Women, men's fingers, and sex

OK, I did write the title of this post to purposefully draw people in who were hoping for something a bit more racy than what I'm actually going to write about.  Isn't that what they teach you in science journalism school?

There have been a number of news articles lately about a supposed relationship between finger ratios and the sexual attractiveness of men.  The basic idea that a man's ring finger will be longer than his index finger if he was exposed to more testosterone in the womb.  More testosterone leads, supposedly, to the development of more "masculine" features resulting in physical attractiveness to women (I guess it's true that women like Neanderthal-like men - that really does explain a lot for nerds like me).

Problem is that some scientists, like P.Z. Myers over at Phyrangula, have an interesting take on this study basically calling it junk science.  Go there and read his post.  I tend to agree with him - it seems to be yet another example of bad science and bad science journalism.

For the record, I have thick, long, manly ring fingers.  Since I've never had any luck with the ladies, I'm assuming my other qualities (e.g. substandard looks and personality) were far more important than my finger ratios when women were repulsed by my advances during my pre-married dating days.