WEBVTT - The Left-Handed Scissors 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.800 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Robert lamb Man. I'm Julie Righty Douglas. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:19.680 That's right. I'm right handed as well. This is a 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.680 right handed podcast. Now, technically Noel, who records this is 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.560 left handed, but this is a right handed podcast, so 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:28.760 we forced him to use his only his right hand 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:30.960 and left is down behind him at all times, at 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:32.640 least when he's recording us. I don't care what that 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.640 other podcasts do, but darnet, we have standards here. We do. Yeah, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.920 we're keeping it right and tight all the time. Yeah, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.160 because what we're firm believers that left handed individuals are debased, 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.639 their evil to freaks of nature, and they should be 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.960 distrusted at least and re educated along the right path 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.160 whenever possible. I mean, that's why we have the rule 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.560 of left hand behind the back in the podcast booth. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.480 I mean, my wife is was born left handed. She's 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.040 right handed now because we have that corrected, and and 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:05.880 I love her, but I love her because you know, 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.319 we corrected what was wrong with it. Yeah. Well, you 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.840 know my husband is left handed, and uh, every once 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:12.600 in a while, I will catch him using it. And 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.840 our daughter's ambidextrous, and that's frowned upond as well. Yeah, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:17.800 well but that can be that can be fixed over time. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.000 We're trying, we're trying to firm with the discipline on 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:23.840 everybody in your life that is tempted to use their 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.920 left hand for for anything important. Yeah, so keep that 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.679 in mind as you guys are listening, whether or not 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.240 you're a righty or a lefty. Yes, it can be corrected. Now. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.240 Of course, we're having a little fun here with with 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.720 our lefties, because of course there are all sorts of 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.240 stories about the left. Left handedness signifies evil, and left 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.560 handedness is wrong. And certainly we have created a right 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.320 handed world because the vast majority of individuals are right handed. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.720 Only ten percent of the population is actually left handed. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.400 And and and in reality, there's nothing evil about you guys. 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.440 But I love poking fun because everyone knows that this 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.920 is not true. But but when you when you start 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:02.400 prodding and poking the left andy's about this, they sometimes 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.200 get a little up in arms. Well it's true, because 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.040 I mean, think about it, you're pretty much outnumbered everybody 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.040 else using it right hand you're forced to use the 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.280 scissors that are awkward and bunched up, and all sorts 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.839 of different ways that you're navigating the world in which 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.480 you have to try to fit in to this right 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.200 hand world. Yeah. But but as we'll discuss in this episode, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.520 left handedness brings with it its share of benefits in 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.920 addition to its many curses. Now, you guys might have 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.919 the upper advantage. Actually, yeah, certainly literally the upper hand, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.120 the upper left hand advantage. Um. So, by the way, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.919 I wanted to point out that you guys have been 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.320 ten percent of the population for a really, really long time. 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.720 And this is according to Perry Class, writing for the 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.079 New York Times, the size of the South Paw population 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.840 has held constant ever since hunter gatherer days. And this 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.760 is data that comes from studies of cave paintings and 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.960 archaeological analysis of ancient artifacts and how they were used. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.160 So we know that for what at least ten fifteen 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.320 thousand years at the very least, that this has been 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.720 going on. Of course, you know, the human species extents 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.880 well beyond that. But right now we know you guys 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.880 have been the minority for a while. Now. It is interesting, 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.480 and we'll discuss the reason for this shortly, in some 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.040 areas where it's particularly a war torn where there's a 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.120 lot of violence going on, you'll sometimes see that the 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:30.640 number of left handed individuals increase. And this is this 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.240 is due not to the fact that left hand needs 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:35.160 are evil and then if there are more in an area, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.560 it makes that area more prone to violence. But it 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.920 comes down to having a left handed advantage, supposedly in combat, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:43.920 and we'll talk about that. We'll talk about why being 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.760 left handed is actually an advantage um not just in 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.640 in uh cognition, but also in warfare and other sports. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.280 According to a two thousand and eight study, a meta 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.080 analysis of one forty four studies, that's a lot which 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.520 included one point so than million people. It's a lot 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.080 of people. To men have one point two three times 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.400 the odds of being left handed compared to win the chances. 