Lefties?

[odysseyrevolver]

I think it noteworthy that MENSA (the genius organization) has a disproportionate number of lefties amongst their membership.

Indeed.

I am left-handed, but it's really a moot point. You see, owing to my
inherent left-handedness, my brain is so overly developed that I am able
to move and manipulate objects with mere thought alone.

[neo33]

I am left handed and right brained person and I always score high 99.9% of the time in the brainy test. No matter how hard I tried, I can never manipulate the test score. That should debunk your theory!

There's aconcept of left brain and right brain thinking. Left brain thinkers are logical and proceedural whereas right brain are social, deep feeling, people orentied. It's interesting to note, that most right brined folks when given a test to determine if they are left or right brain'ed...always score low to middle right brain'ed. Whereas aleft brain person can decide in advance if they want to score as a right or a left brain person and if they choose to score as a left brain person..they always score high. Basically, left brain folks are good at taking tests and can see where a test is going and guide the results accordingly.

[dtel]

You see, owing to my
inherent left-handedness, my brain is so overly developed that I am able
to move and manipulate objects with mere thought alone.

And your funny also. []

[juniper8]

I am left handed when it comes to delicate things, but I am right arm dominate. We are different, odd and excentric, many of the ones I have met have extreme focus where the subject has interest to them, and always think outside the box ,where it doesn't, forget it. Spelling , I have never met one who could, this is just an assumption I have only met about 15 in my life, but this may hold true. I would say we range from retarded to brilliant most seem to be the latter in some discipline. Myself I have a photographic memory for things that interest me, other things that don't, I will never remember (example electronics sorry for all the silly questions I have asked) Presidents, in the last few decades have been dominated by left handidness. Ford, Reagan "who was switched". H.W. Bush, Clinton, and now Bama. What happened in between that was a right hander!!!! I used to be able to throw a ball into the mid 90's, a football over 80 yards, I was single digit golfer within a year and a half of playing golf and can still hit a golf well over 300 yrds, play to a 6 and I never practice golf. If i could putt I would shoot in the high to mid sixties alot. Actually I do practive my chipping in the house. All of my hobbies I am pretty good at. I wont tell you what me s.s.tech says about my ears compared to his graphs or my audiologist. As far as the club 4 of the 6 children in my family are in it but the other 3 are right handed!!!!!!!! Good luck right handers and lefties!!!!! Sorry but I cant spell

[jhoak]

I am left-handed, but it's really a moot point. You see, owing to my inherent left-handedness, my brain is so overly developed that I am able to move and manipulate objects with mere thought alone.

I need to see a video of this or it simply never happened. []

[Amy]

I'm a leftie academically, and a rightie athletically.

That is, writing, using scissors, eating, playing pool (not sure if that's athlectic or academic, however), all leftie.

Throwing, batting, catching, bowling, all rightie.

Seems they call it cross-dominance. Not sure what it means about personality, though. Confused maybe?

Both my parents were lefties, and they were told to switch in grammar school also, but never did. My brother is a rightie, so I would tell him he was adopted. Made sense at the time.

I come from a long line of lefties. I'd say the majority of both my mom's and dad's families are lefties. Outcasts, the lot of us.

[sunburnwilly]

I'm right handed with arms and hands, but always water skied left handed (left foot forward). So what does that make me?

If it was a skateboard you would be goofy footed.

Left foot forward is regular foot . Right foot forward is goofy foot .

[mike stehr]

Apparently in olden days the left hand propensity was associated with some degree of demon possession. The wedding ring goes on the left hand to ward off the devil, or so I have read. And then there is the schmearing of the ink on the paper as we write. I solved my problem by adopting script so unreadable that it makes little difference how schmeared the inked up writing gets. My left handed brother (who is an excellent artist) does the wrist-over-upside-down writing approach rendering his left hand into a kinda contorted reverse right hand thus avoiding the schmear altogether.

