Why are left handed individuals over represented in gifted populations

magic man wrote:

Hellen Keller was left-handed and that b*tch was freakin retarded.

So i guess since you posted your list, we assume all other gifted people are righties?

She's more famous than you.

You think Newton was just lucky? Do you know anything about him? He was probably one of the smartest men in the history of humanity.

Also he died a virgin. So how smart was he really? Hmm.

left-handed people scare me. no kidding.

cool story. in hs we had a teacher who could write 2 distinct thoughts at the same time - 1 with his left, and 1 with his right. he would demonstate it on the caulk board. creepy, but amazing at the same time.

[quote]im one also wrote:

Artists and musicians are overwhelmingly left handed. [quote]

First, this is factually untrue. It is *not* the case that the great majority of artists and musicians are lefties--which is what "overwhelmingly" implies. It is *possibly* the case (haven't seen any studies, but my anecdotal experience suggests it's quite possible) that lefties, at the upper levels of these arts, are represented somewhat beyond their proportion of the population; but that is vastly different from your use of "overwhelmingly," which is simply false. The actual *majority* of artists and musicians is certainly righthanded.

Second, for *individual* lefthanders to think that their personal experience in TAG classes says anything about the distribution of handedness in the population *as a whole* is simply absurd. It's like saying that, because the two lefthanded Beatles are still alive and the two righties aren't, therefore *throughout the population* lefties on average live longer than righties. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case.

lefty madnesssssssssss wrote:

I write with my left hand, throw with my right hand. Pretty much half stuff with my left and half the stuff with the right. I had a 25 on my ACT sophomore year without studying

I write with my right hand, my left eye is dominant, and my left leg is dominant. I got a 32 on my ACT and my batting average in little league was .257. I also ran a mile in 8:32 in 5th grade gym class. I am also lactose intolerant.

Unfortunately, that ACT is unimpressive, with or without studying.

I guess Newton was lucky because that apple hit him on the head when he was still a teenager developing a lot of physics and mathematics in a year. I prefer to rank the top physicists into modern and pre-modern so that I can keep both Newton and Einstein as number one; I would probably go with Newton in the combined classification because he accomplished what he did in an era when there was little scientific method for guidance (and the math stuff). By the way, was one of the biggest heavyweights of all time - Gauss - left handed. An advanced math book I read in grad school had half pages to a page for the great mathematicians but they had nine for Gauss.

Not really wrote:

Whatsleftisbest wrote:

Bill Gates

Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo

Obama,Clinton,Reagan, Bush (of course not W but his dad)

Henry Ford

Isaac Newton

Marie Curie

Jerry Seinfeld

Gandhi

Alan Turning

Beethoven

Its goes on and on.

With the exception of Beethoven, Leonardo DaVinci, and Michelangelo, those people were all luckier than they were talented.

Lucky enough to have a fantastic idea, or lucky enough to stumble across a discovery, or lucky enough to be in the right place, with the right philosophy.

Standard deviation is the short answer.

The confounding variable is actually how far the left nut hangs. Those of us with lower-lefties have tendencies to be both smarter and left-handed.

Tennis has had a preponderance of left-handers at the higher echelons of the sport: Laver, McEnroe, Connors, Navratilova to name but a few

No, once again "preponderance" is the wrong word--it means there would be more lefthanders than righthanders, and that's not the case.

More lefties than you might *expect*, from their proportion of the overall population? Yes, very likely. The standard deviation of lefthanders' distribution of abilities, in a wide range of mental and physical disciplines, is larger than righthanders'.

But a "preponderance"? No.

Here are some theories.

Since everything is designed for right-handers (e.g. scissors, bound notebooks, etc.), left-handers have to learn early to overcome adversity, which carries over into everything they do.

In bowling, the lane condition stays more consistent on the left side of the lane, as most bowlers are right handed. This allows for more consistent play for lefties, hence higher averages, as the righties dry-out their line, or carry out the oil.

no name wrote:

left-handed people scare me. no kidding.

he would demonstate it on the caulk board.

What's a caulk board?

caulk soaker wrote:

What's a caulk board?

I'm not sure either, but it gets a thousand hits on Google...

It's because the right hemisphere of the brain (which controls abstract stuff, such as art, creativity, etc) is the dominant one on left-handers,

Matlock wrote:

It's because the right hemisphere of the brain (which controls abstract stuff, such as art, creativity, etc) is the dominant one on left-handers,

Finally, someone says the obvious answer. Thank you Mr. Matlock, before I read your response I feared that no one on letsrun understood the brain at all.

Matlock wrote:

It's because the right hemisphere of the brain (which controls abstract stuff, such as art, creativity, etc) is the dominant one on left-handers,

What about us ambidextrous folks?

Yes, I make my living, a lucrative one, in a creative field.

Children should not be encouraged or allowed to use their left hands. Studies have shown that left handed adults are prone to perversion and sin. I use a willow stick to ensure the devil does not visit the children in my classroom.

I need both hands to whack my pecker.

Matlock wrote:

It's because the right hemisphere of the brain (which controls abstract stuff, such as art, creativity, etc) is the dominant one on left-handers,

No, that's wrong. The whole right brain/left brain thing is a myth.

Also found this line on wikipedia:

In 2006, researchers at Lafayette College and Johns Hopkins University in a study found that left-handed men are 15 percent richer than right-handed men for those who attended college, and 26 percent richer if they graduated. The wage difference remains unexplained, and does not appear to apply to women.[30]

Yeah lefties!