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Chimpanzees Shed New Light on Hand Preference
An anonymous reader writes "'Language skills are associated with the left side of the brain, and many scientists have said early humans developed a preference for their right hands when they acquired speech,' but Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center has a new study that links hand preference to the motor skills area of the brain rather than the language part of the brain. 'That means lefties have probably been around much longer than believed -- at least 5 million years, when scientists say humans and apes branched on the primate family tree. And evolution has purposely kept them.'"
Seriously though - I am left handed, but I don't have autism, dyslexia or schizophrenia (nor am I a member of Mensa unforunately).
My grandpa was also left handed, but in those days the 'teachers' beat him with a strap every time he used his left hand until he became right handed.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Obviously there is no disadvantage for being left handed, why should there be a selection against it?
You could find the same thing out by examing human beings.
Let the masturbation jokes begin!!!
if lefties has a better channce of using the brain's motor neurons, then why did evolution choose to have 2/3 righties in the chimp population. doesn't it goes against darwin's theory?
So, essentially what they've proven is that the motor skills part of the brain may effect the development of our motor skills?
Man, I can't wait until I get my Ph.D.! This research scientist stuff is going to be a piece of cake!
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
*extends left hand*
i fact just about every creature in nature and everything in nature has "handedness"
only a "scientist" could attribute this to something recent like language skills.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Since when has evolution* purposely chosen to do anything
*In case there are any Americans reading, so as not to offend I'll include the standard disclaimer that evolution is just a theory and it's equally likely we were created out of mud 6000 years ago and fossils are the result of God's sense of humour.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
process
My girlfriend is left handed and her manner of speech can be at times... difficult. She tends to mix up words, even stuff like yes/no, did/didn't. She's a great artist and a poetic soul. Perhaps, it's her handedness to blame.
... i am better than you.
Perhaps left-handedness doesn't have any advantages, but no drawbacks detrimental to survival either. That too would allow it to remain in the 'gene pool'.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Yeah, well it's BUSH'S fault that he can't READ.
stuff
Troy: Gettin hungry Jimmy?
Jimmy: Uhh, Mr. McClure? I have a crazy friend who says its wrong to eat meat. Is he crazy?
Troy: Nooo, just ignorant. You see your crazy friend never heard of "The Food Chain". [Flash to a picture of "Food Chain", with all animals and arrows pointing to a silhouette of a human.] Just ask this scientician.
Scientician: [Looking up from a microscope.] Uhhh...
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F03.html
...must be difficult to find lefthanded bananas
D.
To suggest that left handedness is genetic is a socialist lie. It is condemned in the Bible, like being crippled and eating shellfish. Everyone knows that left handedness is a choice, a sinful lifestyle promoted by Satanic liberals. Even the scientific term, sinister, reveals it's Luciferian origin. Concerned parents must act now to stop children being taught to be left handed in schools, and to stop the media being overrun by positive depictions of left handedness. Would you want your child to be fondled by a left handed pedophile coming home from a sickening Sinster Pride march?
Order a copy of "What Liberals Don't Want You to Know about the Left Handed Agenda", by Salvation Publications, for only $99.99. Comes with guaranteed promise of Heaven and a free shotgun.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Evolution has no purpose. It just is.
This is an interesting study but I'm not sure how relevant it is.
Humans have several areas of the brain where structure and therefore function differ vastly from other primates. Specifically the areas of the brain dealing with speech (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) and the connection between the two (arcuate fascicus). These areas have a definite correlation to handedness as a right-handed person has a 97% chance of having these speech structures on the left versus the right while in a left-handed person has a 50-50 chance of this (if my neuroanatomy is correct). This is why speech mapping must be performed on patients who will undergo neurosurgery near possible speech centres, for example in a temporal lobectomy.
From the article:
"There must be a reason they have hung around so long."
"...something goes awry in fetal development."
"...and other disorders associated with abnormal brain patterns"
I'm detecting a distinct anti-left handed sentiment in this article. It makes me wonder how much of that "social stigma" is just historical. --e
Thank you, science monkey!
It'd be intersting to know what percentage of Slashdot users are left handed, my guess is it's more than the population average.
While at Georgia Tech, I was amazed at how many left handed people their were in all my classes. Being left-handed myself, I had always noticed that the percentage around me approached approximately what wikipedia says is the average, or 10-13%. I'd say at Tech it was more like 30-40%.
For the most part they were all a bunch o toolbags, but luckily I'm in good company with Ned Flanders...
I've been thinking of starting a lawsuit for reparations for all the discrimination myself and all my left-handed bretheren have suffered over the years. Society's first attempt to make me feel bad was those damn right-handed scissors in Kindergarden, and it hasn't stopped. We're talking decades of trauma hear, and this didn't happen to my ancestors. Hell, just think about where the attached pen is next time you sign a credit card reciept.
Equal rights for Lefties! Affirmative action for lefties! Welfare for Lefties! State funded concubines for Lefties! Handedness as a criteria for college admissions!
Funny how we keep on anthropomorphising what most of you believe is an impersonal process.
I haven't read the article and don't really care to.
Anyway, I write and use the mouse with my right hand, and masturbate with my left hand. This has been going on since I was 10 (about 14 years ago). So how am I doing in evolutionary terms?
No I won't login. I will not have Google cache my name and the word 'masturbate' in any search result!
Did you find out about that on them dang internets, billy ray?
My Favourite Meme
Taking a course of "Logical programming" (the theory behind Prolog language), I realised that of those 5 people attending, there are 4 of us left-handed. Do you think this can be linked to the fact that logical programming requires different mental skills that are more common with left-handedness?
Not to flame but, like, that's possibly the weirdest interpretation of God that I've even come accross.
God=the Creator, fair enough.
God=Quantum uncertanty, plausable.
God=The big bang and that's it
God=Everything.
