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The Left Hand (Left-Handedness)

A

Anonymous

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Left-Handed Compliment?

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991670

I take [light-hearted] exception to New Scientist's (and their sources') reference to Left-Handedness as akin to a brain defect resulting from over-use of ultrasound on developing foetuses. What about the lefties who were born before ultrasound turned up to 'create' them?
In my experience, left-handed people tend to possess a higher-than-average capacity for technical and innovative thought, and are to be found in correpondingly higher proportions in such environments. In evidence, I speak as such a highly talented and creative Left-hander myself (pun, but also true ;)), and as a former laboratory worker (the lab held an 80/20 ratio of left-handers to righties for a long time).
This finding makes 'us' out as some kind of Village of the Damned progeny...
Come to think of it, I was a fair-haired kid, and am still prone to gazing starily through people when deep in higher thought...so perhaps there's something to it after all. Hmm, I am also a Fortean, so what does that mean? How many of YOU are left handed too? Are you also a child of [Charles Fort's] The Damned?
 
yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Leonardo Da Vinci was left-handed......I am as well. I'm pretty sure ultra-sound wasn't around in Leanardo's time................
 
Art_Vandelay said:
yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Leonardo Da Vinci was left-handed......I am as well. I'm pretty sure ultra-sound wasn't around in Leanardo's time................
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...unless he invented it? (which would prove our point!).
 
I'm sure I read theother day that scientists have just discovered that Crows are left handed ........ and so are polar bears ...... and so if my husband ...

Not sure what I am trying to prove here ......:confused:
 
Well, it is hard to use the proper wording in an article like this. What they are saying is that the ultrasound does something to the brain that makes it left-handed. And to do that it must be making some fault in the brain. Doesn't mean it is a bad thing, just means that if it can turn you left-handed who knows what else it can do. Just because there is a fault in your brain doesn't make you worse, Mozart was probably also a mutant of some sorts since he had those abilities.
 
Another leftie puts his hand up

I work in IT - seem to be a lot of other lefties here (though not 80/20).

Isn't it suppose to be to do with which hemisphere of the brain is dominant? Right-handed people being more inclined to be rational, verbal etc. and lefties more intuitive and 'artistic'?
 
Re: Left-Handed Compliment?

Hermes said:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991670

I take exception to New Scientist's (and their sources') reference to Left-Handedness as akin to a brain defect resulting from over-use of ultrasound on developing foetuses. What about the lefties who were born before ultrasound turned up to 'create' them?
Click to expand...

There's no suggestion that left handedness is due to over-use of Ultrasound.

The survey simply suggests that ultrasound can flip some people from righthanded to lefthanded (if you trust the stats).
 
I was left-handed as a kid but ,this being the enlightened 70's, the school forced me out of this habit and as a result I developed a stammer (something that I've read has happened to other people). Shows how intricately 'wired up' us humans are......
 
Blueswidow said:
I was left-handed as a kid but ,this being the enlightened 70's, the school forced me out of this habit and as a result I developed a stammer (something that I've read has happened to other people). Shows how intricately 'wired up' us humans are......
Click to expand...

My mother was forced to write with her left hand as well (although this was sometime b4 the 70s!). She has since reverted to using her left, are you still using your right hand and if you are how do you find using your left? Completely useless (like me with my right) or just 'out of practice'?
 
Left-handed genius'

Paul McCartney...left handed genius. Well, used to be.
 
Re: Left-handed genius'

NEIL said:
Paul McCartney...left handed genius. Well, used to be.
Click to expand...

As well as Jimmi Hendrix.....................
 
Everyone on my father's side of the family are Lefties, they're also all left handed with the exception of my father and I.

Dad's right handed and I'm bi-dexterous* (which means "two right hands") although there is a suspicion that I'm a suppresed sinister since bi-dexterity is thought to be a learned response.

Niles "Two Right Hands" Calder

*bi-dexterity is a partial ambidexterity in which I can do somethings (such as writing) with my left hand and other things (such as sword-play) with my left.
 
I don't know if it's because some part of my brain is making special notes, but there appear to be more left-handed people around these days. I assumed it had something to do with the fact that schools no longer force left-handers to use their right hands.

And why do Moslems consider the left hand unclean?

Carole
 
I'm left handed, though all I do with my left hand is write, everything else I do right handed, cut, play sports, sew etc... but if I try to hold a pen in my right hand I'm useless!
 
Now that's an interesting area to explore, although I'm not sure we really want to...

Do we? Okay. Which hand do YOU wipe your backside with?

Now, as someone who is dominantly left-handed, I wipe me bum with my left hand. After a recent shoulder op, I was forced to try right-handed. The results are best left to the imagination...or not.
So, on meeting me, you should relieved that we offer our RIGHT hand to shake in greeting. That's fine for you, but if you're anything like me, only right-handed, I'm going to have to consider bringing a bottle of Dettol along to our meeting!
 
