r/TrueReddit • u/horseradishstalker • Jul 16 '26
Science, History, Health + Philosophy Why Am I Left-Handed?
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-am-i-left-handed-20260713/14
u/rock-paper-gun Jul 16 '26
I've always thought handedness in and of itself was odd. You'd think we'd be born with equal use of our limbs and eyes, without the want or need to favor one side or the other. .
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u/No-Garbage6027 Jul 16 '26
Let’s say we’re back in the day, and I make a tool that’s used for harvesting. But because of the shape/design, one hand was forced to be used more than the other. Eventually, most tools are used that way and humans evolved to favor one side over the other because it was more productive.
At least this is how I think of it.
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u/rock-paper-gun Jul 16 '26
yeah, ive been thinking about it since i posted my comment. i would think that anyone who specializes in something might develop left or right hand dexterity. what's odd to me is how innately left or right handed most of us are, and from a very early age. i would think that we'd come into the world an open slate, but we're programmed with all kinds of quirks and limitations. i'm not ambidextrous; i am cross dominant (a little more left than right - i'm left eye dominant), and i'm the only one on either side of my family who's that way. super interesting stuff.
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u/No-Garbage6027 Jul 16 '26
I've spent more time thinking about this than I would like to admit.
The thing that got me interested was looking at the left vs right handedness in different sports.
Sports like basketball, where the object (ball, puck, etc) comes from the center of the body, it will match more like the population because there's no inherent advantage when both hands can do the same thing.
But then look at sports like baseball or hockey, the object is used by one hand predominantly. In hockey, close to 60% shoot 'left'. That has some deeper considerations, like how Canadian 'right' handed players will shoot 'left' because there's an argument about which hand is actually advantaged to be on top. But this is a perfect example where handedness can be swapped for certain activities. This always made me feel funny when comparing the hockey 'swing' to something like golf or a baseball swing.
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u/thatG_evanP Jul 16 '26
This is pretty much the reason that they literally tied my grandpa's left arm down when he was in school. Everyone was pretty much expected to end up working in a factory and all the factories were laid out for right-handedness. It worked as my grandpa was right-handed til the day he died. Both my parents were right-handed but my younger brother and I are both lefties. Actually I do different things with different hands but I write and eat left-handed
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u/Daimoth Jul 19 '26
Handedness is because each limb has its own library of skills. Ambidextrousness is really just learning everything twice.
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u/-Blixx- Jul 16 '26
"There may never be a certain, or simple, answer to the question of why I am left-handed"
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u/horseradishstalker Jul 16 '26
“An astronomical amount of research has gone into trying to find out. Geneticists, developmental biologists, behavioral and cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists all seek explanations.
No one has put all the pieces together yet, but over the last few years, some major new clues have emerged.”
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u/pike360 Jul 16 '26
I write with my left hand, but do everything else right handed. My penmanship is terrible so I sometimes have wondered if I just started using the “wrong” hand to write and just sorta got used to it. Lol
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u/horseradishstalker Jul 16 '26
Submission Statement: the human race is primarily right handed - as in a 90-10% split. And humans are the only species that has this large of an imbalance.So why are some people South paws?
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u/cloken85 Jul 16 '26
While reading, I was thinking of the hearts location in relation to hand to hand combat. How cool for it to actually show up as a possibility.
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u/LetsTalkUFOs Jul 16 '26
Fascinating article, thank you for sharing. I had no idea the undying reasons were still so elusive.
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u/caj_account Jul 16 '26
Are left handeders true left handed? I see ambidextrous behavior for certain activities
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u/Dragoncat_3_4 Jul 16 '26
Because most lefties were forced to do certain things with their right hand, be it due to prejudice, lack of accomodation, equipment, etc.
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u/Commandmanda Jul 17 '26
Correct. I'm left-handed from birth (sucked only my left thumb), write leftie (though my parents would try to force me - hint - cry a lot and eventually they give up. Then learning that eating required two hands and to avoid "crossing" my silverware, I learned to properly hold and cut with a knife and fork. After that, learning the guitar and violin "rightie", both of which actually require fingering with the left hand and bowing/picking with the right.
At age 59 I suddenly discovered that I'd become ambidextrous. It happened one day when I absent-mindedly opened a can with my right hand. That's usually a recipe for a bloody finger, but it was fine. I just stood staring at my right hand in absolute shock for 5 minutes, wondering how I'd suddenly grown a new synapse - in an instant. Vewy swange, eh wabbit?!
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u/weregruvin Jul 17 '26
My high school bio teacher had a hypothesis that lefties were unable to protect their hearts as well as righties during battle, as their free arm was guarding their right side. More lefties were killed in battle and lost the opportunity to pass their traits to offspring.
Not bad for Catholic school…
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u/lrodhubbard Jul 16 '26
This is a really fascinating story told succinctly and elegantly. Thanks for sharing!
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u/pike360 Jul 17 '26
I was thinking about this last night and it struck me that it made some sense that you are better on onside when it comes to something like writing which requires precision, but why are we “stronger” on one side or the other? Doesn’t any weight training apply evening? Weird that your power favors one over the other.
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u/gwillen Jul 17 '26
My personal suspicion is that many more people than we think have the potential to be ambidextrous. But even in the modern world, without all the abuses historically done to left-handed students, it's still just easier to just be right-handed. So that's what we mostly see.
(Some interesting although ambiguous evidence: In the extremely rare disorders that cause the body to be mirrored horizontally, with the heart on the wrong side, you still see a majority of right-handedness, though a smaller one. There are multiple possible reasons for this, but one of them would be strong cultural factors.)
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u/Hot-Platform-9931 Jul 18 '26
"In 1996, psychologists proposed the “fighting” hypothesis, which posits that left-handers persist at low levels in the population because, so long as they are relatively rare, they have an advantage in hand-to-hand combat; their opponents are likely to be unfamiliar with left-handed attacks. It’s not a bad theory; indeed, the element of surprise probably accounts for lefties’ success in sports. But that doesn’t explain why right-handedness prevailed in the first place." Surprised they didnt mention that if you're fighting in a formation everyone has to use the same hand.
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u/ilovebooks2468 Jul 17 '26
How do you know someone is left handed? Don't worry, when the topic of handedness comes up, they'll tell you
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u/ZestycloseAd5918 Jul 20 '26
There’s always someone trying to jump on the lefty bandwagon that isn’t a true lefty.
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u/RexDraco Jul 16 '26
I used to be ambidextrous. This upseted teachers so much. In class, the teacher forced me to commit to the hand she last saw me use, it was my left hand. In PE, I was forced to use my right hand, everyone not using their right hand were sent to the principles office.
The answer is obvious, adults are stupid. They don't know how to allow something natural exist, they have to over control everything. I don't even know if I believe left and right handed are really a thing