God=Picks and chooses what happens to us in our everyday life, compleatly against everything that I know! (well maybe I just don't know God), I know in the bible that Satan sat on one side and The Angel gabrail on the other, and the whole if you left eye causes you to sin then pluck it out stuff, but I'm sorry to break it to you, that holds about as much water as santa's non existant flying raindear, or the tooth fairys pixie dust.
Back on topic.
a 'leftie' may have s slight dissadvantage since it's that part of the brain that controls motor skills that also controls left handedness, it could be that they have to think in a slightly different way inorder to do things (especailly when trying to un-cork a bottle or use scissors!)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
What about people who are ambidextrous?
I'm ambidextrous, and I'm in MENSA. Admittedly I was forced to learn to use my left hand while taking several years to recover from an injury to my right hand, so it's not 100% natural. Does that count?
;)
It's fun to be writing something in front of someone who doesn't know, and switch hands and continue perfectly. The look on their faces is priceless
Is it proof that God exists and has a sense of humor?
Sinister is derived from Latin, and means "left." That's all.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This is a not a very scientific observation but I noticed as I progressed to higher levels of college math that the number of lefties seemed much higher than average. I've also noticed that many actors seem to be left-handed, a higher percentage than the rest of the population. Anybody else seen this?
Satire, not trolling
That gets funnier every time I see it.
The very thing that gives me my online identity. Vindication at last. Stop asking why I'm so efficient at hitting WASD. Evolution says I just fragged you.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Laugh all you want, but my dad can remember kids being whacked on the (left) hand with a steel ruler in elementary school if they didn't use their right hands when writing.
It was a private religious school. I'll let you guess which religion.)
How many prolog programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
no.
--
Try Nuggets , the natural-language SMS search engine. Answers to your questions per SMS in 10 seconds.
Interesting article though I disagree with the statement about LH persons being less analytical.
I'm a third gen lefty (tree: PGM, F, myself). My eldest son fell from near my side of the family tree and he (now 6) has only ceased to be ambidexterous in the last two months. He went to the dark side and uses his right hand to throw and write. Still bats and kicks left however so maybe he'll make it to the major leagues yet. Still holding out hope for the newborn daughter.
Anyway, I'm PhD physicist, my Dad (LH) is a very talented mechanical designer/engineer. Grandmother was a puzzle wizard. If you look at PhD level scientists you will find more than the nominal 10% LH... which does not support the "less analytical" assertion. On the other hand (pun?) perhaps we LH are less analytical but in return we are given better gifts to see analytic tasks as in a more wholistic light. Maybe this is why Maxwell's Equations, classical E&M, the Standard Model Lagrangian and GR are as beautiful as Sunday Afternoon by Seurat or as magnificent as DaVinci's David to me.
Both my parents are left handed but that could mean nothing as myself and my brother and sister are all right handed. I believe I was left handed at first but the old, english woman I had for a teacher in grade one forced me to switch and my handwriting has been terrible ever since. Everyone who sees it says I should have been a doctor with all the 'prescriptions' I make. Writing with my left hand is about as legible, though slower of course. I do some activities with one hand, others with the other and some with both. This is probably one of the reasons why I liked computers so early on.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Yes, but the satire still stands - the people s/he is satirizing have no problem twisting facts and using psuedo-logic to promote their POV.
Evolutionary algorithms work exactly that way. Outcome is undetermined, but with every iteration it gets closer to a set goal.
Come on, counter my claims if I say the purpose of our world is to evolve the most efficient _and_ effective way of using energy. All species compete for energy in some forms and their survival depends on both effectiveness (how much you can achieve) and efficiency (how few resources it takes to do that).
Otherwise our very own computerized experiments with evolutionary algorithms would be moot. But they are not...
Both your points are very insightful IMHO (altohugh possibly a little psychotic)
As a fellow leftie, I have also found that the tech arena has a disproportionate number of left handed people.
Likewise, there is a sub-conscious feeling the world over againsed left-handedness. However, instead of it being a specific discrimination, I think it instead shows human nature to discriminate the minority
...as good as one hand can get, I'm sure there are evolutionary good reasons to also have a good second hand. That'll keep left and right fairly equal, and then the "gap" to flip it around and use left as your primary and right as your secondary isn't that big.
I think many people misunderstand evolution as a process towards a "superbeing", one obviously better than the last in every respect. It is just as much about providing a flexibility so that a species may adapt to changing circumstances. Being able to throw a left punch in a right-punch world. Or to live in a colder / warmer / drier / wetter / whatever climate. Dinosaurs excelled as the circumstances were. They changed, and the dinosaurs couldn't adapt.
Hell, I could talk about modern-day life. Those who can adapt to the stress, instant communication and almost constant hustle and bustle do well, those that don't do less well. Could evolution adapt to that in the span of decades? No way. But it has given each of us different capabilities, some of which will be more useful, some less. To adapt is much more important than being 0.3% stronger than the last generation.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Seriously- take a look at your average lefty. Now take a look at an average righty. Isn't your average righty better looking?
Of course my fiancee says I'm "right" all the time, so maybe it's gone to my head.
'scuse me while I go sleep on the sofa again...
I understand that this is all a matter of faith, but I was raised Catholic and even though I think God created the universe, I do not believe in creationism. It strikes me as much more beautiful a thing that God might have created all the physical laws as they are in order for life to exist (using evolution) than that a being in a gray beard spoke everything into instantaneous existence 6000 years ago. If you look at this week's TIME magazine, it discusses the irony of how some physicists "found religion" due to the examination of the physical laws and the realization that if just one physical constant was tweaked just a little, it would be impossible for life to exist as we know it.
As a student of the Bible, I'm sure you've noticed the huge difference between the depiction of God in the Old Testament (interactive, present at certain moments in time, testing, punishing) and the God of the New Testament (passive, timeless, acting through Jesus and other prophets, etc.) Unless God had a personality makeover when Jesus was born, I put more faith in the New Testament God, and the New Testament in general, and I think the idea that God fired off the Big Bang in a very special way suits that better.