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.880 So if you are a lefty woman and you're super 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.120 in the minority, which is weird because it seems like 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.360 I'm around a lot of left handed ladies, Like my 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:19.719 wife is left handed, my sister is left handed, and 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.800 we have at least a couple of lefty ladies here 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.240 in the office. It's true, you should probably examine. I'm 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.479 not going to out them, really, I don't know to 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.360 what extent there. Well, I think they're proud, Are they proudly? Yeah, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.080 lefties tend to be proud these days. And then well 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.960 they should be Alison labor Milk, Christine Conder. Yeah, it's 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:39.520 not gonna be like they can hide it because you're 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.080 inevitably gonna have to go to a dinner and you're 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.320 gonna be bumping elbows with the right. Yeah, that's my 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.040 chief complaint. I have to say with my husband, we 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.120 always have to make sure we're in the right position 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:54.280 eating dinner position, that's right. See, mother's over forty are 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.520 one percent more likely to give birth to a lefty 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.040 than younger mom in their twenties, and only about one 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.400 percent of the population is truly ambidextrous. And this is 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.680 according to Live Sciences article south Paw Stats. Now, when 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.320 they say truly ambidextrous, what we're talking about here is 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.360 that there's a kind of spectrum of handedness, and so 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.960 people may be a little bit left handed or very 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.799 left handed on the spectrum, and it kind of reminds 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:25.760 me of the Kinsey Scale of sexuality. People heavily identify 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:32.400 as homosexual orsexual. There's a lot of room in between. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:34.880 There's a sliding scale, and you're not necessarily going to 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.480 be one extreme or the other, but somewhere on that scale. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.040 And the same host for left handedness and and the 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.400 and uh and behmbidextrous. That's true. All right, Let's talk 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.599 about genetics, because lefties, I feel like are often given 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.120 really short shrift in this area because there's an association 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.640 of increased cases of schizophrenia a d D and dyslexia 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.480 with left handedness. Yeah, and a lot of this comes 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.920 down to l r r t M one. That's the 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.160 specific gaine that's passed on from the father that tends 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.960 to increase the chances of someone being left handed, and 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.160 the same gene seems to confer slightly increased chance of 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.000 schizophrenia slightly slightly. Yeah. And by the way, this was 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:13.880 a study on dyslexic children, so I thought that was 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.279 kind of interesting. They weren't necessarily going after and trying 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.360 to figure out an association with it. It wasn't funded 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.480 by the by the the lefty support organizations or the 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.279 or the righty power organizations. That's right, wasn't funded by 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.400 the right. Um, So you have something called dextral or 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.800 chance genes. And according to Claire poor Act she's a 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.680 professor of psychology at Penn State Theory, humans are born 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.680 with two genes for handedness. So you either have dexterral 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.960 or chance, and the dominant dextral gene induces right handedness 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.840 whenever it turns up. But if there are two pairs 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.200 of chance genes, then that is when you become more 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.000 prone to becoming a lefty. Now, all of this being said, 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.400 there is an environmental factor here as well, so it's 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.960 not just coming down to janea um. Consider that identical 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.960 twins often have dominant hands, and this is according to 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.840 a Violin Lorens and evolutionary biologists. So even twins could 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.360 be differently handed, which makes sense because one can be 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.920 like the reflection of the other, right ones, the evil 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.239 twin once the good twins exact. Right, Well, I'm wonder 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.560 which one is the evil one? Now this is interesting, uh, 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:22.400 and this one we can just getting out of the 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.200 schizophrenic area and into some of the positives. Lefties, they say, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.560 tend to have a more balanced view of their bodies, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:30.760 and that's because when asked to the angel visualized space. