In 1998, Deming authored a guest column in the "Oklahoma Daily" where he argued that there may be "biological differences between the sexes that may contribute to men's tendency to favor engineering . . . . On average, females have better verbal abilities than males. Males, however, tend to be superior in visual-spatial skills and mathematics, both of which may be important in engineering." Deming wrote: There is significant scientific evidence that sex-based differences in spatial and mathematical abilities may be biological in origin. For example, male rats do better in mazes than females. I concede it is possible that those female rats performed poorly because they were distressed by the lack of proper role models, but somehow this seems implausible.