Not to mention all the evidence that the universe is much much more than 6000 years old. Do you think God is playing a big trick on us by having us believe (based on available evidence) that we can see parts of the galaxy that are millions of light-years away? Astronomers are actually fools? The fossil record was planted there to give archaeologists an impotent reason to exist? And dinosaurs! I mean WTF? How can you possibly still believe it? Ugh.
http://talkorigins.org/ Use thy God-given brain and edumacate thyself.
... if all of two areas are consumed in motor skills, and then language comes along and pushes one area out...
Just a thought. Maybe certain areas maintain large hand movements while talking are actually using both regions again.
heh.
I'm sorry, but I get a little annoyed when evolution, a mindless "progression" is said to have purposely kept left handers. You can't have it both ways. Either you think that you are a product of evolution, or you think you are a product of a higher power with intelligence. Evolution is technically a bunch of mistakes. Mistakes can't have a personality. Mistakes can't have intelligence. Mistakes can't purpose. Make up your minds!
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
... was to have you undergone brain scans before, during, and after your 'retraining'. A comparison study of language regions of the brain with motor skill manipulation may shed some light on why you're in MENSA.
:)
After all, wouldn't it be humorous to learn that your right handed injury granted you more intelligence since the neurons in another area of your brain were forced to more mundane tasks?
I'm a leftie. The reason I think left handness exists is specialisation. Darwinian theory doesn't mean we will all be the same exact highly optimised beings. What happens if the environment changes? Evolution would not be able to react fast enough. Instead sucessful groups of our ancestors, the ones which survived, emerged from the jungle and ultimately produced us, had group members with different strengths, different abilities. It's like any game, for example it red alert or d&d. If you only have spell casters in a party, or one type of unit in an attack, you will not be as successful as a mixed group.
my boyfriend is left handed..and he stutters sometimes. brilliant as HELL, but sometimes he has trouble getting certain words out. so, hes going to hell cause he writes with his left hand and im going to hell because im gay.
I don't actually *prefer* my hand, you insensitive clod!
Evolution is not a god that sits on a mountain somewhere. It's the theory that those forms that have the greatest tendency to propagate in a given environment gradually become more frequent in that environment(*).
Seriously, this kind of bizarre 'science as voodoo' thinking is why to a lot of people creationism doesn't sound so stupid -- "God wanted there to be left handed people for his own ineffable plan" sounds about equivalent to "Evolution has kept left handed people on purpose".
It sucks and requires a certain amount of discipline, but it's better to keep science as science, a methodology for choosing between theories, than to let it become just another set of beliefs, like a religion.
(*) I know this is not a good or rigorous definition of evolution in general or biological Darwinian evolution in particular, but throw me a frickin' bone here.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
No... that's not right...
I bet it was Shinto! That's got to be it. What's my prize?
The Farewell Tour II
You just don't understand. I'm not sinister because it's a lifestyle I prefer. I'm sinister because I was born that way. Cure me!
Evolution hasn't purposely done anything. For whatever reason, there is not sufficient evolutionary disadvantage to being left handed for it to have died out amongst humans. Conversely, any advantage there may be to being right-handed is sufficent to make it dominant, but insufficient to wipe out left-handedness.
Evolution is a name for a process, not a thing, it doesn't do anything, on purpose or not.
For a geek/tech site, we're very loose with our terminology and language at times...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
9/10 slashdot readers exhibit hand preference during sex!
When I was a kid, I didn't think it was "fair" that my right hand got to do everthing, so I would alternate to make sure each hand got it's fair share of the things to do. So for a while I was ambidextrious; however, I have become less OCD since then and have lost some of my left handed motor skills. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been left-handed if my mom had encouraged that in me. I mean, how do lefties learn to write left-handed? As I recall, I wasn't given that option when I learned to write. I could be a Mensa member (my IQ is high enough, but I'm too cheap to pay the $40+), I have ADHD, but do not have dyslexia, autism, or schizophrenia.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
It's a good thing chimps are shedding new light on the issue... that's much more than many scientists have done so far!
Chips 1: Scientists 0
using the left hand exclusively for output functions & the right for input does result in better health, even if the underlying cause is unknown...same with dietary laws, even the caste system, anti-sodomy laws, monogamy...it's only a kludge if there's something better, ie: washing, but then that's not an option in a desert environment;-)
;-)
in a pre-literate, pre-sanitary world, the only way to promulgate useful knowledge is to codify it into mnemonic narratives, enforced by the cloak of the supernatural...ie: why religion was invented
I just finished Stephenson's "System of the World", which was reviewed here recently. In it, Newton and Liebniz argue over just this. Newton produces his "Principa Mathematica" to describe all of the natural laws that he has the power to observe (inverse square law, among others IIRC). Liebniz attacks the problem of understanding our relationship to God from the perspective of gleaning meaning from the rules Newton enumerates. It was fascinating and I highly recomend picking it up if you have a few spare moments.
Back on topic: having a diverse gene pool full of individuals that can compete (more or less) effectively in an ecosystem makes that species more diverse, and therefore more robust to change. Sure, there's no obvious advantage to being left handed now, but once Kang and Kodos come and take over, the righties will all die off and us lefties will be more evolutionary "fit".
Since when does a process like evolution have a purpose?
I started (or attempted to start) using Linux a few years back when I started university, just out of plain curiosity. My buddy and I downloaded the ISO images of Red Hat Linux 8.0, and from that point forward, it all went to shit.
I figured it would be no problem, I used Sun's Solaris quite a bit so I understood the shell at least. Install went well, even though I was confused why I needed seven million partitions which I had to allocate manually and to have a root password since it was a single user machine. After my install, I restarted my machine, saw a bunch of ugly crap being spewed to the screen, and before you knew it, X Windows loaded up and I was in Linux. "Ooh, this looks neat, just like Windows. Let's see if I can surf the web!"
