The Finger Book [Paperback]

This book, by a British evolutionary psychologist at the University of Lancashire (formerly Preston Polytechnic), argues that there are links between ring-finger length (RFL), testosteronization in the womb, masculinity, personality, polygamy and race. It gets off to a slow start, but there is drama enough by the finish.

The ring finger is hairier in males than other digits, perhaps reflecting its being more under the influence of the sex hormone testosterone and its being assigned for the wedding ring. In any case, RFL, relative to index-finger length (the normal ratio in Whites is approximately 1:1), is greater in males and also in top athletes and sportsmen, autists, attention-deficit children and butch lesbians; and it correlates negatively with psychologists' measures of agreeability, gentleness and femininity. Thus goes the first 90% of Manning's (rather repetitive) book.

Of course there are some problems. It is not obvious why RFL should be measured from the point of the finger's lowest skin crease with the palm rather than from the knuckle. The inter-observer reliability for RFL is not stated or even considered. There seems no special reason why testosterone should especially affect the growth of the ring finger. All the associations with RFL mentioned above are pretty slight (Manning does not give correlations but his occasional scattergrams indicate effect sizes of around .25). And other efforts to argue for links to RFL don't really work at all: the promised link to left-handedness doesn't materialize (though Manning might have tried `mixed-handedness', often associated with mild personality difficulties), and the proposed link to schizophrenia is a mess (with too many complications arising from `testosterone inhibitors' and genes determining the uptake of said inhibitors). But Manning has had no difficulty finding academic collaborators to undertake empirical work with him over the 15 years since the RFL links were first advertised to psychologists by Hans Eysenck's `first lieutenant,' Glenn Wilson; and there clearly is a case to answer. Perhaps Manning has homed in, coming from the biological side, on the `tender-mindedness' dimension long identified by Eysenck and psychometrician-psychologist Raymond Cattell (and summarized as a dimension of broad attention and sensitivity in Chapter 1 of my own book, The g Factor, 1996/2000).

Anyway, answered the case will have to be. For, after a few unconvincing excursions into the auto-immune problems (like asthma and eczema) resulting from testosterone which are to explain why Black people suffer AIDS (not because of sexual frequencies and techniques, apparently....) and have black skin, and an extraordinarily inconclusive account of male homosexuality (failing to take the obvious step of look for RFL/testosterone differences between sodomizers and the sodomized), Manning brings his book to a close with a splendidly engaging claim about race.

All but the most piously anti-racist readers who have got this far with the present review will know of the claims of Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn and the London School that the main established psychological gradation between the human races is that running from East Asians through Caucasians to Negroes and characterized primarily as one of inherited general intelligence (cf. IQ) though also being linked to law-abidingness and sexual restraint. Well, Manning likewise has a broad dimensional claim to outline - set out finally in a graph on the penultimate page of his book. Though not especially motivated to study race - and thus apparently never having read any London School work - the empirical studies which he has found or organized have yielded a clear and interesting picture, bringing together Blacks and East Asians (Zulus, Jamaicans, Chinese and Japanese) as high-RFL and distinguishing them from low-RFL Europeans (Poles, Spanish, English and Hungarian - with Germans and Gypsies scoring a little higher, intermediate with Chinese levels). For just what this means (if it replicates), Manning's readers are left to refer to the book's earlier claims. But the finding of a marked and allegedly important similarity between Blacks and East Asians will amaze many - and not just Rushton and Lynn. This is particularly because, having started his book by tending to play up the advantages of early testosterone (good for the heart, supposedly), Manning ends by making the human shift to right-handedness (long called `the right-shift factor' by the equally unmentioned Marian Annette) fundamental to language and civilization as we know it and attributing it to foetal oestrogen and thus linking it to short RFL.

While, in the year of the Peking Olympics, Chinese people might draw some encouragement from being linked with Blacks and their well-known athleticism, and even hope the similarity could assist mutual understanding in China's growing African empire, it is hard to doubt that East Asian scholars, after their countries' efforts to Westernize (with evident successes in the field of classical music), will not soon take umbrage at Manning's story. Hopefully `revenge' will take the happy form of empirical work; and Manning sounds the kind of person who would welcome any number of extra studies of his RFL baby. But, while East Asians gird their evo-psychological loins, Manning should take a look at London School work, make sure he is happy in his challenge to it, and get ready to dispute with those who will demand his head as a `racist.' - Not that the Europeans will mind too much, embarked as they already are on trying to impose their gentility, liberalism and feminism on immigrant Muslims (without much help from feminists). Poles will recall their country's 18th-century idealism as it opted for a (totally unworkable) democracy requiring a 100% level of parliamentary consensus; Spain will recall its long history as the main champion of Holy Roman Catholicism (till the richer Austria and Germany took over); the English will recall their great queens (and Mrs Thatcher); and the Hungarians will know that their astronomical suicide rate reflects high romanticism among a handsome and gracious people. But to lift the origins of civilization from the `polygamous' Chinese will take some doing.