Aside from jewellers, who are today’s finger measurement celebrities? Let’s take a look. They – and many other researchers – are building professional reputations by measuring people’s fingers.
These digerati specialise in comparing the length of a person’s second finger with the length of the fourth finger. In technical lingo, this comparison of digit lengths is called “the 2D:4D ratio“. But those in the know often just say “2D:4D”.
Professor John Thomas Manning of the University of Central Lancashire (and before that, the University of Liverpool) is the Finger Patriarch….
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.