This is the point where I discovered the 'magic' of Linux. It couldn't find a driver for a simple ethernet card. So I got onto another computer running Windows, and found some type of driver for it. All right, I'll just burn it to a cd, pop it onto the Linux machine, and we're good to go. I started looking around for the CD ROM icon...where was it? Apparently I had to mount it manually, luckily I know UNIX. Then it asks me for root password. Okay, so I enter it. Then I can see the CD ROM, great. Oh look, the driver is in the form of source code, I have to compile it. So I tried to compile it with the configure script that came along. Oh wait, I need some !@#$ing stupid C library. All right, so I download that as well in the form of a RPM, which luckily worked, and then I was able to compile the driver. Okay now what? According to the instructions, I had to recompile the kernel making the driver a part of it. 'Recompile the kernel?' I thought, 'What kind of sick operating system makes you recompile its kernel...' Apparently I didn't know what kind of twisted people designed Linux. Oh wait, it wants the stupid root password again...good God. So after about 5 hours, I had Internet...given that I knew how to use a UNIX machine. Four days later I tried installing something else, it asked me for the same stupid C library but version 1.2.3.4.5 instead of the version I had...God forbid...1.2.3.4.4 (oh what a fool I was for not updating every 10 minutes!) Within an hour, my drive was formatted (twice out of spite) and running Windows XP.
A few months back I was inspired again to run Linux. If you read the tech news, there's no doubt about it, it's taking over the server market. A Linux sys admin will make 20 grand more than a Windows sys admin (Makes you wonder if 20 grand is worth eventual suicide), so I felt I should pick it up. Of course now I was more prepared, I've read books, admin guides, worked as a student UNIX operator, 3 years under my belt as a computer science student, two internships, and had studied the Linux kernel in depth. I decided I would try a whole bunch of distributions, I tried Red Hat 9, Fedora Core 2, SuSe 9.1, Debian, and Mandrake 10. All special in there own little way...like retarded children. As soon as SuSe loaded up, I was like..."nice nice, very sleek...", then a hissing came out my left speaker that wouldn't go away. Nice autodetection for the sound driver. Bye bye SuSe. All right, let's try Red Hat 9...oh look Red Hat won't give any more automatic updates because now that it has a little bit of money...!@#$ open source, let's become the next Microsoft! Oh Debian and Mandrake, just plain ugly and slow. What about Fedora Core, Red Hat's latest method of getting code for free rather than having to pay programmers in India $0.85 an hour to do it. Why pay someone when you can have some idiot from GNU or some grad student do it for free, then sell it for 400 bucks a pop. It was surprising though that that experimental piece of crap worked better than all the other distributions, even though its autoupdate some how corrupted my kernel and I had to overwrite it.
But what I find most stupid is the philosophy behind it. Why make something so complex for free? I'm an excellent software engineer, good software is hard to make, it's beyond
The list goes on here.
Does it have breathy gushes from that moral leper Hannity and that evil bleach blonde cunt whas-her-name on the back cover?
Did they study which hand the chimps pleasured themselves with and if that was linked to anything??
I'd certainly be interested to find out...
I am left handed as well, and all of my teachers in the early 80's tried to change my hand as well. I'm just glad I'm stubborn and would yell and sceam and throw my chair at the wall when they did it. Of course I was the one with the problems and the parents were called in for meetings due to my "violent" outbreaks. Of course, had they known the headaches I got from it, they would've understood. So when asked why, and I said it was because they wouldn't let me use my left hand, I could swear my dad grew and turned green for a minute. Let's just say I was able to do whatever I wanted in the future. Being forced to use my right hand felt about as good as I imagine it would be to be molested by a priest.
"'That means lefties have probably been around much longer than believed -- at least 5 million years, when scientists say humans and apes branched on the primate family tree. And evolution has purposely kept them.'" "
Actually, all it means is that lefties are more prevalent in Apes than in humans.
Both my parents were right handed, but my two sisters, my niece and myself are all left handers.
My grandfather is also left handed.
Anyone got an scientific explaination for my case?
The outcome of "Genetic Programming" is determined by a performance function or measure.
Say after every generation you measure the guys with the most 'energy' and bin the lower 50%.
OR
You could choose the best killers and bin the lower 50%.
OR
Choose fastest movers.
Hence, the desired target outcome/goal is set by you but the method by which they achieve this is random.
.
To stop the premature convergence to a suboptimal solution, we mutate of keep a small amount of bad guys.
Hence you lefties are kept for spare genetic material. Have a nice day.
I'm right handed in most situations, but left handed in masturbation - dunno why, maybe the loss of dexterity leads more to a feeling of fucking someone else? Also it's cool that I can use my mouse in my natural right hand as I masturbate. What about others, is your dominate hand the one you masturbate with or vice versa?
... but four of my best friends who also happen to have CS degrees are all left handed, and so am I. Despite this evolutionary advantage, their enjoyment of Celine Dion cds ensures that they will perish in the next ice age, because evolution is a Pete Fountain fan. I'm pretty sure it damns them to an eternity in hell too, but I can't really fathom a hell any worse than listening to those accursed CDs. Especially the French ones.
In a related story, scientists were baffled to learn that they themselves had been incorrectly assuming which side, from your point of view or my point of view, was the left side of the brain vs. the right side that was being studied, thus leading them to conclude that all previous brian studies were mute and that there was no point in even going on any longer. So they threw up their hands in disgust at themselves and joined the chimps in the jungle.
Team Rusty Nuts
You can't rush procrastination!
I work at a game development company (small one), three of us (out of 7) are left handed, including me. Though I did not inherit it, at least not to my knowledge, and it was definitely not a conscious choice :)
I tried for a while to learn guitar right-handed, but I decided to restring my guitar and play it left handed instead. Much more comfortable and now I can play both ways!
