It is known that the longer the ring finger is compared to the index finger is a mark of how much testosterone exposure there was in the womb.
High levels of the hormones increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger, resulting in a low index to ring finger ratio.
The team found that the fossil index fingers of Neanderthals were longer compared with the ring finger than most living humans, which suggests that they had been exposed to higher levels of testosterone.
Am I missing something here? If testosterone causes the fourth finger to be larger and the Neanderthals' index fingers were longer, doesn't that mean they had less exposure to testosterone?
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteYes you are missing something. You and every other newspaper editor in the world missed the opportunity to go over this article before it was published.
2nd paragraph, typo:
That means they were more likely to start fights over mates and hierarchy in the group and more likely top have multiple partners.
I wonder why they didn't bottom have multiple partners as well, and whether not being able to would have indicated opposable thumbs in addition to long ring fingers, and/or whether this meant they could not move their pinkies independently of the other fingers.
7th paragraph:
The novel approach to understanding how our ancestors behaved was conducted by a team and is published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society.
In four of the previous paragraphs, either the fact of the team was mentioned, or the word "they" or "scientists" was used to refer to the team, so "was conducted by a team and" can and ought to be cut.
I believe these problems are caused initially when the typist has either a lazy too-long ring finger or a tired opposable thumb. Neanderthals with editors would have published a better article for the Telegraph.
Yours,
Rus