Posted 4/28/2005 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

Is your ring finger longer than your index finger? I seem to recall reading about this years ago as a test for being gay. Men's ring fingers are longer than their index fingers, and women have longer index fingers. So having an index finger longer than your ring finger would make you inclined to buy Madonna albums, whereas a longer ring finger would predispose you to 4-wheel drive pickups and rugby. Or at least that was the theory. Apparently, it's got something to do with the amount of prenatal testosterone you receive, and of course, all sorts of wacky things are trying to be extrapolated from this:

A University of Alberta study finds that measuring a man's index finger length relative to his ring finger length predicts his predisposition to being physically aggressive.

The shorter the index finger relative to the ring finger, the higher the amount of prenatal testosterone and the more likely the man will be physically aggressive, the researchers say.

In a prepared statement, study co-author Dr. Peter Hurd admitted he initially thought the finger-aggression link was "a pile of hooey," until he reviewed the data.

Well there ya have it. Interesting anthropological study, or 'total hooey.' But from my own limited data set, all the men I surveyed had longer ring fingers, while the women were mixed. The OAs and finance women had longer index fingers, while all the female engineers had longer ring fingers. For some reason, I find this interesting. If only I could get a million dollars from the government to study this, I could come up with my own meaningless conclusions.