><////>
While helping my girlfriend with her lab on the common Fiddler crab (Uca pugilator) I decided to do some side-research of my own*. I found that approximately 1/3rd of Fiddler crabs in our population (of about 20) were left-handed (in that their left claw was freakin' huge). This would lead credence to an earlier post talking about handedness being a surprise to rivals.
It is interesting to see, however, that the Scientific American article covering the same subject seemed to focus more on the study whose results found similarites in the limbic system asymmetry between primates. The handedness study (which of course waters down easier for the average person) seemed to be second fiddle.
By the way, the actual studies are found here (in 300-500KB PDFs):
Asymmetries in the Hippocampus and Amygdala of Chimpanzees
Handedness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Is Associated With Asymmetries of the Primary Motor Cortex but Not With Homologous Language Areas
* I had previously determined that the bisque turned out a bit stringy and that scampi was preferred. This, sadly, derailed the other, more "important" research.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
""Being left-handed must confer some advantages," said William Hopkins,"
We're needed to staff the Galactic Council.
Laugh all you want, but my dad can remember kids being whacked on the (left) hand with a steel ruler in elementary school if they didn't use their right hands when writing.
;-)
It was a private religious school. I'll let you guess which religion.)
I grew up a lefty in public schools and I was constantly being "corrected" with a ruler for using "the wrong hand" by my teachers. Handedness "correction" was, at least in my area of the country, way more of a societal norm than a religious thing. Needless to say I don't think I ever had a left-handed desk the entire time I went through school until after high school. Now I get to blame my sloppy handwriting on having to use the "wrong desk."
All that "correction" really only made my handedness very ambiguous although I still tend to prefer my left hand. I write with my left hand (I *can* use my right), scissors with my right or left, eat and drink left handed, brush teeth right handed, bat left handed (baseball) , catch right handed (baseball again), shoot hoops right handed, play tennis left handed (a big advantage) and play guitar right handed.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Hi there.
d ec ember_2004/bne1186.html
I got sent a link to your post from a friend who knows I do some research into hominid handedness and laterality. I was interested in reading the articles and managed to find them through the power of the internet, so I thought you might want the link:
http://www.apa.org/journals/bne/press_releases/
Cheers, Lisa
[Sigh] And it's use by the mediaeval church is why it means 'evil'. In fact although the parent was satire (not troll) as all good satire it was very close to the truth. The church has long used 'left' to mean 'evil' - left-handers really were persecuted in times past. We still use the phrase cack-handed. And a lot of the modern left-wing demonisation by the right is very religiously inspired.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
And evolution has purposely kept them.
And the Mississippi has purposely flowed past New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. Enough of this pagan "evolution decided" nonsense. Natural processes aren't people; they don't have "purposes". They move along the path of least resistance. If left-handedness is encoded genetically, lefties exist because they're able to reproduce in their environment, both physical and social. Not because they're the darlings of some faceless standin for a nonexistent god.
--
make install -not war
But chimp research would have to null out the contributions to handedness that might be made by any number of OTHER differences in brain development between humans and the rest of the primates before these scientists, let alone a bunch of
- The timeline of human brain development from birth to adolescence is hardly one of linear increases in all capabilities and is not the same as chimps
- the LACK of parity between LH and RH dominant individuals is complex: the numbers are not evenly distributed but that is obscured, as serveral posters reported, by cultural enforcers that mask biologicaly determined behavior. We might even be seeing the reports of apparent intellectual advantages in a few lefties because our culture has beaten the lefthandedness out of a larger subset of the population with only the more gifted and adaptable surviving the brainwashing.
...These areas have a definite correlation to handedness as a right-handed person has a 97% chance of having these speech structures on the left versus the right while in a left-handed person has a 50-50 chance of this (if my neuroanatomy is correct)....[bloodredsun's comment] is particularly interesting since it implies there are yet other dimensions to the asymmetry between LR and RH dominance, these are not distributions of capability that are anatomically just mirror images of each other but distinctly different wiring.- I have not read every comment but so far there is no report of data correlating extent of corpus collosum [CC:the bridge between L and R hemispheres. nearest analog to a computer bus you will find in brain anatomy] to handedness. The CC is [if memory serves] is better developed in women than men ON AVERAGE and women [perhaps as a consequence] have [on average] less rigid specialization of functions to particular brain regions. This is why [on average] women recover more fully from strokes then men do.
- someone probably trotted out the stat that lefties have more accidents and I just missed it. Its a whole other debate about whether that is due to strong tendencies to put the saftey/kill-switch/brakes/etc on dangerous equipment where a RH person would expect them or due to other considerations but its not likely to be attributable to language skills...differences between LH and RH persons that don't stem from language either support or don't repute the findings of the article so I guess this one is a point for the sciencists.
- Is there any study or known correlation between handedness and [_]dyslexia, [_]ADD or ADHD, [_]Stuttering, [_] other developmental anomalies, e.g. autism?
But, of course, I have my anecdotes too;)My mom reports that she was probably a lefty but growing up in the 30's in a Missouri village where the dogs barked in German and you were either a Luthern or a Methodist, she had that bad habit beaten out of her. One of my boys writes [illegibly] with his left hand but throws [and I mean quite athletcally: he's an ultimate frisby player] righty.
and PLEASE, if you can't read or react in an informed and rational way concerning the general fact that there are differences between men and women, please exit the conversation NOW!.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Finally!
There is someone in this world that has played more Vice City than me!
Brilliant Pastor Richards, just Brilliant!
.sig
And evolution has purposely kept them.
Yes, sure it did. We all know 'evolution' is an entity with reasoning capability. Nice anthropomorphism of a concept.
My whole family is left-handed. Immediate family, that is...four people (2 parents, 2 kids). I'll have to find out if my sister's son is left-handed or not...that would be interesting if he is.