That's what my Stepmother thought...being left-handed was evil. My Mother and Father divorced when I was three, and I had to spend summers with my Father. I was already settled in to eating left-handed, and the Stepmother went on a tirade to convert myself to eating right-handed. "How could his Mother let him eat left-handed and have such appalling table manners?"

She didn't realize that my Mother was now a single mom who had to work graveyard to support myself and my two older sisters. She didn't have time to teach proper table manners, or convert myself to eating right-handed. As long as we didn't make a giant mess, she didn't care. My sisters fed me quite often...Mom had to work...

Like your Brother, I would love to draw as a kid, and I wasn't too bad at it. (I write the same way with the bent wrist) And I would draw left-handed of course. My Father noticed this, and liked the things I would draw. We both love cars, and I drew billions of them.

He eventually told the Stepmother to back off, and let Mike be left-handed. In the long run I have to thank my Stepmother for making myself sort of ambidextrous. I throw, run tools right handed. I write,draw,solder, and eat left-handed. All that trouble she went through, and I still eat left-handed. HaHa!

I feel bad for righties. They're just not as unique.

heh

[Chris A]

I'm a leftie academically, and a rightie athletically.

Interesting - I have heard of this, but I haven't really been aware of anyone that actually does it.

My wife is a true ambi - if I put the mouse of the left, she'll use it o the left. If my son puts it on the right, she do right without thinking about it.

Both our kids are righties. [*-)]

My brother is a rightie, so I would tell him he was adopted

I knew that there was some deviousness there...this confirms it.

[]

[Chris A]

The wedding ring goes on the left hand to ward off the devil, or so I have read.

I've got it on good authority that in Poland the wedding ring goes on the right hand (...for at least the one of the married individuals...).

[germerikan]

I'm right handed with arms and hands, but always water skied left handed (left foot forward). So what does that make me?

If it was a skateboard you would be goofy footed.

Left foot forward is regular foot . Right foot forward is goofy foot .

Thanks for the correction, have not been on a board since 89 to many details get lost through the ages.[]

[dtel]

This is in the news this morning.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577080562692452538.html

Left-handers have been the subject of curiosity, stigma and even fear over
the centuries. Researchers now, however, are recognizing the scientific
importance of understanding why people use one hand or the other to write, eat
or toss a ball.

Modern lefty lore says left-handers are smarter, more
creative and have an advantage over righties. But is it true? WSJ's Christina
Tsuei looks into the science of lefties.

Handedness, as the dominance of one hand over the other is called, provides a
window into the way our brains are wired, experts say. And it may help shed
light on disorders related to brain development, like dyslexia, schizophrenia
and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, which are more common in
left-handed people.

Other recent research suggests that mixed-handedness—using different hands
for daily tasks and not having a dominant one—may be even more strongly linked
than left-handedness to ADHD and possibly other conditions.

About 10% of people are left-handed, according to expert estimates. Another
1% of the population is mixed-handed. What causes people not to favor their
right hand is only partly due to genetics—even identical twins, who have 100% of
the same genes, don't always share handedness.

More important, researchers say, are environmental factors—especially
stress—in the womb. Babies born to older mothers or at a lower birth weight are
more likely to be lefties, for example. And mothers who were exposed to
unusually high levels of stress during pregnancy are more likely to give birth
to a left-handed child. A review of research, published in 2009 in the journal
Neuropsychologia, estimated that about 25% of the variability in handedness is
due to genetics.

• Left-handed people make up about 10% of the population, while 1% of the
population appear not to be dominant with either hand, known as mixed-handed.

•Being left-handed is only partially genetic.

For reasons not clearly understood, handedness depends mainly on how a baby's
brain develops while in the womb.

• On average there is no difference in intelligence between right-and
left-handed people. But lefties do better on an element of creativity known as
divergent thinking.

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President Obama

•Six of the last 12 U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama and George H. W.
Bush, have been lefties.

• Left-handed people earn on average 10% lower salaries than righties,
according to a recent study. Findings of some earlier studies on income have
been mixed.

•Despite popular misperceptions, lefties aren't more accident prone than
right-handed people and don't tend to die at a younger age.

