Former Atlantic Wire whiz Ben Carlson, now at The Daily, reports on evidence from the world of science showing that a marker of your overall wonderfulness as a man is whether your ring finger is longer than your index finger. Wonderfulness "as a man" rather than "as a person" for reasons relating to testosterone exposure in utero, and so on. Here is his chart:
After the jump, since it is mildly shocking, an illustration of why this is good news in the local household.
Your correspondent's right hand last evening, puffy after a long day of typing but with relative dimensions clear enough.
Science is great.
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James Fallows is a staff writer for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. He and his wife, Deborah Fallows, are the authors of the new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America, which has been a New York Times best seller and is the basis of a forthcoming HBO documentary.