Interesting. Much of the "research" on this is armchair theorizing, the only paper I was able to find (easily) was this: <a href="https://segue.southwestern.edu/userfiles/PSY3320301-f06/male%20answer%20syndrome%20article.doc" rel="nofollow">https://segue.southwestern.edu/userfiles/PSY3320301-f06/male...</a>. It states<p>"Perhaps most importantly, our results suggest that "Male Answer Syndrome" might be more appropriately referred to as "Masculine Answer Syndrome," as gender-role appears to be a stronger predictor of the behavior than does biological sex."<p>Many comments can be on the procedure followed on this paper. For example, the question they use, "Why is the sky blue", is scientific. It may be just that men (in general) are more interested in such scientific questions than women. They should have used either neutral questions, or some other female-biased ones. They should have calibrated scientific aptitude for their subjects.
See also the term "mansplain."<p><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mansplain" rel="nofollow">http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mansplain</a>
It has often bothered me that many people will simply ignore you or pretend not to hear you when they don't know the answer to a question rather than say "I don't know."
Answering a question helps me to think about a problem, so I tend to prefix answers to questions I don't know the answer to with "I don't know, but.." and then I make an intelligent guess.