•Left-handedness has been linked to increased risk of certain
neurodevelopmental disorders like schizophrenia and ADHD. Mixed-handedness is
even more strongly associated with ADHD.

•Most people's brains have a dominant side. More symmetrical brains of
mixed-handed people may explain the link to some neural disorders.

Associated Press

President Bush

On average there is no significant difference in IQ between righties and
lefties, studies show, belying popular perceptions. There is some evidence that
lefties are better at divergent thinking, or starting from existing knowledge to
develop new concepts, which is considered an element of creativity. And
left-handed people have salaries that on average are about 10% lower than
righties, according to recent research performed at Harvard University that
analyzed large income data bases, although findings of some earlier studies were
mixed.

Left-handedness appears to be associated with a greater risk for a number of
psychiatric and developmental disorders. While lefties make up about 10% of the
overall population, about 20% of people with schizophrenia are lefties, for
example. Links between left-handedness and dyslexia, ADHD and some mood
disorders have also been reported in research studies.

The reasons for this aren't clear. Scientists speculate it could be related
to a concept known as brain lateralization. The brain has two halves. Each
performs primarily separate, specialized functions, such as language processing,
which mainly takes place in the left hemisphere. There is lots of communication
between the hemispheres.

Typically in right-handers, the brain's left side is dominant. But this
tendency doesn't hold up with lefties, as scientists previously believed. Some
70% of lefties rely on the left hemisphere for their language centers, a key
brain function, says Metten Somers, a psychiatrist and researcher who studies
brain lateralization at Utrecht University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
This doesn't appear to present problems, scientists say.

The other 30% of lefties appear to exhibit either a right-dominant or
distributed pattern, Dr. Somers says. They may be more prone to impaired
learning or functioning, and at greater risk for brain disorders, he says.

Hemisphere dominance is typical and more efficient. Symmetry, in which
neither side is dominant, is believed linked to disorders, researchers say.
People with schizophrenia, for instance, exhibit more symmetrical activation of
their brain hemispheres than those without the disorder, studies show.

In a 2008 study, Alina Rodriguez, a psychology professor at Mid Sweden
University in Östersund who studies handedness, brain development and ADHD,
found that left- or mixed-handedness in children was linked to a greater risk of
difficulty with language as well as ADHD symptoms. In another study published
last year in Pediatrics, involving nearly 8,000 Finnish children, Dr. Rodriguez
found that mixed-handedness rather than left-handedness was linked to ADHD
symptoms.

And knowing that a child was mixed-handed and had ADHD symptoms at age 8
helped predict much more accurately than just knowing they had symptoms at that
age whether the child would continue to have symptoms at age 16. (What happens
when people are forced to switch from writing with their dominant hand to the
other isn't well known, experts say.)

Research that suggests that there is a link between
favoring the left hand and an increased risk of bipolar disorder and ADHD, among
other conditions. Emily Nelson has details on Lunch Break.

One reason that not more is known about lefties is that many studies of how
the brain works prohibit left-handers from participating because their brain
wiring is known to be different, says Robin Nusslock, a psychology professor at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who uses neuroimaging to study mood
disorders.

Agence France Presse/Getty Images

Lefties have an advantage in sports such as tennis,
fencing and baseball, when up against a righthanded competitor, but not in
noninteractive sports such as gymnastics.

A potential pathway between prenatal stress and brain wiring could be
cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, which can interfere with brain
development, says Carsten Obel, a professor at the public-health department at
Aarhus University in Denmark who has conducted research on the prenatal
environment and risk of disease. Cortisol is able to pass over the placenta
barrier to influence the baby.

Several studies show that stressful life events, such as the death of a loved
one or job loss, during pregnancy increase the risk of having non-right-handed
children. In one study of 834 Danish mothers and their 3-year-old children, Dr.
Obel and his colleagues found that mothers who reported multiple stressful
events during their third trimester of pregnancy and experienced distress were
more than three times as likely to have a mixed-handed child, 17% compared with
5%, according to the 2003 paper published in Developmental Medicine & Child
Neurology.

