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Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

ox.ac.uk

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Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#11

Post by stackghost »

krater23 wrote: post #7

Didn't I understood the text or is the 'why' not really part of it? I expected more than a vague 'because it slightly existed and then hands are free to do things and brains got bigger'. I miss the point.

Actual study here: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

My take is that when they added extra factors to the Bayesian model, the plot was such that humans were no longer outliers.

Whether or not that's scientifically rigorous, or even interesting, I leave to others to determine.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#12

Post by jnakano89 »

"Handedness" is two traits, not one. The paper finds bipedalism explains strength (how strongly someone prefers a hand); brain size explains direction (which one). Most coverage conflates them.

Australopithecus was already strongly lateralized — committed handers — long before the rightward consensus emerged. Two traits, evolved separately by millions of years.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#14

Post by NickC25 »

What does it say for mixed-handed folks like myself (different skillsets per hand - in other words, throw and write with different hands)? What about cross-dominance (different body parts differ on dominant side - in other words, a right-handed person being left-foot dominant)?

I've been told that it's effectively a mental illness if discovered during childhood (as is ambidexterity). Yet I can't help but think that it is not a mental illness, but rather something else.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#16

Post by scythe »

Freak_NL wrote: post #10

So why are us southpaws a rarity? The article and the linked research paper both point to bipedalism and bigger brains as the cause, and the paper vaguely seems to hint at selective pressures leading to the right hand getting favoured by the majority of the population, but why? The question from the headline is excellent, if only it was actually answered.

Here's my five minute lunchtime hypothesis: it's because the heart is on the left. As human behavior demanded increasing precision from the hands, being a little farther from the heartbeat was a slight advantage.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#17

Post by shagie »

stackghost wrote: post #8
raggi wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Is that a British thing? Nobody in North America uses "everyone are"

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/Everybody-Has-or...

> The words everybody and everyone are pronouns that describe a group of people, but grammatically they are singular. The last part of each word is a singular noun: body and one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopædia_Britannica

> Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#18

Post by yawpitch »

hypnodrones wrote: post #15

I would be interested in studies into impact of left hemisphere importantce on the right hand usage, possibly the more sophisticated and "logical" usage of our hands pressured it as well.

One of many articles out there debunking the pop-psych mythology around brain lateralization: https://themindcompany.com/blog/left-brain-right-brain-myth

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#19

Post by gpm »

scythe wrote: post #16
Freak_NL wrote: post #10

So why are us southpaws a rarity? The article and the linked research paper both point to bipedalism and bigger brains as the cause, and the paper vaguely seems to hint at selective pressures leading to the right hand getting favoured by the majority of the population, but why? The question from the headline is excellent, if only it was actually answered.

Here's my five minute lunchtime hypothesis: it's because the heart is on the left. As human behavior demanded increasing precision from the hands, being a little farther from the heartbeat was a slight advantage.

If this was the case wouldn't it be easier to measure the pulse in peoples left wrists? Which doesn't seem to be a thing?

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#20

Post by 3form »

Freak_NL wrote: post #3
raggi wrote: post #2

[flagged]

'Everyone' is treated as singular (aside from 'everyone are' sounding completely wrong).

I think that's the case for all the "every ". "Every human is a person", for example. This would make sense, to put it in programming terms - the verb applies to an element in an array of people, not the array itself (which would be plural): for every single human, that human is a person.
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