By Tim Sanders

For the most part, I favor scientific research. Good, solid scientific inquiry has never hurt anybody, and has provided many benefits to mankind over the years. After all, without such research, today’s dieters would not have the calorie-cutting electric alarm fork, and sportsmen would be deprived of both the groundbreaking 12-gauge golf club and the motorcycle airbag. And of course the elderly would still suffer for want of waterproof toilet landing lights to help them settle safely onto their commodes at night, and the exhilarating spring-loaded pogo shoes to help them get airborne again.

I am all for the march of science, but when it comes to worthless scientific research which offers nothing to the consumer, and serves no purpose other than really ticking people off, I am no fan.

Take the case of an Aug. 25, 2006 Reuters article about a study by a pair of Princeton economists. This "scientific" study revealed that "taller people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers." These Princeton economists based their conclusions on a British study of children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, tracing their progress through the years. The study alleged that taller individuals stood head and shoulders above their shorter classmates–intellectually. According to researchers Anne Case and Christina Paxson, "As early as age 3–before schooling has had a chance to play a role–and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests." Both Paxson and Case, by the way, are several inches above average in height themselves.

Well, as a short person, when I first read that report I took umbrage. When I reread it, I took more umbrage. I now have three cardboard boxes full of umbrage, and would like to share some of it with you. Here’s the truth.

Almost all of the great intellects of the past several centuries have belonged to vertically challenged individuals. Consider the following list:

1. Take renowned playwright William Shakespeare, who despite the fact that he had no feathers and was not even marginally aerodynamic, is considered a "bard" by many Southern historians. He was so physically diminutive that his contemporaries jokingly referred to him as "Shakespoon."

2. Sir Isaac Newton, who personally invented gravity using only a basket of Granny Smith apples and an old football helmet, was only 3 ft. 8 in. tall.

3. Contrary to popular belief, Abraham Lincoln was not our tallest president. In fact, without his famous stovepipe hat, which was nearly 3 feet tall, Lincoln’s height was not the alleged "four score and seven" inches, only slightly over two score and seven ( approximately 5 ft.).

4. Thomas Alva Edison, who used his massive intellect to single-handedly invent the electric light, the phonograph, the motion picture, the stock-ticker, the kerosene-powered toothbrush, the electric diaper alarm, and the pocket fisherman, stood only 4 ft. 2 in his stocking feet. Wearing his patented escalator shoes, however, his height could rise abruptly from 4 ft. 7 to 5 ft. 9, often frightening small children.

5. WWII General Douglas MacArthur, who graduated first in his class at West Point and actually had a Los Angeles park and a horrible song named after him, was only 4 ft. 6 in. tall. Researchers at UCLA concluded that if all of the pages of that interminable MacArthur Park song had been stacked atop one another, the stack would’ve been nearly eight feet taller than the General for whom it was named. Brilliant actor Gregory Peck (only 5 ft. 4 himself), stood in a ditch during several scenes in the 1977 film "MacArthur."

6. Albert Einstein, the Nobel Prize winning scientist responsible for the Theory of Relativity, the atom bomb, and that fine TV show "Quantum Leap," was so tiny–relatively speaking–that when he passed away in 1955, his remains were placed in a shoe box. Okay, so he was cremated first, but a man’s religious preferences have nothing to do with his height.

And if those historical facts aren’t enough to refute that oil derrick Paxson and her giraffe friend, Case, I offer the following from my own personal history as an economically-sized person:

By age four, I was already conducting very sophisticated scientific experiments involving hairpins and wall outlets. I established the now famous Sanders Law of Electrical Mishaps, which states that peanut butter and jelly are both useless as insulators, where electricity is concerned. Even at that early age, I knew that being short was no handicap when it came to science.

When I was twelve (and still short, by the way) I was pounding the streets of my hometown in search of a job. But that only hurt my fists, so I changed tactics and actually approached local businessmen. That is because I was not only intelligent, but also motivated. Like Edison. When I went to the lumberyard, an agreeable fellow there sent me on an errand. "Go to Norman’s Hardware," he said, "and tell them I need a square circle."

Dutifully, I went to Norman’s Hardware, and the gentleman behind the counter smiled, said they were fresh out, and sent me to Van’s Hardware, two doors up the street. Van’s didn’t have a square circle either, and they suggested I try Keegstra’s IGA store across the street. Both Mr. Vandenberg and his wife were giggling about something when I left.

Now, I was no fool. My superior intellect put two and two together, and told me that somebody was pulling my short little leg. A grocery store would never carry a complicated carpenter’s tool like a square circle. A taller, less intelligent youngster might have trotted all over town, making a fool of himself time and time again. I only made a fool of myself twice. On that particular day, anyway.

That was long ago. Although I’ve grown another foot since grade school (and it’s difficult buying shoes), I’m still short. But I am short and proud. Notwithstanding the rantings of those two female basketball players at Princeton, it is the short people who keep this old world spinning on its axis. We are the compact, the fuel-efficient, the future. It is our gawky counterparts who gallop across the countryside, flapping their gangly arms, sucking up all the oxygen and emitting great clouds of methane. Yes, it’s the tall people, not the short folks, who are always getting their hats caught in ceiling fans, and sitting in front of you at theaters, their heads bobbing around three feet above the theater seats, blocking your view.

Tall people are not smarter, only more annoying.