of the male-dominated world of scientific research.

In the process, they indirectly challenge Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers' controversial remarks that women are less suited to science, which sparked a worldwide debate earlier this year.

"Intuition is to science what the soul is to the body. If intuition is a feminine attribute, then feminine science is expected to be more intuitive and accommodative of many other ways of inquiry, which might appear 'unscientific' to begin with," noted Gupta and Mashelkar in their paper.

"There is a strong case for increasing women's share in scientific institutions and professions. This case might, at first sight, appear to rest on grounds of fairness and equal opportunity. But that is not all.

"The contention in this paper is that the quality of discourse and institutional environment in which scientific inquiries are pursued might get significantly changed if more women participated in scientific pursuits."

Does the paper refute Summers' statements?

"Yes, I do feel (and hope that my co-author also feels) that women can indeed look at ethical issues in science perhaps much better, they also do well in biotechnology, nursing, even in engineering and medicine," Gupta told IANS.

"In fact, we have argued that even male scientists need to have that aspect of feminine attribute of intuition if they wish to do deeper and into more empathetic science.

"In other words, feelings may justifiably have precedence over observed facts, so long as these lead to looking behind facts and generate a desire for pluralism," he said.

Gupta said there was a need to "accept that facts are after all defined in an institutional and cultural context". With a change in context, a different set of facts might appear "reasonable".

"Women can perhaps handle this complexity better," he noted.

"Further, the insights of frugality and more responsible science might also be a consequence. But we do not imply that merely being women will lead to several of these advantages.

"Male scientists with these attributes might as well achieve similar results. But female scientists may have an advantage."

The duo based their arguments, among other things, on a study of women above 100 years of age conducted by the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions, an agency run by Gupta.

"Perhaps, the informal sector carved out for women was the most challenging one and also most deprived in terms of resources. Yet, women had to deliver health, food and nutrition. At least informal woman-scientists seem to evolve more caring recipes for health, food and nutrition, for example," Gupta said.

"If scientists in the formal sector are allowed to balance their family and occupational role with a greater sense of flexibility, then I think they could be as creative as women in the informal sector.

"There is also a need to change the context of socialisation so that women scientists get as many opportunities of travel, serving on committees and taking major policy decisions."