Don't laugh, now, people...

I am what I once saw termed as 'other-handed' (or cack-handed as my siblings tell me). This runs in the family, too. Something to do with the cerebral cortex I was told. Anyway it affects the way I grip writing instruments (plus general co-ordination - though I seem to be a bit of both a lefty and a righty). My handwriting is fine, but as I didn't automatically hold a pen or pencil the standard way, I was seen as a problem pupil. Hence I was forced to sit in a room and write enlightening passages from the bible at my religious school holding my pen 'properly' for hours on end with all the left handers. It didn't work.

'Ooo, don't you hold your pen funny' :rolleyes:

And I wipe my bottom with toilet paper!
 
Bi-dexterity

I didn't know there was a name for it! I write, throw a ball, and shoot a pistol left-handed but play golf and hockey and use a computer mouse right-handed. (And I would not make a good Moslem.) I have no trouble with devices that some left-handers find difficult, like can openers and bolt-action rifles.

Niles, does bi-dexterity have the side effect of difficulty telling left from right? I get confused very easily when giving or receiving directions. (Mr. Smith's office? It's the third door on the left...er, right...er... )
 
Surely the important thing about the article is that ultrasound scans are supposed to have no effect on the foetus. This research seems to show it does.

:eek: Whoops

Look for some rapid counter research from the medical equipment companies
 
Re: Bi-dexterity

naitaka said:
Niles, does bi-dexterity have the side effect of difficulty telling left from right? I get confused very easily when giving or receiving directions.
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Erm... mayby! I also have that problem but it was explained to me that it was a form of dyslexia (don't look at my handwriting - it's written with my off hand ;)).

Of course bi-dexterity could cause that form of dyslexia... I couldn't comment.

Niles
 
I consider myself left handed because I write with my left hand.

But I use a computer mouse right handed.

I use a knife and fork right handed but a spoon left handed

I hold a guitar left handed (I won't dignify it by saying "play the guitar")

When I used to play cricket I bowled left handed but batted right handed.

So, why lefie sometimes and rightie others?

I remember being forced to use a knife and fork right handed when I was a child because my mother was sick of me laying the table back to front. But I don't remember being forced to hold a cricket bat a certain way.
 
Niles Calder said:
They wipe their backsides with it

Niles "Trivia Champ" Calder
Click to expand...

Yes, but did Mohamed actually decree this?

Carole
 
As a left hander, I use a knife & fork in a right handed way & a spoon in my left hand Adrian Veidt.

If you watch somone eating with a knife & fork' the fork needs the most dexterity in it's use. But right handers eat with the fork in the left hand.

Originally in Mediaeval Europe, the only eating impliment tended to be a knife with which you cut your food, before using your hands to shove the food into your mouth.

When the fork came along, it went into the spare hand, i.e. the left one, as the right hand already held the knife.

As left handers we get the best of it!!!!:D
 
It sounds to me that quite a lot of us are left handed, is there a link between being left handed and being open minded to all things fortean????
 
Quite cynically, janette246, I think that you may well be correct.

We are the outsiders, looking in on society!!!!!!!!
 
Ok, here's what I know...

The right side of the brain controls your left hand and the left side of the brain controls your right hand. The left side of the brain contains 'information' like names, words etc. The right side of your brain contains pictures, thoughts etc. Because of this left handed people are more artistic, open minded etc. For example: how many of you lefties are good at drawing?

The reason why most people are right handed (about 9/10 people) is because our heart is on the left side of our body therefore being right handed you can defend it with your bad hand (using a shield) and attack with your good hand(using a sword). In medevil times this would be very useful.
 
AlGore said:
The reason why most people are right handed (about 9/10 people) is because our heart is on the left side of our body therefore being right handed you can defend it with your bad hand (using a shield) and attack with your good hand(using a sword). In medevil times this would be very useful.
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This sounds like a 'Just So!' story to me! For right-handedness to evolve in this way by natural selection would take much more time than just from the medieval period.

And also, I recently read (maybe on a FT website link) that crows are also right-handed, and I don't think they have much history of using sword and buckler!

Funny, this is the second post today where I have mentioned crows - in different contexts too.
 
AlGore said:
The right side of your brain contains pictures, thoughts etc. Because of this left handed people are more artistic, open minded etc. For example: how many of you lefties are good at drawing?
Click to expand...

Good enough to have won a few fine art competitions.
 
rynner said:
This sounds like a 'Just So!' story to me! For right-handedness to evolve in this way by natural selection would take much more time than just from the medieval period.
Click to expand...

Okay then "Mr Smarty Pants" ;) what's your theory on how Left and Right handedness evolved? One viable option is that since the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of our bodies, and the Heart is 'closer' to that hemisphere it gets 'fed' more than the riht hemisphere... but how does that account for the lefties?

Niles "I need a drink" Calder
 
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