By AMANDA ONION

Feb. 17, 2005 — It's not easy being a lefty.

Statistics show left-handed people are more likely to be schizophrenic, alcoholic, delinquent, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as mental disabilities. They're also more likely to die young and get into accidents. So if evolutionary theory dictates survival of the fittest, why do lefties still exist?

Famous Left-Handed Athletes

According to new theories, what left-handed people (and other animals) may lack in fitness, they make up by being different.

HAND SKILL, RELATIVE; HSR

Alternative titles; symbols

HANDEDNESS
Gene map locus 2p12-q22

TEXT

Annett (1964) postulated that right-handedness is an incomplete dominant, or intermediate, i.e., that dominant homozygotes are always right-handed with 'speech highly developed in the left hemisphere.' Recessive homozygotes are consistently left-handed with speech in the right hemisphere. Heterozygotes may use either hand and develop speech in either hemisphere. From twin studies, Rife (1940) had earlier concluded that handedness is a multifactorial trait. Levy and Nagylaki (1972) reviewed experimental data and theoretical work on the inheritance of handedness and cerebral dominance. They found that all quantitative information was in excellent agreement with a 2-gene, 4-allele model, one locus pertaining to left or right hemispheric dominance and the other to contralateral or ipsilateral hand control relative to the dominant hemisphere. Hicks and Kinsbourne (1976) found that hand preference of college students correlated significantly with the writing hand of their biologic parents but not with that of the stepparents.

Creation of the Sinister: Biological Contributions to Left-handedness

by Monica Watkins

We live in a right-handed world. Left-handedness has been, and in some cases still is, considered an inconvenience, a bad habit, or a symbol of the "sinister". Studies still attempt to link left-handers with socially undesirable behaviors, such as psychosis or criminal activity. The social implications of these stigmas are immense. "Left-handers may be one of the last unorganized minorities in our society, with no collective power and no real sense of common identity," says Stanley Coren (1992).

Where have all the lefties gone?
Star Tribune, March 4, 1993
Lewis Cope

About 13 percent of Americans are left handed, but only about 5
percent of those in their fifties are left handed. A recent study by
Robert Glynn concluded that left handed people live as long as
right-handers suggesting that the fact that their are fewer left
handers among older people can be accounted for by pressure to
become right handed. The author of earlier studies which claimed
that left handers live less long, Stanley Coren, believes that left
handers have a higher rate of deaths from accidents because tools,
driving customs etc. favor right handers.

The fact that there are a higher proportion of left handers among
younger people and that younger people have a higher proportion
of accidents has allowed both Coren and Glynn to claim that the
other has not answered the question. Coren can claim that Glynn,
by limiting himself to subjects over 65, has taken out the very
group where the danger of being left-handed has an effect. Glynn
can claim that Coren by not controlling for age will necessarily
find a shorter lifetime for left handers just because there are more
left handers among the younger people and younger people have a
higher accident rate.

Most left-handers draw figures facing to the right

There is a high tendency in twins for one to be left-handed

Stuttering and dyslexia occur more often in left-handers (particularly if they are forced to change their writing hand as a child, like King of England George VI).

We all, of course, know in which hand we hold a pen, but how far does this bias extend throughout your body? Are you left-eared? Left eyed? Here is a simple test you can apply to yourself.

1. Imagine the centre of your back is itching. Which hand do you scratch it with?

2. Interlock your fingers. Which thumb is uppermost?

3. Imagine you are applauding. Start clapping your hands. Which hand is uppermost?

4. Wink at an imaginary friend straight in front of you. Which eye does the winking?

5. Put your hands behind your back, one holding the other. Which hand is doing the holding?

6. Someone in front of you is shouting but you cannot hear the words. Cup your ear to hear better. Which ear do you cup?

7. Count to three on your fingers, using the forefinger of the other hand. Which forefinger do you use?

8. Tilt your head over on to one shoulder. Which shoulder does it touch?

9. Fixate a small distant object with your eyes and point directly at it with your forefinger. Now close one eye. Now change eyes. Which eye was open when the fingertip remained in line with the small object? (When the other eye, the non-dominant one, is open and the dominant eye is closed, the finger will appear to move to one side of the object.)