I'm, racially, Chinese, and, astoundingly enough, so is my father. He was actually left handed but since the area of China where he grew up (or maybe it's all Chinese culture, not sure) viewed it as bad, they actually forced him to become right handed. And he stutters, which I hear is one of the side effects. Hrm, more language-handedness association...?
For what it's worth, my grandmother was hit with a ruler in gradeschool whenever she wrote with her left hand.
I was discouraged by my teachers from using my left hand until about 3rd grade when my teacher complained about my deplorable handwriting. I told her my handwriting was so bad because I was forced to use my right hand. Grudgingly, she "allowed" me to use my left. Not that my left-hand writing is much better.
That said, I'm excited to here that evolution has "allowed" people like me. I'd be SOL otherwise.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I take great exception with that statement. There are lots of individual traits that were "kept" which actually confer no evolutionary advantage whatever. Something will have an impact on natural selection if it confers a significant advantage or disadvantage, and left-handedness certainly did neither until, if you think about it, the advent of writing and team sports that use equpiment like baseball and hockey. I mention writing because in the classroom, left-handed people are almost ostracized because of their special needs (a left-handed desk, an odd pencil/pen grip to prevent smearing ink or graphite). This could cause subtle psychological demons which could affect a left-handed individual's ability to socialize successfully and find the "best" mate later in life, thus being a disadvantage for left-handed people. Of course, this is really conjecture, but can you think of anything before writing that would have made a lick of difference to a left-handed person? I can't.
more wild animals attack from the right ... or something... and have you tried using your left hand for... you know... honering Natalie Portman while she is naked and petrified?
You can't handle the truth.
FINALLY a discussion involving the term "evolution" where I don't have to point out to the trogs that evolution HAS NO PURPOSE. Life's only purpose is to reproduce. This, and selective processes make up major components of the Theory of Natural Selection and its explanation of the process of evolution. There is no "survival of the fittest." It's "survival of the good enough for the conditions."
Kudos and +5 bonus!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
of course, this is /.
Not only was it not a goatse.cz link, it was exactly the papers that the article should have linked to!
Thanks, Lisa, and say, why not get yourself a user account?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I've been told of someone in my father's generation who had their left hand tied behind their backs as a child, in order to make them right-handed (and hate their parents).
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
This is one of those research projects that could have been solved with a trip to any farm. Animals that do not talk are both left handed and right handed. So perhaps right/left handedness doesn't have much to do with language. Sheesh!
And there is further proof in the gloriously organized land of China, where everyone is right-handed. Places like the US must not bow to the liberal LEFTIST agenda of choice. There's a reason it's the RIGHT choice that's the proper one.
Indeed. Left-handed people are about 1 in 8 of the population. But at the highest level of fencing, (where the relative handedness of your opponent makes a considerable difference to the techniques required to defeat them), left- and right-handed competitors are approximately equal in number. This is because, for everybody, facing a right-handed opponent is the norm (it will happen 7/8ths of the time). So a left-handed fencer will always face an opponent at a disadvantage; when two left-handers meet, both will be equally unfamiliar with what they face. At the lower levels this favours left-handers, so that at higher levels their proportion increases, and the advantage they have due to unfamiliarity is decreased, until finally at the very highest levels of the sport, there is no longer an advantage to be derived from handedness.
It's never so bad that it can't get worse.
Judges, chapter 3. Headline:
Left handed gimp saves Israel.
Obviously, not many who call themselves Christian crack the spine of the book they thump (if you're making fun of them for unequivocally punishing lefties). Loose associations and 3 random Bible verses do not a good argument make. Nice parody though!
...definitely has its advantages if you're used to using a mouse with your right hand. I can surf and take notes at the same time. Also, I'm better at finding the really ripe fruit.
You joke but you may not be far off base. Look how many of the last 10 presidents have been left-handers it's over 50% or close to it. Also look at the famous leaders through out history. There is a new school of though that left hander hold a small percentage of the population due to the fact that there are the natural born leaders and you only need so many chiefs. This may also account for the depression, metal disorders shown in left hander that are not fulfilling their genetic destiny. It's all theoretical stuff but pretty interesting.
I do research in motor skill learning at Johns Hopkins University. I recently talked to the very prominent "handedness" researcher Bob Sainburg http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=Sain burg+RL+handedness&btnG=Search/ about this very subject.
He mentioned that monkeys tend to display handedness when throwing over-hand, but don't have hand preference when throwing under-hand. He said this may have something to do with the fact that monkeys fling poo almost exclusively with their under-hand throws.
This paper is also fairly on-topic.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(00)00056-7
Wonderful use of science knowledge...
And evolution has purposely kept them.
Evolution doesn't purposely do anything.
"Evolution" is a label we've applied to an observed process, not a unseen force or hidden hand or any of the other stupid analogies made about it.
It seems every slashdot article that mentions primates, assumes that all /. readers believe in the theory of evolution. I'm not a bible-belt church nazi, but I also don't believe that apes and man share a common ancestor. I think the article summary should reflect the fact that evolution is only a theory. (Well, I guess it's also a groupware email client ;).
Just my two cents.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
It's even easier to see the influences on modern English. There's a real and historical reason, prejudice or not, behind the fact that "right" means "not left" and "right" means "correct."
What's even more interesting to me is the side-connotations of the words in other languages. For example, "adroit" in English means capable, but in French, it is the word for "right;" the word "gauche" is used as a slur for tactless or uncivilized behavior, and in French, it is merely the word for "left."
[
Most circular saws are designed for the left handed person! It wasn't until a few years ago that people started noticing that a "blade left" saw, designed for left handed people is easier and safe for a right handed person to use.
Note, there are some operations that are more dangerous for a rightie on a blade left say", but overall a right handed person is better off with a blade left saw. (good lucking finding one though, they are rare)
Chimpanzees Shed New Light on Hand Preference
They prefer the hand with the banana in it.
