Madison Hora
Website: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141215-why-are-most-of-us-right-handed
Author: Jason G Goldman
Date: 12/16/14
Summary:
This article tries to answer the question of why there is such a dominant right-handed society today. It says that for humans about 85% of us are right-handed, and they think that there has never been a society of humans that were predominantly left-handed. They think that this started in the brain. Since the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and some major physical tasks they think this could be a reason for it. They even think that some of our ancient ancestors were right-handed by looking at the tools that they made. But there is little evidence for this, and it would be very difficult to prove. They looked at the chimpanzee to see if they also were dominantly right-handed, but there didn't appear to be any favor over either hand between them. The article also explored the idea of language first developing in the left side of the brain which for some reason intensified the preference for the right hand as a side effect. They also accept that it might be just a coincidence that humans passed down the preference of the right hand.
Relevance:
This relates to what we are learning because the article is about the evolution of human's preference to use the right hand. They suggest that early humans used their right hand purely by chance or because of the way that the brain developed. In class we have talked about evolution and the passing down of traits and genes. This article says that the preference for the right hand is genetic and has been passed down from our ancient ancestors. We have also talked about genetic traits and habits being passed down. The preference for the right hand also relates to evolution since as the brain developed language, it became associated with the left side of the brain. This side controls the right hand, so maybe this is why people started writing and drawing with their right hand.
How do the scientists know there has never been a predominantly left handed society if they're unsure if our ancestors were definitely right handed?
ReplyDeleteWell they can't entirely be sure, but they said that by looking at their tools it looks like they were right-handed. Keep in mind that this isn't proven so this is all hypothetical really.
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ReplyDeleteWhy is there even a group of left-handed people today and why are they still in decent numbers if it is favourable to be right handed as shown by the 85%. What is the disadvantages of being left handed as compared to being right handed?
ReplyDeleteThere really no disadvantage to being left-handed other than most tools are made for the majority of the population which is right-handed. One reason why I think is the majority of us are right-handed is because language was developed in the left side of the brain so the right hand was associated more with language.
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