Talk:Left-handedness/Archive 2

Main Picture
The picture of the person writing with the left handed and quoted "No Lefty would hold a pencil in such an unnatural way."

That is wrong, I have always held my pen/pencil in such a fashion and have seen many others do so as well. Who made such a generalized statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amphixious (talk • contribs) 18:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * the caption was amended by an IP editor a few days ago. I've reverted it to the original. NtheP (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Percentage
Who many people are lefthanded in the world? Gecg 02:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gecg (talk • contribs)

List of notable left-handers
Can we have a list here? Bewp (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed! 163.41.56.92 (talk) 18:21, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * There has been a list in the past. The problem with the list has always been;
 * No clear definition of criteria for conclusion. A list of famous people who just so happen to be left-handed would be massive and pointless.
 * Entries to the list were generally uncited or badly cited. Many were wrong.  There are many websites out there that list "famous lefthanders" that are just repeating the same inaccuracies copied from other websites.
 * The list attracted list cruft and simply just kept growing.
 * What's exactly the point of the list? Wikipedia is not just an indiscriminate collection of information.
 * Consequently, the last list we had here was moved into a separate article, and that article was subsequently deleted as an unmanageable and essentially pointless list.
 * -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 10:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

List Merge
FANTASTIC Why was the list of left-handed people merged into this article? The list on this article is incomplete and it has a few people that shouldn't be here. 85.211.44.53 (talk) 01:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Genetics
I came to this page mainly to learn whether it was normal for two right-handed people to have a left-handed child. It would be nice to have some information on the genetic link. Thank you :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.44.53 (talk) 01:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Clear Citation for Percentage of Population Being Left-Handed
I'm starting this new talk section for the statistic about percentage of the population being left-handed. For the longest time I had heard it was only 2% of the world population. That has increased over time in my experience to the 7-10% cited in this article to the 15% cited here in this Scientific American article from 6 years ago. Until we get a clear definition on that, perhaps that part should be removed. Alex (talk) 01:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

"Cack-handed"
"Cack-handed," rather than being "merely slang," is indeed likely to also be an insulting term. The word "cack" refers to excrement, and I believe is synonymous with our other, more common four-letter word for excrement. (I learned this while living in England, so it must be largely an English term.)

In Hebrew and other cultures in the Middle East in which detailed protocols concerning handwashing and hand-use were practiced as part of religion, the right hand was considered superior, and was acceptable for eating and other pleasant personal needs, important religious practices, certain ways of touching people, and for other desirable and "positive" activities. The left hand, however, was reserved for wiping oneself after bathroom functions, and for other "unsavory" activities.


 * As well as India. Cack-handed is a vulgar term. I have removed it from the page. By the way, Hebrew is a language, not a culture. Perhaps you were looking for the Israeli culture or the country of Israel (the Middle East isn't a culture, either, it's a physical region. One could argue that the Middle East is a macroculture, but this is an oversimplification of many peoples. Ice Ardor (talk) 08:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The term is mentioned later in the article, with possible etymology, and a cite. However, it doesn't need to be where you've removed it. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 08:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Do your research, take a neutral point of view
There is a lot of speculation about causes for left-handedness, correlations with intelligence/gender/salary, and many research sources have conflicting information. Avoid making single-sided statements without fully researching the topic. Avoid using news websites and blogs for citations, which often try to draw a conclusion that may not be scientifically significant. Cite your sources directly from published studies, not a journalist's report on the study. Lastly, realize that discussing left-handedness as a disability or disadvantage outside of a section specifically on disadvantages of lefthandedness should be avoided in order to maintain a neutral point of view. "Left-handers" is slang and derogatory.

This article is not about left-handed people. It's about the noun left-handedness. Just like molecules can be left- or right-handed, a device can be left- or right-handed. A device can be designed for left-handed use, not for left-handed people. Ice Ardor (talk) 08:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific about your concerns? Adding a POV tag to the top of the article and complaining about the cites in general does not help anyone understand what the issue is and what could be done to address it.  Where exactly do your concerns about neutrality lie?
 * This article has always been about left handedness in people. You are correct that other things can be 'left-handed', but that's a completely different matter, and I do not see any advantage to placing them in this article, particularly when this one is so mature.  Other 'left-handedness' is adequately covered in the "See also" section.  Thanks. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 20:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Old undated/unsigned threads
The following nine ten threads were undated and unsigned and therefore no automatically archived. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 06:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

left handed intelligence, dyslexia
Unfortunately, they tend to be over-represented at both ends of the intellectual scale, and as well as geniuses, the group also produces a disproportionately high number of those with learning handicaps. There have been suggestions of links between left-handedness and dyslexia, stuttering, and child autism, among other disabilities.[citation needed]

I think someone should mention that a major cause of lefthanded handicap people is because the left side of their brain is damaged making thier right side make up for it

Shared material with handedness

 * Moved to Talk:Laterality. Please go there to continue merger discussion.