Another large study followed 1,700 Swedish mothers and children until the
kids were 5 years old. It found that mothers with depressive symptoms or who
underwent stressful life events while pregnant were more likely to have left- or
mixed-handed children. The work was published by Dr. Rodriguez and her
colleagues in 2008 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Experts suggest that left- and mixed-handedness could be used as a risk
factor for possible psychiatric or developmental conditions, along with
behavioral difficulties, such as having a hard time in school. The presence of
such risk factors could prompt early evaluation for those conditions, they say.

[Chris A]

Thanks Eldon. That's an interesting compilation, some of which I've seen many times and others comparatively new.

I look at this like I look at low-carb diets. Just a couple of years ago, they were considered to be "bad" diets, and now the AMA is basically flirting with the idea that low-carb diets are actually preferred in most cases. This idea of "fad science" also touches global warming studies (pro AND con), links of mental illness and just about anything that it can be pinned on, rationale for financial market movements, bank failures, economics (in general), and tube electronics to drive horn loudspeakers [].

Ground truth is probably yet to be established for most of these fad subjects, and will likely be more interesting but far less socially acceptable, and probably more complicated and reversed in terms of causality when it arrives. At least that's what I noticed over my short lifespan. [8-|]

I think that lefties are just people - and those come in a lot of shapes, sizes, customs, and persuasions.When they're forced to stand on the outside of a crowd of would-be peers for whatever reason, they usually wind up thinking "divergently".

Think about it...these studies could largely be "feeding on their own bathwater" and statistics of small samples, data cooking and screening errors, insensitive models used for inappropriate results, and even affected methods. I know that most folks probably don't consider the disciplines of psychology and sociology as "highly accurate sciences".

In fact, if you want a bit of a laugh, go read Anne Coulter's biography (no...I don't read Ann Coulter, but she is an interesting study in personalities...), whose father apparently studied sociology after WWII in order to get into law school as quickly as he could, and then joined the FBI for his career. He apparently then turned around and threatened his children with disinheritance and public humiliation if they tried to study the same discipline. [] She mentioned that the only thing that sociology actually does is to develop a new language of terms to describe things that we already know, then proceed to use that language to obfuscate the subject being investigated, without actually saying anything new.

[]

Chris "it's not rocket science" A.

[merkin]

I write right, wipe left.

[Islander]

I write with my left hand, but do many other things with the right. As for wrenching and welding, I try to be equally adept with both hands, because you often encounter situations where your favourite hand won't fit into a particular small space, like a car dashboard, for example.

Years ago, I was signing in at the Sportbike Rally in Parry Sound, Ontario, and the lady taking the forms at the table mentioned that she'd noticed that three-quarters of the attendees were left-handed. She might have been exaggerating, but it was interesting to hear that lefties were in the majority at the event.

Lefties can have body and brain internals that are just like righties, or can be quite different, all the way to being mostly reversed/mirror-imaged, with the heart on the right and the liver on the left, although that's pretty rare. The thing to realize is that we're more like plants or animals than machines. We grow into a pattern, but none of the parts are exact standard sizes and shapes, just like a row of corn plants or trees are all a bit different.

Yes, we're like snowflakes, but hairier and and not as pretty. Well, Amy is as pretty as one, but as for the rest of us, including me... []

[Gilbert]

I like to drive in the right side lane, but in my car, I sit on the left side. Strange, I think.

[Boxx]

Start texting while you drive... it will work itself out.... lol...

[dtel]

Years ago, I was signing in at the Sportbike Rally in Parry Sound, Ontario, and the lady taking the forms at the table mentioned that she'd noticed that three-quarters of the attendees were left-handed. She might have been exaggerating, but it was interesting to hear that lefties were in the majority at the event.

I'd like to see a survey on hobby's and jobs, location, I bet there is some surprising patterns ?

[BigStewMan]

i'd like to hear what Ned Flanders has to say about this thread.

[Gilbert]

Start texting while you drive... it will work itself out.... lol...

Thanks!! I'll give that a try.