10. Fold your arms. Which forearm is uppermost?

If you have always considered yourself to be right or left-handed you will probably now have discovered that your body is less than total in its devotion to its favoured side. If you are right-handed the chances are that you were not able to be 'right' 10 times.

Right Hemisphere (Left-Handed) Style

Responds to demonstrated instructions
Problem solves with hunches, looking for patterns and configurations
Looks at similarities
Is fluid and spontaneous
Prefers elusive, uncertain information
Prefers drawing and manipulating objects
Prefers open ended questions
Free with feelings
Prefers collegial authority structures

Left Hemisphere (Right Handed) Style

Responds to verbal instructions
Problem solves by logically and sequentially looking at the parts of things
Looks at differences
Is planned and structured
Prefers established, certain information
Prefers talking and writing
Prefers multiple choice tests
Controls feelings
Prefers ranked authority structures

In general the left and right hemispheres of your brain process information in different ways. We tend to process information using our dominant side. However, the learning and thinking process is enhanced when both side of the brain participate in a balanced manner. This means strengthening your less dominate hemisphere of the brain. Listed below are information processing styles that are characteristically used by your right or left brain hemisphere. Read the information below to help you understand how your brain processes information. Pay attention to your less dominant style so that you can learn how to improve it.

Linear Vs. Holistic Processing
The left side of the brain processes information in a linear manner. It processes from part to whole. It takes pieces, lines them up, and arranges them in a logical order; then it draws

Reporter:Geoff Burchfield
Producer:Andrew Holland

On Air: Thursday 30 April, 1998 at 8pm.

Narration

Left-handers have always been misunderstood and feared.

v/o “Clan of the Kerr’s”

But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred lefthanded men
And ‘fence against them there was none

Narration

That ballad tells of a Scottish clan that were said to be entirely left-handed. It’s one example of the belief that left-handers are bad, mad or just dumb. In many languages the word for “left” carries a slur. The olde English word “lyft” also means “worthless”. In French it’s “gauche” or “clumsy”. And in Italian it’s “sinistra”. The name says it all. Traditionally left-handers have been dealt with harshly in the classroom.

Professor Michael Corballis
University of Auckland

and

Professor Chris McManus
University College of London

GEOFF BURCHFIELD: Can I ask you first off how universal amongst human cultures is the dominance of right handedness?

MICHAEL CORBALLIS: I think its completely universal. I don't know of any group of people anywhere now or through recorded history that's been other than predominantly right handed so about 90 percent right handedness seems to be completely universal in the human population

GEOFF BURCHFIELD: So even with people who write from from right to left and risk smudging the page?

The Left-Handed Child in a Right-Handed World

By Clinton Hackney, Ed. D.
Language Arts Consultant

We live in a right-handed society. Our civilization has been built around a tradition that regards the right hand as preferable to the left. Hand tools, machines, even doors were designed on the basis of this attitude. However, several years ago, Dr. Frank Freeman observed:

"The number of left-handed children seems to have increased in recent years. This may be due to relaxed home and school discipline as well as the recommendations of medical authorities that children who show early preference for the left hand should not be changed. Whatever the reason, these children are entitled to just as much guidance and help in the development of the skill of handwriting as the right-hander receives."*

Hmmm ... Interesting! A collection of talented left-handed designers have banded together to display their work.

The Left Hand Side

50 Cent
Adolf Hitler
Alexander the Great
Angelina Jolie
Aretha Franklin
Art Garfunkel
Barack Obama
Ben Stiller
Bill Clinton
Bill Gates
Bob Dylan
Charlemagne
Charles Dickens
Charles, Prince of Wales
Chris Tucker
David Bowie
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom
Eminem
Fidel Castro
Friedrich Nietzsche
George H.W. Bush
Ross Perot
H.G. Wells
Harry S. Truman
Henry Ford
Hilary Swank
Jake Gyllenhaal
James Brown
Jamie Gold
Jay Leno
Jimi Hendrix
Joan of Arc
John McCain
Johnny Rotten
Judy Garland
Julius Caesar
Keanu Reeves
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Vonnegut
Lawrence Lessig
Leo Tolstoy
Leonardo da Vinci
Lewis Carroll
M. C. Escher
Margaret Thatcher
Matt Groening
Michelangelo
Napoleon Bonaparte
Nicole Kidman
Osama bin Laden
Paul Simon
Peter O'Toole
Phil Collins
Prince William of Wales
Raphael
Richard Dreyfuss
Robert DeNiro
Robert Redford
Ronald Reagan
Sacha Baron Cohen
Scarlett Johansson
Steve McQueen
Will Ferrell
Woody Allen

There exists in the world a very special group of individuals who is left
handed. This group has had to spend its life conforming to a world that
was not designed for its benefit. In addition, this group has had to put
up with insults and derogatory comments aimed in its direction. The intent
of this document is to provide a source of information for the left-
handed population and to serve as a consciousness raising tool about
issues of special concern for lefties for the population in general. It
is sincerely hoped that it serves its goal.

