January 26th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Posted by The Foo in Fascinating or Weird
Being a left hander, I have always tried to find reasons to why that is. Theories seek to explain the dominance of one hand either in terms of environment and upbringing or through a gene-based hereditary chain. No gene for left-handedness has been found yet, but here are a few theories:
- Sun-worship, with most of mankind being in the Northern hemisphere and following the sun across the sky from left to right, established right as a favored direction, leading to right hand dominance
- The use of a shield in the left hand to protect the heart on the left side of the body led to the right hand being used to hold weapons, which led to general right dominance
- At birth babies are neither left or right handed and the actions of those around them will educate them into one side being dominant
- Left Handedness is hereditary, transmitted from parents to children
- Left Handedness is controlled by a genetic bias, which is random but favors a right-hand dominance
Any other theory you might be able to add?
4 Responses to “The Left Handed Theory”
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
kristarella said: @ 6:28 am
January 26th, 2007
I think something similar to the last and second-last ones is probably correct. There is some kind of genetic basis of which the genetic combination making right-handedness is more common. Environment will always be a factor because you can train yourself one way or the other.
It’s improbable that they will find a gene for it because that’s generally not how our bodies work. Most of our functions are made up of complex interactions between many genetically and environmentally based factors.
I’ve heard that there are advantages for left-handers remaining as a small part of the population; random things like having the advantage in a fight because right-handers aren’t accustomed to defending against a leftie.
kristarella said: @ 6:32 am
January 26th, 2007
Weird, it seems that gravatars aren’t working here at the moment but they are on my site… I guess gravatar.com is going to be coming and going ’til they get the infrastructure sorted out.
CaroleS said: @ 12:58 pm
March 3rd, 2008
An article last summer on the BBC site explained that a gene for lefthandedness has now been found:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6923577.stm
DebbieS said: @ 1:23 am
March 9th, 2008
I disagree with the theory that Left Handedness is hereditary, transmitted from parents to children. I am left handed but there isn’t another left handed person in my family anywhere. I have 3 children who’s father is also left handed … they are all right handed.