90% of the population on earth is right handed. I happen to fall in the 10% that makes up the lefties. Being honest, being left handed is pretty cool. It makes you feel unique and different and I always have a fun fact I know I can rely on. However, all I want to know is why am I left handed. Why was I born a lefty rather than anyone else. Are there certain characteristics or traits that I posses that meant I had what it took and what was needed?
It seems, that according to scientists, the answer may be evolution. Scientists are aware that the hand one writes with is a trait that is passed down from family member to family member. However, they have been unable to locate which trait in the genome sequence has such an affect.
On the other hand, it is clear that just because it is passed on through family members does not necessarily mean it is hereditary. Many twins who share almost the exact same DNA write with different hands.
Some scientists attribute hand dominance to a need for cooperation. Most things in the world are created to favor right handed individuals. (Trust me, cutting with righty scissors is quite the challenge). Therefore, to adapt to the surroundings around us, humans are more likely to be righties. To be honest, being a lefty becomes a sort of risk. On average, lefties die 7 years earlier than righties due to accidents from righty favored machinery. Click here to read more.
Another theory is that lefties are not as biased to a dominance of the left side of the brain. The human brain is contralateral. That means that the left side of the brain controls what the right side does and the right side of the brain controls what the left side does. Since the left side of our brain is used to process language, it makes sense that the side used to produce speech also controls the hand used to write language. There are even experiments that show that lefties tend to use both sides of their brain more evenly than righties. This theory also complies with the idea that most individuals would use the hand that correlates with the side of the brain related to speech and language. Therefore, it is possible that lefties don’t inherit the hand they are dominant in, but rather, they inherit the side of the brain they are dominant in.
So personally, I find it cool to think I do things differently than 90% of the population and that I might even be using an opposite side of my brain. Whatever the reason is, I’m happy I’m a lefty.
I like this post because I was thinking about doing it myself, but you beat me to it! My brother is lefthanded but everyone else in family is right handed, so I’m not sure if I agree with it being hereditary or any form of genetics. I think a lot of it comes from what hand is favored during childhood. Coloring, writing and playing sports are all influenced by being a righty or lefty. Is it possible that this could be because of reverse causation? Does being a righty or lefty influence our writing, throwing, coloring or does our favorable hand while doing these activities influence being a righty or lefty? For me, I always stuck to the right hand for everything. Some people are blessed to be ambidextrous, but I was/am not one of those people. This article provides a lot of info on being ambidextrous and the benefits it offers http://www.livescience.com/17009-left-handedness-ambidexterity.html
I find this blog post very interesting because I have always wondered why certain people are left-handed. I, myself, am right-handed and do not understand how lefties write with their left hand. Since we write from left to right, it seems only logical that writing with your right hand will make the job easier and more efficient. However when I talk to left-handed people about this, they tell me the same thing. To them, the idea of writing with their right hand seems impossible and inefficient. Since you brought up how some scientists attribute this question of left-handedness to evolution, do you think that humans will all evolve to be right-handed? You mention that “most things in the world are created to favor right-hand individuals,” therefore it seems plausible to say that in the future, humans will adapt to be right-handed.
My dad is a lefty, however he only writes with his left hand. He throws with his right, and when he played hockey shot on his right side. The only thing that makes him a lefty is the fact that he writes with his left hand. I find this interesting because I would have thought that he would do everything with his left. I wonder if this is his way of adapting to a mostly right handed population. In your blog you said that humans adapt to the norm, and that is why many people tend to be righties. He must have adapted in every way but writing.