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

One in every 10 people is left-handed, and males are one and a half times more likely to be left-handed then females, according to Lefthanders International. Medical researchers have looked long and hard for what causes people to be left- or right-handed. Their answer? The same reason why brown-eyed people have brown eyes: genes that manifest their trait one out of every 10 chances. With 90 percent of the population being right-handed, how can parents help their "lefty" learn to successfully navigate his or her world?

reprinted from the BBC

Left-handed people can think quicker when carrying out tasks such as playing computer games or playing sport, say Australian researchers. Connections between the left and right hand sides or hemispheres of the brain are faster in left-handed people, a study in Neuropsychology shows.

The fast transfer of information in the brain makes left-handers more efficient when dealing with multiple stimuli.

Reprinted from the BBC

Left-handed and right-handed people view the world differently, scientists have shown.
Psychologists found they use opposite sides of their brains when looking at, and making sense of, an image.

It is already known that handedness is associated with differences in the way we make sense of language, and possibly in spatial orientation.

Details of the study, by the University of Birmingham, are published in Nature Neuroscience.

reprinted from the BBC

The hand you prefer to use as a 10-week-old foetus is the hand you will favour for the rest of your life, research suggests. A team from Belfast's Queen's University studied foetuses in the womb, and after birth.

Their findings challenge the widely held view that a child does not develop left or right-handedness until it is at least three years old.

The research is reported by New Scientist magazine.

Reprinted from the BBC

If you find yourself in a fight, you'd better hope it's not against a left-hander - scientists have found they often have the upper hand.
Opponents simply do not expect a left-hook.

The endurance of left-handedness has puzzled researchers, because it is linked to disadvantages including an increased risk of some diseases.

But University of Montpellier experts, writing in Proceedings B, say it could be because they do well in combat.

reprinted from the BBC

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

The fraction of left-handed people today is about the same as it was during the Ice Age, according to data from prehistoric handprints.
They were found in caves painted during the Upper Palaeolithic period, between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Left-handedness may have conferred prehistoric man advantages, such as in combat, say the researchers.

reprinted from the BBC

Cricket's left-handed batsmen really do have an advantage at the crease, according to an analysis of the stats. Scientists who studied the World Cup found these players hit more runs, batted longer and tended to lose their wickets only because they slogged out.

But the explanation for this better performance is not so straightforward.

The researchers think the bowler's experience of left-handers is crucial because the advantage is less evident at the highest levels of the sport.

reprinted from the BBC

People who are left-handed are twice as likely as right-handers to suffer from bowel disease, claim scientists. A study of more than 20,000 people in the UK found that the risk of inflammatory bowel disease - usually Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis - doubled in left-handed people.

Although the prevalence of left-handedness in the general population is around one in ten, 21% of the people found to have inflammatory bowel disease were left-handed.
The research, by a team at the Royal Free Hospital and University College Medical School in London, comes after earlier studies showed left-handers are at increased risk of other conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

reprinted from the BBC

reprinted from the BBC

There's a lot of things you won't know about the runner Paula Radcliffe, but I'm confident that until this week you wouldn't have had a clue that she was left handed!
How then do I know? Have I been secretly dating the queen of long distance running?

Well no, but I noticed in this week's sports coverage that she is concerned that her left handed preference is going to put her at significant disadvantage in a forthcoming road race.

The 'feeding stations' are going to be set up for right handers which could potentially put her off her stride as her preference would be to pick up drinks in her left hand.

Angelique Chrisafis, Arts correspondent
Guardian

Thursday June 6, 2002

Over the centuries they have been beaten on the knuckles, locked up, ridiculed and prevented from reproducing in case they spawned freaks.

