Left-handedness....psycological uniqueness ?

Leifer

Senior Member.
....or is it hogwash and coincidence ?
Here's a quote from a Wikipedia source...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

As of 2012, three out of the last seven presidents have been left-handed. Counting as far back as Truman, the number is five (or six) out of twelve. In the 1992 election, all three major candidates – George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot – were left-handed.[3] The 1996 election also involved three left-handed candidates: Clinton, Perot, and Bob Dole, who learned to use his left hand after his right hand was paralyzed by a World War II injury. Both major-party candidates in the 2008 presidential election – Barack Obama and John McCain – were left-handed.[9] The percentage of the population who are left-handed is about 10%.[4] While some write this trend off as a coincidence, others have tried to come up with scientific explanations. According to Daniel Geschwind, a professor of human genetics at UCLA, in 2008: "Six out of the past 12 presidents is statistically significant and probably means something".[
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Considering the trait to be totally random......lefties could consider themselves unique and find reasons for this, and righties feel lefties are unnecessarily basking in uniqueness.
 
btw....I'm left handed in everything except throwing a ball, where I excel as a right hander.
Also in tennis and badminton...righty.
 
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....or is it hogwash and coincidence ?
Here's a quote from a Wikipedia source...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

As of 2012, three out of the last seven presidents have been left-handed. Counting as far back as Truman, the number is five (or six) out of twelve. In the 1992 election, all three major candidates – George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot – were left-handed.[3] The 1996 election also involved three left-handed candidates: Clinton, Perot, and Bob Dole, who learned to use his left hand after his right hand was paralyzed by a World War II injury. Both major-party candidates in the 2008 presidential election – Barack Obama and John McCain – were left-handed.[9] The percentage of the population who are left-handed is about 10%.[4] While some write this trend off as a coincidence, others have tried to come up with scientific explanations. According to Daniel Geschwind, a professor of human genetics at UCLA, in 2008: "Six out of the past 12 presidents is statistically significant and probably means something".[
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The short answer is as follows: Since left-handers are dishonest weasels, they are naturally drawn to politics.

Okay, that may be a little too direct. ;) Actually, I read years ago (can't remember where) that because
lefties grow up in a world that is oriented to right-handers, they learn to be more resourceful;
to work around difficulties as a matter of course. Even extending to matters of personal diplomacy:
that lefties become "pleasers" to get along in a society that is inherently more difficult for them.
Clinton might be a poster boy for the concept of a lefty's personal manner being politics-friendly.
Now, of course, I'm just riffing off the top of my memory...lowering the high standards of evidence
for which this nifty site is known. But hey, it's Saturday morning.

leftorium.jpg
p.s. The Simpsons did a nice show back in '91 ("When Flanders Failed") addressing Ned's leftyness...p.p.s. ~1/3 of Springfield is lefty!
 
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Hair whorl has been an indicator of handedness....

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythhairwhorl.html

While hair whorl is occasionally used to illustrate basic genetics, it gets more attention because some studies have suggested that counterclockwise whorls are more common in left-handed people than in right-handed, and other studies have suggested that counterclockwise whorls are more common in gay men than in straight men. Other studies have given conflicting results, and it is not clear yet whether there is any relationship between hair-whorl direction and either handedness or sexuality.]
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I understand this is a very large subject.....entire books have been written on the subject (handedness).
Let's concentrate on the issue..."is there a difference" between right and left handers. ? and why/how ?
 
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This lady can write with two hands, write in different directions and write two languages at the same time.
 
I think doing two duties at one time is not too difficult.
A test might be I order. I'll try it....
 
I wonder if it's possible that the woman's corpus callosum is severed or somehow not working?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum

Actually the corpus callosum is slightly larger in people who are left-handed or ambidextrous.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/229/4714/665.short

The corpus callosum, the main fiber tract connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, was larger by about 0.75 square centimeter, or 11 percent, in left-handed and ambidextrous people than in those with consistent right-hand preference.
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Since I'm ambidextrous I have a bit of an interest in the subject of handedness. After I first saw this thread I started playing around with writing with both hands simultaneously earlier this morning and thought 'why didn't I think of that before', then Soulfly posts a vid about it. woh

A couple of studies on handedness and brain hemisphere dominance...

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/123/12/2512.full

The incidence of right-hemisphere language dominance was found to increase linearly with the degree of left-handedness, from 4% in strong right-handers (handedness = 100) to 15% in ambidextrous individuals and 27% in strong left-handers (handedness = –100). The relationship could be approximated by the formula: . These results clearly demonstrate that the relationship between handedness and language dominance is not an artefact of cerebral pathology but a natural phenomenon.
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http://www.pnas.org/content/99/5/3176.long

A significantly stronger tendency toward gross cerebral asymmetry was observed in the concordant right-handed twin pairs. Furthermore, more symmetry was observed in both the left- and right-handed twin from the non-RR pairs. The gross trend toward structural symmetry observed in non-RR pairs was similar to what is observed in left handers, even though one twin from these non-RR pairs was often right-handed. This trend is consistent with current models of cerebral asymmetry and its relationship to handedness, in which the right-handed phenotype should be frequently observed in those with the left-handed genotype.
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Possibly relevant to left-handed Presidents...

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/178/4/344.long

The prevalence of mixed- and left-handedness (‘non-right-handedness’) was significantly higher in patients with schizophrenia as compared to healthy controls, and also as compared to psychiatric controls.
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Actually the corpus callosum is slightly larger in people who are left-handed or ambidextrous.
Since I'm ambidextrous I have a bit of an interest in the subject of handedness. After I first saw this thread I started playing around with writing with both hands simultaneously earlier this morning and thought 'why didn't I think of that before', then Soulfly posts a vid about it. woh
...[/ex]
Yeah, solrey, I figured it was just a matter of time 'til you tried to play the ol' "my corpus callosum is bigger than yours" card... Shameless.
 
My wife is left handed. I believe left handed people are kind, considerate, loving and caring, and not at all vindictive, violent, or given to crushing mental cruelty.







Help me.







.
 
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