News that surprises precisely no one

I...er...uh...what were we talking about?

All too often, you hear in the news of some study or survey - often funded to the gills by taxpayer dollars - that seems to confirm the stunningly obvious. For example: the mere sight of a sexy dame shuts down men's critical faculties.

Really, now?

Sex cues ruin men's decisiveness

Catching sight of a pretty woman really is enough to throw a man's decision-making skills into disarray, a study suggests.

The more testosterone he has, the stronger the effect, according to work by Belgian researchers.

Men about to play a financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie.

The Proceedings of the Royal Society B study found they were more likely to accept
unfair offers than men not been exposed to the alluring images.

The suggestion is that the sexual cues distract the men's thoughts, preventing them
from focusing on their task - particularly among those with high natural testosterone levels.

Well, you could have knocked me over with an 8x10 glossy of Rosario Dawson. This isn't news, of course; many decisions made by men are the sad result of thinking with the little head rather than the big head, especially as last call approaches at the corner bar. The interesting aspect of the story involves that wondrous and sadly-maligned steroid hormone, vitamin T - testosterone. The notion that sexual distraction is highest in those men who are generously, er, endowed with the stuff makes a kind of CW sense. This, however, was news to me:

The men's testosterone levels were also tested - by comparing the length of the men's index finger compared to their ring finger.

If the ring finger is longer, it indicates a high testosterone level.

Find me a man who reads that and doesn't immediately begin sizing up his own fingers, and I call him illumined. Apparently, I am not illumined. How did my ring and index fingers compare? Hey, that's my lookout. Of course, even my wife began eyeing her own fingers when I told her this story.

She also asked if the study found that women were similarly distracted by sexual cues. When I told her the tests didn't study women (except as stimuli), she scoffed. I'd like to know the results of a woman-based study myself.

It occurs to me that this phenomenon might explain the work performance of Donald Rumsfeld. But that conjures up images I can't quite deal with.

(Did I cross-post this? I can't recall...)