I'm left handed: Parents,Teachers, and all Society trys to make lefthanded people to use the right hand so how do we really know what the right persentages are of how many lefthanded people there are suppose to be. All items are set-up for righthandedness coffee mugs,sissors,power tools,doors opening,cords. But some are now being changed to the middle of the item. When corrections are made there are no accidents no more curling iron burning the arm etc.. I have no tickets, or accidents my driving is fine. I do my job like everyone else maybe better then some. I do interior Design and have a great nack for it I took classes for it in college and was at the top of my class. I'm the only one in my family that is lefthanded I have seen small children pick-up a pencil in the lefthand and the teacher/parent moves it to the righthand so then learn to use the other. There were no sissors that would cut lefthanded when I was in school so I learned how to use my righthand to use sissors you adapt to your surroundings. I have one cousin that is lefthanded. no one on my Moms side and out of 8 brothers and Sisters one of their children is that cousin that is lefthanded so it doesn't run in families none of my 4 children use their lefthand mt daughter started picking up things once in a while with her lefthand and everyone around her stopped her from doing it. She is now right handed a great at art doing it righthanded and I'm great doing lefthanded.

Ultrasound and lefthandedness
I'm no expert on the subject, but when I read the section about Ultrasound I recalled hearing about the study that is only briefly mentioned in this article. Thus, I did some research:

"Kieler's team studied a group of Swedish men born between 1973 and 1978. Nearly 7000 had received ultrasonic scans in the womb, while 170,000 had not. Kieler found that of the men born between 1976 and 1978 who had ultrasonic scans in the womb, 32 per cent more than expected were left-handed. In an average population, around nine per cent of men are left-handed."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1670 is where I found the information above.

But, I'm new to wikipedia and I don't feel all too confident with making an edit, especially since I'm not sure how to avoid plagiarising and how to document the edit... if someone could tell me how to go about with this I'd be very grateful.

- VanillaCreem

Southpaw as a boxing term
Southpaw can be Kept as a Boxing term, since they don't use left-handed fighter in boxing.

Evolutionary theories
Being better fighters isn't a theory about why most of the population is right-handed. It has no correlation to the number of left-handed people, because most people, regardless of laterality, don't fight too much.

ultrasound
Virtually everyone is using ultra sound now..and still the ratio(at least in my area) is about 1 left-handed to ten right handed.Although COMPLETELY inconclusive and unrelaible, there seems to be a connection between creativity and left handed, and factual with right handed.

Birds
I read somewhere that birds actually have 'handedness' and need to overcome it in order to fly.

What happened? Things missing....
There was a great paragraph on how in the Midevil Ages swordsmen had an advantage over other fighters if they could wield a sword in their left hand and some other great info. What happened to it?

Beethoven
He was not left-handed. In fact in his most famous portrait, appears composing with his right hand. Do you have any evidence of that?

Robert Fripp playing left-handed?
I'm a lefty who switched to playing right-handed guitar after a few years playing the other way. It's definitely more natural for your dominant hand to be the rhythm/autopilot hand, I switched just as I got annoyed with the lack of guitars available for lefties years back.

Minority ≠ Abnormality
In the article on right-handedness there is no section entitled "Causes of right-handedness". The implication that left-handedness is an abnormal condition is as offensive as implying the same of dark skin or maleness. Just because most of us are born female does not mean that males are accidents or mutations. Males are a feature of the human species, and so are left-handed people. It is offensive to speak of "causes". We can talk about how the two types come to be differentiated. It may seem like a subtle difference of wording, but this approach preserves the legitimacy of both forms regardless of which is more common. Please, let us not fall prey to that age-old glitch in human thinking; minority does not equal abnormality. --24.20.9.33 (talk) 04:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Being a left-handed black male, I actually think all of those topics sound interesting! I don't disagree with your argument, however, so how would you title such a discussion? I can't think of the one perfect title that isn't literally synonymous to "Causes of left-handedness" and that would include all aspects of the same discussion. I would need to separate topics into "Why almost everyone favors using one hand or the other", "How biology can determine one's handedness", "How society can impose handedness", and "Theories and factors contributing to the low occurance of left-handedness" to cover the same information.

(new contributor) It's not true to say that most of us are born female. In fact the reverse is true with slighty more boys born than girls. And in any case it is not a good analogy. After all, the ratio of boys to girls born is very nearly 50:50 whereas there are about 7 times as many right handers as left handers. As a left hander I have no problem with the search for causes of left handedness or this terminology. Likewise I think it is entirely appropriate to talk in terms of causes of right handedness as humans are the only species where the vast majority favour the same side of the body consistently. Indeed McManus considers this very issue in his book "Right Hand, Left Hand" which is well worth reading. Carlospesdacore (talk) 10:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC) Jtp6duke (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Picture
The picture for "Girl playing guitar left-handed" is awful.--98.82.117.232 (talk) 04:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I know I'm being picky, but it's not a left-handed guitar - it's a right-handed guitar being played the other way round. You can tell this from the position of the cutaway to give access to the higher frets.--(just_MD)

