> I'm inclined to disbelieve any study that claims one gender is better at programming than other
The paper makes no such claim. It hypothesizes that women on GitHub may be more competent than men on GitHub.
There is a ton of selection pressures involved that determine which set of men and women on Earth end up in the set of people that contribute to open source code on GitHub.
So, even if it turns out that one gender is wildly more competent on GitHub than the other, that may or may not say anything about biology or overall gender. Instead, it may simply point to some gender-asymmetry of those selection pressures.
The paper makes no such claim. It hypothesizes that women on GitHub may be more competent than men on GitHub.
There is a ton of selection pressures involved that determine which set of men and women on Earth end up in the set of people that contribute to open source code on GitHub.
So, even if it turns out that one gender is wildly more competent on GitHub than the other, that may or may not say anything about biology or overall gender. Instead, it may simply point to some gender-asymmetry of those selection pressures.