Right wing fundamentalists, that is...
Shouldn't that be 'ecivres ecnalubma' so we can read it in our rear-view mirrors? p.s. I also corrected the subject line, which backwards read "First teft handed post!"
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
This study doesn't distinguish between lefties who always use thier left hand, and lefties who occasionally use their right.
And no, I do not mean people who are ambidextrous. Research has shown that among left handed people, a large majority (90+% if I remember correctly) frequently use their right hand for daily tasks (writing, brushing teeth etc.). Much less common are people who are exclusively lefty. This study doesn't differentiate between the two groups.
that doesn't work, when one eye is off, i move my head so that it is back on again, causing the *other* eye to be off. besides, my eye doctor says that my right eye is somewhat weak - i only use it when my left eye is closed! (yet i have no depth perception problems... as far as i can tell)
From observation of my own behavior, i think i'm right hand with a slight lean towards being ambidextrous:
Points on right:
* I write with my right hand
* I use tools with my right hand (unless I'm cutting my food)
* I wipe my ass with my right hand
* I usually hold my dick with my right hand when peeing (unless I'm thinking about Gatica, then i hold it with my left just to prove it wrong)
points on left
* When i cut my food, i use the knife in my right hand - opposite of all right handers, people who don't know me and see me eat think I'm a lefty
points on ambidextrous
* I drive with my left hand more than 2/3 of the time (and i've always driven an automatic, no need to have my hand on the shifter)
* I jack off with either hand, though 2/3 of the time it's right
* I mouse with either hand, though 4/7 of the time it's right
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
If u r a leftie does it mean u r a Democrat and vice versa??
I sp@nk my m0nkey with my left hand
Obviously the authors of this study are disposing of Noam Chomsky's theories of language evolution if they are using chimps as a model (or even arguing point) about human langauge.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Since were telling Bible jokes we might as well bring in the story of God's left handed assasin, Ehud (Starting at verse 12). Apparantly if you're left handed killing is A-OK with God.
...from the Yerkes site.
Since you brought up the Bible, I'll make a(nother) comment on that. It seems from the Old Testament that MOST of the Benjamites were left-handed, and VERY skilled with a slingshot, being able to hit a hair from a great (can't remember how far) distance.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
... it's not surprising. Primates also have handedness, so it can't be a result of lingistic skills (or at least of verbal skills).
http://www.dyslexia-teacher.co.uk/t121.html
If evolution created right hand preference over left hand prefence, then it would seem that it would have also made most guys' um... err... ahem... ah... also better designed for the right hand.
That's a very good point. It's too bad you're stuck at 0 here.
There's more too it than that...in many non-Western (especially Islamic) countries, the left hand is used for only one thing. I don't know if "cack-handed" comes from this...use...of the hand, but if so, it's certainly an amazing coincidence.
(For those who still haven't caught on to why you never eat or shake hands with the left hand in most Islamic countries, think about how you'd answer the call of nature in a hot country where water pressure is a luxury and everything starts to smell in the heat.)
Drawing a parallel between religion's animosity toward the left wing and medieval persecution of left handed people is rather weird considering that much of the left wing used to be religious (the Progressives of the early last century, who pushed the Constitutional ban on liquor, had their roots in the Christian Temperance movement). The religious right is hostile towards the left because of its belief (rightful or not is a subject for a flamewar) that the left is composed of people who spit on, and want to eventually abolish, the Christian religion. Not because of the side of the room they sat on a hundred years ago.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Statistics show that firearm possession is a risk factor that leads to higher rates of mortality. If you could correlate an inability to effectively use firearms to a decreased likelihood to possess those same weapons then this same inability could be seen as a positive survival factor.
This is especially relevant since firearm related mortality rates affect young people that have not yet produced offspring, and therefore affect natural selection.
There's far more chance for a lefthanded person to be more or less proficient with both hands. Lots of tools are made for righthanded people. If you're basically left, fair chance it all started as soon as you had to learn to tie your shoelaces. Thank you Terry Pratchett (I think...)
As I understand it, there are 6 different meanings of evolution presented in biology textbooks these days. That can make it difficult for the average student to understand, which evolution is being discussed at a given point in time. The list is drawn from a book titled "Darwinism, Design, and Public Education" edited by John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
>points on left
>* When i cut my food, i use the knife in my
>right hand - opposite of all right handers,
>people who don't know me and see me eat think
>I'm a lefty
That's not unusual at all - it's classic American style. You cut the food with the fork in your left and the knife in the right, then transfer the fork to your right (or the reverse, if you're left-handed). In Continental Sytle (just about everywhere else BUT the USA), the knife is always held in the dominant hand and the fork in the other.
I used to use a fork (and spoon) with an overhand grip (like children often do) for many years, almost into my teens, before someone finally thought to tell me I should hold it differently.
Bruce
ISTR that this came from the British Third Parliament where the King's governors sat on his right and the opposition sat on the left. I believe similar was true of post revolution France. It probably predates all these massively but nevertheless tied into the notion of 'right-hand man'. It's certainly not uniquely a Christian thing - Hinduism has also had strong prescriptions against the left hand for a long long time and probably naturally this becomes extended into a wider metaphore.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
Pick up any child development book (like any college book) and it will tell you that whatever side you lie on in the womb determines if you are left or right handed. And it makes perfect sense, too. If you are lying on your left (as many obviously do) your right arm is free to move and start developing motor skills. And if you lie on the right, you have to use your left arm to move all about. And there is really nothing you can to about it. That's why natural selection hasn't just "threaded" them out, because there has been no way to. Just because your parent's are both lefties dosen't mean you will be, because you prob won't.
