Rogue Thoughts

It is rare to find people who really live by their ideals and cut to the bone when they want to know something. I just read about one such person: Donald L. Unger.
Haven’t heard of him?
Donald L. Unger is a doctor. When he was young his mother told him, as mothers do, that he should stop cracking his knuckles, because he would get arthritis. Come adolescence, and little, or not so little anymore, Donald catches a bit of defiance. He begs to differ on the putative cause of arthritis expounded by his mother. So, he decides to put it the claim to the test and cracks his knuckles on his left hand every day.
He has been doing so for more than 60 years now. An estimate is that the knuckles on the left hand have been cracked approximately 36.500 times. It turns out, that today even after this he still has no arthritis in either hand.
As much as I admire this man for his perseverance and contribution to our knowledge of arthritis, I admire him even more for the conclusion that he decides to take away from his research: “This result calls into question whether other parental beliefs, e.g., the importance of eating spinach, are also flawed. Further investigation is likely warranted.”
’nuff said….