Causes

 * The first statement "Hand orientation is developed in fetuses, most commonly determined by observing which hand is predominantly held close to the mouth.[2]" is a method of observation, but does not point to a cause. Suggest move this into some section regarding diagnosis.   In addition, the article provides no evidence that left-handedness is genetically emergent (although I suspect so!). Wikipedia:Citation needed --71.245.164.83 (talk) 02:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't the vanishing twin theory be removed from the causes if it has been debunked by researchers. Seems like it would just mislead people to think it was an actual cause. 69.119.201.182 (talk) 05:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Charles Boklage published 'How human beings are made' (ISBN 981283513X) last year in which he revisited vanishing twin theory. The research being referred to in the point above was published in 2002. Since then, further research has backed that statistically, 1 in 8 pregnancies start as twins, and that left-handedness is twice as common in twins than singletons. Boklage mentions that earlier research didn't account for twinning rates prior to 12 weeks gestation. In the interest of balance, I don't think this theory has been completely debunked.

Lists of names
Lists of names in this article should be sourced in accordance with WP:BLP. As there is no way of constantly maintaining linked articles, this applies to names which have a Wikipedia article as well as those that do not. Any name listed with no verifiable citations should be removed. Refer to WP:NLIST for guidance. Fæ (talk) 05:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We have repeatedly been down this route before. See previous discussions in the archives of this page (recent one here) .  A list of "notable" left handers is essentially POV (Who's notable? Are they notable for being left handed, or just notable?), irrelevant (What does it demonstrate? Some famous people are left-handed?  So what?) and is a unmaintainable cruft magnet that gradually swamps the article.  Entries are also usually uncited and frequently incorrect (Einstein was not left handed, for a start). So I have removed the list.  -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 12:27, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether Einstein was left handed or not has to remain a moot point. It is certainly true that he wrote with his right hand but in his time it was very common for natural left handers to be persuaded to write with the right. It has been noted that he performed a number of other tasks with his left. After all, what functions do you have to carry out with your left hand for it count? Phil Mickelson and Mike Weir, famous left-handed golfers, both write right handed. 81.102.15.200 (talk) 10:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Why no mention of the persecution?
This article is telling a very incomplete story as it includes no mention of the centuries of oppression left-handed people have endured. In some parts of Africa they still beat children who try to use their left hand to eat, etc.

66.158.70.254 (talk) 17:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Which "some parts of Africa"? Who is the "they" that allegedly beat the children? If you can properly source your claims you are welcome to include such a section. Roger (talk) 10:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no link for this but I do know in communist countries left handed students were force to write using their right hand in order to all be "equal." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.143.97.96 (talk) 01:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You have no link, possibly because it's not true? -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 16:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Characters Used to be written from top to bottom, right to left
Chinese Characters are squares and had been written from top to bottom, right to left for thousands of years, so it's easy for both righthanders and lefthanders. The top to bottom, right to left configuration makes me want to suggest that the founding fathers of Chinese writing system may be dominated by lefthanders. Either way a skilled maobi user don't land their arms or hands on the table, so the ink wouldn't be a problem. The entire system was change in the latest 100 years where intellectuals start to blame everything traditional for the civilization's backwardness as compared to the west. The writing was changed from right to left to left to right to accommodate parallel writing with English, which now seems to be highly unnecessary. The top to bottom, right to left configuration was prohibited/discouraged in modern printing in mainland China, but it is still easy to find in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. It is worth to mention that the most popular form of Bible is still in top to bottom, right to left configuration. Some people advocate to lift the ban for such a configuration in mainland. Others rebut them saying that they are making a big fuss out of little things, as both configuration functions well for Chinese language. The only loss is the so-called Chinese uniqueness and characteristics. 70.27.26.243 (talk) 17:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

being artistic
Should there be mention of the supposed phenomenon of left-handed people being more artistic? I haven't seen any official sources, but personal experience leads me to believe this is at least partially true, judging by the "lefties" who live in my area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adasdad (talk • contribs) 22:38, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

POV
This articles is to favorable towards left handedness and does not mention its correlation with more negative outcomes. For example left handed people tend to have learning disabilities. It focuses more on the positives even though left handedness is usually asocciated with negative histories. I say this as a person who is left handed and has a variety of learning disabilities including an inability to write and there is a connection in my case between my left handedness and my writing disability. --67.52.196.217 (talk) 06:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Glenn Beck
The Politics section discusses US Presidents and presidential candidates who were left-handed, which is trivia (interesting, but trivia) rather than any political doctrine/camps... That seems odd to me.

Even odder is the inclusion of Glenn Beck with a discussion of US Presidential candidates. Surely there are plenty more note-worthy left-handed people than Mr. Beck... Or was he actually a presidential candidate at some point? If I knew for sure he wasn't a presidential candidate, I'd just delete that last sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.103.133 (talk) 03:56, 12 June 2011 (UTC)