I have been left handed since going to school. Both of my parents are left-handed, as is my brother. My sister is the only wrong handed one in the family. Happily though, one of her sons is left handed, as are my brothers two sons. The good news is that the teachers never tried to break my hand or beat my hand to a bloody pulp for trying to use my left hand. For my parents, things were not quite as bad although both were forced to write with their non-left hand. I only remember teachers complaining that my paper would get smeared with bits of lead left from the pencil as my hand went back over the just printed page. Most never saw any problem with my hand being forced to rest on the rings of a 3 ring binder (try that one for 40 minutes).
There are some studies that link brain lateralization to personality in birds and mamals, which provides an explanation of the survival benefits of having both left and right handed members in a species: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1139554.ht m/
(Ask yourself - who do the marmosets remind you of??)
Someone else did a game theory analysis of how predation could lead to lateral specialisation in prey as a survival strategy, but I don't have the link.
For the profoundly right lateralized(~LH), you might appreciate these marmosets also:
http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/
Mostly because it feels like someone else is doing it...oh wait, you probably meant when I'm not wanking...
In Hinduism some forms of Tantrism that are regarded as rather evil and dangerous are referred to as the "left-hand path".
... 1972!
I met an Italian women once who was left-handed, and went to a convent school where the nuns actually tied her hand behind her back to get her to write right-handed because they regarded the left hand as evil. This was as late as
For example, "adroit" in English means capable, but in French, it is the word for "right;" Not exactly, it is closer in meaning to agile. however, the word simply doesn't exist in english. but this is still a very valid point.
Boy, for not "existing in english," a lot of English dictionaries seem to list it (along with English-like forms such as adroitly, adroitness, etc.).
[
"But I guess a person can sit around and pick and choose what they want to believe out of the Bible. ...
I however do not believe that and I do believe the bible is the Unfallable word of God."
Good.
So you believe that shellfish are an abomination, homosexuality and witchcraft should be capital offences and the value of Pi is 3, not 3.142 etc.
Or don't you accept those bits?
And which Bible is "Unfallable" [sic]? Is it the Catholic one (includes Apocrypha), the Orthodox one (excludes Revelation) or the Protestant one? Which translation? King James or any of the others (eg RSV)? What if you don't speak English? Wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the only "Unfallable" bible would be the original Greek text? What about major doctrines (eg virgin birth) that have come about for no other reason than mis-translations of the Greek.
Fundamentalism doesn't provide a pat answer - it just creates a whole lot of new questions.
I used to use a fork (and spoon) with an overhand grip (like children often do) for many years, almost into my teens, before someone finally thought to tell me I should hold it differently.
:P
Bwahahaha! me too- till I was 23
Ahhh- that girl taught me a *lot* of things hahahahah
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
They are not all right handed. Anyways Lefties think with the RIGHT side of the brain while Right handed people think with the wrong side.
"And evolution has purposely kept them.'""
Evolution doesn't decide anything. Evolution is. Humans precive evolution and assign purpose and direction. See here:
The Definition of Teleology
for more details
As for evolution being only a theory, the word "theory" has slightly different meanings in science and in every day speech. To quote an Evolution FAQ:
(From Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution.)
To have a disclaimer that evolution is only a theory, you'd be asking for a disclaimer also on articles about space travel to say newtonian physics and einstein's relativity are also just theories.
Keep on questioning assumptions, but remember to question your own beliefs too.
Compare:
to
The first example is much easier to say, although it is technically less accurate, as obviously (to people who understand evolution) evolution does not "purposely" do anything.
Did you know that, in Spanish, the word "mensa" translates to "stupid?"
(Check it out on any online translation page or Spanish to English dictionary)
Oh, the irony!!!
To belong to an organization that supposedly only allows the smartest people to join and has a name that means stupid.
Not something I would brag about.
---
One man's funny is another man's flamebait
So you believe in creationism AND a multi-dimensional universe? Talk about eating from both ends of the sandwich.
How can you say such a thing? How is it possible that God could manifest His Spirit at any time and any place if there were not other dimensions? How could we communicate with a God we cannot see? I agree the Bible is true. I agree there were an Adam and Eve, but the Bible does not say what Adam looked like the moment prior to God breathing His Spirit of Life into him. I make no claim regarding that. You should not either. It is irrelevant. Read all my posts in this thread and try and see where I am going, because your response doesn't help to illuminate the Truth. Christians should be more capable than that.
My breakfast this morning was not written in the Holy Scriptures, but I defy you to say that it did not exist. Get with the program.
Ps 141:5 Let the righteous strike me; It shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; It shall be as excellent oil; Let my head not refuse it.
For still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked.
me: So you believe in creationism AND a multi-dimensional universe? Talk about eating from both ends of the sandwich.
you: How can you say such a thing? How is it possible that God could manifest His Spirit at any time and any place if there were not other dimensions?
Well, duh, because He is omnipotent and omnipresent. By definition there isn't any multi-dimensionality or other fantastic, theoritical physics or cosmology involved. Your response implies that God is limited to your understanding of 'dimensions' or even physical presence in one/some of them. How can God be IN the Universe if He made the Universe? The claim that multi-dimensionality is a prerequisite for God's omnipotence sounds suspect.
What's also interesting to me, is that God is in infinite places at once, encompassing the entire Universe, but only our little dustball contains life and his Son.
Makes me sorry for all those other planets that we observe. I mean, cause if they aren't all lifeless, they are all DAMNED.
All this conjecture isn't faithful though, so I'm going to stop.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
All this conjecture isn't faithful though, so I'm going to stop.
You should have stopped before your first post in this thread.
1Pe 4:11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God
who sets the goal, there is more change in genetics over time due to random events than there is to any "survivle of the fittest". Hair color, skin color, eye color, the size of women's asses, these are things that don't have an evolutionary advantage. computers are not biolgical, they are made, they are technology, they are assigned a purpose, and yes that makes them wrong and unnessecery and ultimately harmful in that it gives you wrong information to deal with.
organic chemistry is based on about 4 chemicals, every different combination is going to be tried eventually with there being lots of repeats