Lefties vs Righties

LEFTIES VS RIGHTIES

One person in ten is a left hander. They think they're special, which is probably true. Well, everywhere you look, left-handedness is a thing of rarity. Even most plants are right-handed. Honeysuckle is one of the few plants the twine to the left. Most flatfish lay down on their left side. Therefore, they are right-handed. The Pacific sand dab is one of the few that lies down on their right side, therefore they are left-handed.There are barely even a lot of seashells that curve left-handedly. These are prized by collectors. Lobsters are sometimes left handed. Just about the only case where left-handers are in the majority is among gorillas. Their left arms outweigh the right, which may make them left handed. But we're not 100% sure. As far as humans are concerned, theres evidence that the very first member of the species was left-handed. In the early says there were plenty of right-handers, and plenty of left-handers too (as we know from cave drawings). Things were fine for left-handers up through the stone age. But with the Bronze Age came manufacturing. And since most people were right-handed, thats the way they made the tools. To this day, nobody has ever made a left-handed sickle. By the Middle Ages, left-handers were out in the dust. Even suits of armor were invariable right-handed. That long age bias against left-handers is still with us. For lefties, Cork poppers turn the wrong way. Watches wind the wrong way. Scissors cut the wrong way. It's anough to make left-handers a bit paranoid. Carousels are even right-handed! You can't reach for the brass ring with your left hand. Today, just about the only thing that favors left-handers are toll booths. Of course, if you are a rich or important left-hander, you can ignore the prejudice. For instance, Ramses II, who is always shown as left-handed. And Ben Franklin actually liked being left-handed. He wrote and published a treatise favoring the left hand. There have been five left-handed presidents..: Garfield, Truman, Ford, Bush and Clinton. And in 1992, all three major candidates for the president were lefties. Jimi Hendrix wasn't rich or important, but he became both by beating right-handers at their own game. He restrung his guitar so he could play it left handed. Often, in sports, there is an advantage in left-handedness..This is particularly true in baseball, which probably explains why right-handed players are so ambivalent about left-handers. In golf, left-handed Ben Hogan played right-handed, although he was told that the greater strength in his leading arm would improve his stroke. Later, he regretted switching. Swimming favors left-handers as well. Neurologists have shown that they adjust more readily to underwater vision. Mark Spitz won seven Olympic gold metals is, as you probably expect, left-handed. Polo is another story. its actually against the rules to play left handed. And that even goes for the left-handed Prince of Whales. For some odd reason, left-handers make excellent tennis players. At any given time, about 40% of the top pro's are left handed... Where does left-handedness come from? Is it inherited? Maybe.. We know that if both parents are left-handed, 50% of the kids will be left-handed too. But if both parents are right-handed, only 2% of the kids are left-handed. (Thats awesome because I'm a lefty, and both my parents are right-handed!!) Another reason that left-handedness may be genetic comes from the Kerr family. For centuries, Kerrs have been famous for the large number of lefties they produce. They even gave their castles left-handed staircases! There's a high incidence of left-handedness in twins. But it's rare to find both left-handed. There seems to be less left-handed girls than boys, nobody really knows why. Older mothers are more likely to have left-handed children than younger mothers. Some people claim they can spot a left-hander in infancy. The way their hair whorls will twist counterclockwise. Just about all pediatricians think that if a child is left-handed it will show up by age five. The New England Journal of Medicine suggests you can tell if you're left-handed if the base of your left thumbnail is squarer than the right. Another researcher, Theo Blau, has a different test. Using each hand in turn, draw x's then circle them. If you draw the circles counterclockwise then your left-handed. Psychologists are fascinated with left handers. They're constantly studying them. Example, Theo Blau (the circle guy) says that left-handers tend to be..: Stubborn, oversensitive, impulsive and embarrassing to the family.  Blau says that left-handers have difficulty following directions, and have trouble completing projects. They are also prone to speech problems. To top it off, he claims that bedwetting among left-handers is likely to continue beyond the age of three. Another psychologist thinks that left-handers were just plain anti-social and deliberately used the wrong hand just to make a mess. Even good ol' Dr. Spock, who most of the time says to let your kid do jsut about anything, suggests you  to discourage left-handedness in young children. One of the final, wisest medical opinions on the subject comes from a neurosurgeon who says: "Right handers are a bunch of chocolate soldiers. If youve seen one, youve seen them all. But let handers are something else." Well, almost everyone agrees that lefties are special. Are they specially good?? or specially BAD? To find out, we must enter the brain. The brain is made up of two different hemispheres. They are COMPLETELY different, and do COMPLETELY different things. Cause they have different points of view, the two hemispheres compete for dominance. Generally, people with a dominant "thinking" brain become right-handed, and with a dominant "feeling" brain become lefties. You should expect a righty to be analytical, verbal, and good at math. And a lefty to be mystical, intuitive and a strong visual sense. A lot of evidence suggests that left-handers and right-handers are distinctly different kind of people. They LITERALLY think differently. Even when solving the same problem. Right-handers adapt comfortable to abstaractions. and left-handers translate everything to imagery. Which explaines why so many creative people are left-handed. And, perhaps, it helps to explain when NASA went searching for the imaginative, reliable, mulittalented people to explore the moon, one out of every four Apollo astronauts were left-handed. That turnst out to be 250% greater than statistical probability. Faaaar from being societies misfits, data like that says that left handers are almost a totally different species. Who knows? Maybe they are the next step up in evolution.  Well, no matter what, now we know why left-handers have always believed they are special.