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The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

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Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#111

Post by Melatonic »

n4r9 wrote: post #47

The percentage of left-handedness correlates strongly with how pacifist vs warlike the society is. According to this 2005 study it varies from 3% up to 27%: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1634940/

It could also be that when fighting (pre guns) people with left handed weapons took normal right handers off guard (sort of like how in baseball a leftie might throw off other players). I can imagine in a sword battle if you are used to fighting people right handing swords that suddenly fighting a left handed person could be unexpected and disadvantage you.

Where I am going with this is that it might not be that left handedness directly correlates with violence in any way - but perhaps societies with more left handed people were simply more likely to survive in more war like times.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#112

Post by nickff »

rjsw wrote: post #98

It depends on the context, I have been in meetings where everyone except for one PHB was left handed. The ratio was probably 50:50 across the company as a whole.

What is a PHB? I searched online, and found that it could mean bachelor's in philosophy (PhB) or polyhydroxybutyrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate), but neither makes much sense in this context.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#113

Post by bamboozled »

zdragnar wrote: post #51

I write left handed, and use a fork in my left and knife in my right. Left hand for holding a phone or a drinking glass, and for shaving. I'm right eye dominant, though, so I throw, swing, shoot, use scissors, play instruments and use a mouse right handed. I'm not at all ambidextrous, I can't do most of those things with my other hand.

I write with my left hand, play guitar with my right, and use the mouse with my right. Same as you though, I'm not ambidextrous

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#114

Post by ip26 »

nickff wrote: post #112
rjsw wrote: post #98

It depends on the context, I have been in meetings where everyone except for one PHB was left handed. The ratio was probably 50:50 across the company as a whole.

What is a PHB? I searched online, and found that it could mean bachelor's in philosophy (PhB) or polyhydroxybutyrate ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate ), but neither makes much sense in this context.

Pointy haired boss. Coined by Dilbert.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#115

Post by rzzzt »

zdragnar wrote: post #109
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that scissors were made to be right handed, and you need a 'reversed' pair for left handed people. Or is that a scam?

There's a slight pressure you put on the hinge when closing them. The handedness aligns the pressure to a closing motion laterally (keeping the blades together) as opposed to opening (pushing the cutting edges apart). They do in fact make a difference. Trimming my beard with beard scissors requires a bit of a strange grip in my left hand to actually cut well when I switch sides.

Nail scissors can be quite the experience for a left-hander, instead of achieving the proper cutting/shearing motion it will just try to bend your nails due to the widened gap between the blades. A bit less painful but also annoying is cutting paper for the same reason.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#116

Post by Terr_ »

theoreticalmal wrote: post #15

“ when you look at rare conditions, like Down Syndrome, epilepsy and cerebral palsy, the ratio of left- to right-handers is more like 50:50 rather than 1:10.” Is this a typo? Or are left-handed people way, way more likely to suffer from these rare diseases?

It might just mean that people with certain disorders have much bigger immediate problems in hand-movement to overcome, so that there's no extra capacity/opportunity to engage in mimicking the right-handedness of people around them.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#117

Post by mikestew »

nickff wrote: post #112
rjsw wrote: post #98

It depends on the context, I have been in meetings where everyone except for one PHB was left handed. The ratio was probably 50:50 across the company as a whole.

What is a PHB? I searched online, and found that it could mean bachelor's in philosophy (PhB) or polyhydroxybutyrate ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate ), but neither makes much sense in this context.

This is not a criticism, but I’m amused that someone with an HN account as old as yours is just now finding out what “PHB” means.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#118

Post by gsk22 »

zdragnar wrote: post #51

I write left handed, and use a fork in my left and knife in my right. Left hand for holding a phone or a drinking glass, and for shaving. I'm right eye dominant, though, so I throw, swing, shoot, use scissors, play instruments and use a mouse right handed. I'm not at all ambidextrous, I can't do most of those things with my other hand.

> I'm right eye dominant, though, so I throw, swing, shoot, use scissors, play instruments and use a mouse right handed.

Dominant eye and hand don't have to match; in fact, they often don't. To quote Wikipedia:

> ...the side of the dominant eye and the dominant hand do not always match. This is because both hemispheres control both eyes, but each one takes charge of a different half of the field of vision, and therefore a different half of both retinas

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