Now left-handers are facing another affront. A psychology professor told the Guardian Hay festival yesterday that society will never stop being biologically and culturally dominated by right-handers at the psychological expense of those who hold their pencil in their left hand.

The Left Handers Club was founded in 1990 by Lauren Milsom and 2 years later she/they promoted the first Left Handers Day on August 13

In addition they claim to have

reprinted from the Pew Research Center

by Richard Morin
August 9, 2006

Left-handed men who attended at least a year in college go on to earn significantly more than their right-handed classmates -- one more reason they'll be celebrating International Left-Handers Day this Sunday.

"Among the college-educated men in our sample, those who report being left-handed earn 13 percent more than those who report being right-handed," report economists Christopher S. Ruebeck of Lafayette College and his research partners Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. and Robert Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University in a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

And lefties, stay in school: Those who finished all four years of college earned, on average, a whopping 21 percent more than similarly educated right-handed men. Curiously, the researchers found no wage differential between left- and right-handed women.

They also found that lefties were more likely to be found in certain kinds of jobs. "For example, 53 percent of those who are left-handed are in professional occupations, compared to 38 percent of those who are right-handed," they reported.

They based their conclusions on an analysis of data from the federally-funded National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a nationally representative survey of approximately 5,000 men and women first interviewed in 1993 when they ranged in age from 14 to 21 years old. Their analysis was based on a 1993 follow-up survey, when respondents were ages 28 to 35. Left-handers comprised about 10 percent of their sample, just as they comprise about 10% of the population as a whole.

While evidence of a wage gap was unequivocal, explanations for the disparity were more elusive. The authors suggested that greater innate ability, perhaps due to differences in biology and brain function are two possibilities. But they do not know why they didn't see a similar effect among women.

"Gender discrimination may be obscuring the effects for higher-educated left-handed females," Ruebeck wrote in an e-mail. "The biological literature also suggests differences in cognitive style across handedness in males that do not exist in females. If these differences are responsible for left-handers' higher wages, then we would not expect to find the same result in females."

The study is the latest to suggest there's something special about lefties. Other researchers have found that left-handers are over-represented in some disciplines on university faculties, as well as among gifted students, artists and musicians. And as any pro baseball player will tell you, there are entirely too many southpaws pitching in the big leagues.

reprinted from the New Scientist

NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight

Left-handed people may be better equipped for close range mortal combat than those who rely on their right hands, according to researchers.

Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond of the University of Montpellier in France examined the number of left-handed people in unindustrialised cultures as well as the homicide levels within each culture.

Interviewer - Now Chris, you wrote a book, 'Right Hand, Left Hand', which won you a whole heap of prizes because it's something people are absolutely fascinated by. Why do these left-handers exist?

Chris M - The simple answer is because of genes. Some of us have one set of genes while others of us have another. It's the same reason that some people have blue eyes or blond hair. And therefore, some people just have their brains the other way round. That's the simple answer. The really difficult question to answer is why did that ever happen? Why did we become mostly right handed in the first place and why did others become left handed? That's a good evolutionary story as there have to be advantages to being right handed and advantages to being left handed. They're difficult questions.

reprinted from the Purdue News

August 5, 2003

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – It may be a right-handed world, but recent Purdue University research indicates that the first building blocks of life were lefties – and suggests why, on a molecular level, all living things remain southpaws to this day.

In findings that may shed light on the earliest days of evolutionary history, R. Graham Cooks and a team of Purdue chemists have reported experiments that suggest why all 20 of the amino acids that comprise living things exhibit "left-handed chirality," which refers to the direction these basic biological molecules twist–and how a single amino acid might be the reason.

reprinted from the American Scientist

Handedness is closely tied to the way hair spins on the scalp
Christopher R. Brodie

Is handedness genetic? The question is centuries old and has been the subject of hundreds of scientific papers. Now, the verdict is finally in, and the answer is yes. But there is an unexpected twist to the story: It seems that the same gene that creates lefties also determines which way hair whorls around.

Amar Klar, the head of developmental genetics at the National Cancer Institute campus in Frederick, Maryland, explained the link between handedness and the way hair spins on the scalp in the September 2003 issue of Genetics. It seems a single gene with two alleles controls both traits. The dominant allele dictates right-handedness—and a clockwise hair spiral.