Orthodontics and 'The Pinocchio Factor’

Pinocchio tells the tale of a poor carpenter, Geppetto, who has no wife and no child. He carves himself a puppet boy out of wood and calls him Pinocchio. Pinocchio is granted life (with  conditions) and, like other children, has a lot of lessons to learn in life. When he disobeys his father and runs away, he has a series of adventures which teach him these lessons, the most famous being that he shouldn’t tell lies. When Pinocchio lies, his nose grows longer. 

Applying 'the Pinocchio factor' to orthodontics, how long would its nose be today? 

Orthodontics became the first dental specialty in 1900, thanks to Dr E. H. Angle. The ‘laws of orthodontics’ were developed from trial and error assessments, opinions and anecdotal claims. Most of the laws have never been scrutinised or validated scientifically.