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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)

#91

Post by robertlagrant »

eftpotrm wrote: post #64
pclmulqdq wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of myths and anecdata about lefties having shorter life expectancy. That might indicate health consequences in some way.

IIRC the major factor in that was found to be that left-handed people within the age ranges where significant numbers of them are dying of natural causes had usually been brought up to suppress left-handedness, so are reporting as right-handed and skewing the data.

But why would that mean that the people who didn't suppress died so much younger?

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

#93

Post by istultus »

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/

This has to take the cake for "most spurious correlation." The most coherent reading is "places which report more homocide data are correlated with reporting more left-handedness"

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

#94

Post by verteu »

robertlagrant wrote: post #91
eftpotrm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the major factor in that was found to be that left-handed people within the age ranges where significant numbers of them are dying of natural causes had usually been brought up to suppress left-handedness, so are reporting as right-handed and skewing the data.

But why would that mean that the people who didn't suppress died so much younger?

> [A]ccording Chris McManus, the researchers made a "very subtle error"...

> Halpern and Coren took a list of the people who had recently died and contacted their families, asking whether or not their relative had been right- or left-handed.

> Looking at 2,000 cases, they saw that the average age at death of the left-handers was about nine years younger than of the right-handers.

> On that basis, they concluded that left-handers died earlier.

> At first glance, that seems persuasive. What did the researchers do wrong?

> "Their mistake was that they only looked at the dead," Chris McManus explains.

> The point is that left-handers are more common now than they used to be, so - at least at the time the research was published - left-handers were on average younger than right-handers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23988352

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

#95

Post by altruios »

Miraltar wrote: post #36
pclmulqdq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people have started to make reversed musical instruments. I saw a video with a reversed piano, calling it "left-handed." I am a left-handed person who plays the piano and I had always thought the keyboard was laid out like an ascending scale on paper rather than having something to do with handedness - low notes on the left and high notes on the right. The motions involved in playing music are so wei…

I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.

I'm left handed and play the piano.

I think if I had a learned on a reversed piano - it would not transfer to a regular piano - I would be able to play better.

What which hand is responsible for (melody, accompaniment/rhythm) have very different dexterity requirements. Learning melody on the dominate hand would be preferable to me, in hindsight.

With an electronic keyboard, reversing the tones should be easy enough to do. However, I have not noticed that feature.

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

#96

Post by Krasnol »

leejo wrote: post #24

I'm of the generation that were forced to write with the right even though I was a natural lefty. I also broke my left arm when I was 2, which may have made things even more messed up. These days I: * Write with my right, my left is not quite as quick/tidy as my right * Swing/grip with my left (cricket / golf / etc) * Use my phone with my left * Mouse with my right * Cut (scissors) with my right (but we don't have an…

I'm one of those lefties who have been forced to write using my right hand too.

It cost me grades throughout my whole time at school and university. This is why I write with my right hand. It's ugly, but most of the time I can read it. Luckily, we have devices today which make handwriting not so necessary anymore.

It was a blessing when I learned spreading butter on bread with my left hand...in my late 20s. Those many times I just ripped through the bread. Also forced upon me on some church vacation where me doing it with my left hand was just uncomfortable for my table neighbor and why I had to stop it according to the adult watching us.

Yeah...it is more than "a bit annoying" in this right-handed world sometimes.

Get those lefty scissors. They are such a blessing!

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

#97

Post by pclmulqdq »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #90
pclmulqdq wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the actual reason, even for teaching music. The primary voice is in the right hand because the right hand is higher and so the waves it generates have higher energy at the same volume, making it the easiest voice to hear. I assume that in arrangements and pop music, the arranger naturally puts the melody on top and fills in as much harmony as they care to (which is usually not a lot unless you pa…

This in no way disagrees with the GP comment and in most ways reinforces it.

> Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers

Even if that does not directly say that people (right-handers, specifically) insert their handedness bias into the things they write, it does certainly imply that that is important for people who write piano music to put the athletic part (the melody) in the more dextrous hand. It is not. The reason for the right hand to carry the melody is the sound projection of high notes, nothing to do with handedness.

Incidentally, many famous composers in the piano canon were lefties. Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Ravel all have strong evidence of being left-handed. CPE Bach may have also been a lefty, as may have Mozart and Beethoven. This is not "right-handed people making right-handed music" by any means.

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

#99

Post by InMice »

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.

Im also like that..randomly mixed. I write left, but use scissors always with right. Throw and kick are right, but swing and bat is left. Computer mouse left. Taking a phone call is always left hand on left ear...but holding phone to use or text is always right hand. Self check out? Back to left hand for that mostly Lol. If a backpack is on one shoulder it feels weird if it's not on my left shoulder despite being more right "armed".

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

#100

Post by aklemm »

altruios wrote: post #89
aklemm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a society of red-headed left-handers.

Study does not exactly imply that left-handers are the cause of the violence, just corelated to societies' total violence. Perhaps we are exceptionally annoying to right-handers. This 'um, actually...' post would then be a salient self-referential sample of what I mean.

"Well that guy is obviously left-handed"
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