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.320 A righty tends to be more sensitive to their right side, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:36.920 uh and their left side is more like a like 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.120 a t rex little arm, you know, so like imagine, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.240 you know, we've all seen the homunculous, not the real 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.200 homunculous that a wizard bruise up, but the one that 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.120 represents our body image in our sense organs and and 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.520 and basically the shape of our body as as internalized 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.920 and sense. Like if we were to look at the 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.080 way a righty views their body, it would be, you know, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.920 a very right hand dominated like a giant right right 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.480 arm and then like a tiny left arm, like they're 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.840 very very lopsided, whereas a lefty tends to uh not 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:12.600 have that kind of bias. And this comes from a 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.520 lifetime of having to deal with all the right handed 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.000 stuff in our world. So they're having to deal with 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.080 all of this right handed stuff, but they're actually left handed, 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.440 so the to kind of cancel each other out and 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.800 right the ship right, and which makes it makes sense 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.880 that there's more spatial awareness and could possibly be one 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.000 of the reasons why a lot of lefties tend to 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.679 be engineers, because there are people who can deal with 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.760 spatial reasoning really really well. Um, and a lot of 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.679 this has to do not just with spacial reasoning, but 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.880 just your processing your motor skills, also language processing. But 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.679 going back to motor skills, just wanted to lay out 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.839 there that the nerves connect our hands to the areas 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.880 of the brain responsible for motor skills. So there's a 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.319 separate set for each hand, but the wiring is crossed, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.240 so you're right hand is hooked up to the left 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.640 side of the brain and vice versa. But when you 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.120 look at left east, they're taking in data and they're 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.720 they're really bi cerebral if you think about it, because 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.840 they are factoring in particularly language in both hemispheres, whereas 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.319 right eas are processing language in the left hemisphere. So 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.440 as a result of the corpus close and we've talked 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.439 about this this little guy before, it's a part of 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.679 that connects to both hemispheres. Is about eleven larger and 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.520 left handed brains than right handed brains. And this is 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.599 this idea that it's actually aiding the left east to 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.640 be quicker on the uptake of information and processing it. 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:41.000 All Right, we're gonna take a break and when we 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.040 come back, we're gonna deal more with left handed individuals 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.120 about why you might want to think twice about getting 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:59.120 into it. It's fight with one all right, we're back. 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.960 We're talking about lefties. And if you engaged in sports 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.360 or fist fights, or sports and fist fights or fist 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.079 fights that are actually a form of sports, there's a 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.040 chance you're gonna come up against the lefty at some point. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.440 They're only ten of the population. But when you start 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:16.920 looking at some of the big names in sports, you 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.079 look at Adam Palmer, you look at Bobby Or, you 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.720 look at John McEnroe, Oscar de la Hoya, and Babe Ruth. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.320 Even though Babe Ruth supposedly wrote right handed, these were 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.559 all lefties. These were all people at the top of 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.839 their sport and they were doing it with the left hand. Yeah. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.679 And as you had mentioned that lefties living in the 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.679 right hand world, they have much more spatial awareness on 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.240 both sides. Right And according to Melissa Rough in her 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.199 book The Left Stuff, bio mechanical research has revealed that 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.600 training the non dominant side of the body can actually 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:50.679 enhance the dominant side, and this is known as the 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.359 cross training effect, and the body's neural network is integrated 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.040 on both sides, which would confer an advantage already, right, right, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.120 And then if you're you're training to do from you know, 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:06.360 to combat other individuals, say with swords, with with pointed sticks, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:08.839 or in engaging to to fight against some in a 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.160 boxing match or in tennis, you're going to more likely 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.640 you're gonna train mostly to deal with the population, unless 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.360 you're you're saying I'm only going to box schizophrenics, in 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.280 which case you're gonna deal with of that population is 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.280 left handed. Actually due to the slightly higher chances that 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:31.440 we talked about earlier population of lefties. Yes, yes, yeah, 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.240 so most of your training is going to revolve around 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.559 fighting other rightings or even if you're a lefty, you're 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.599 going to be more predisposed to fight right eas But 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.760 then when you deal with a lefty, it's going to 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.280 potentially skew things just a little bit because their hand 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.439 dominance is gonna be gonna be different, uh there, and 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.160 their training is going to be different. It throws things 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.000 out of whack. And we see this in the natural 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.240 world too, right. We see this with sea snails that 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.319 actually the shape of their shell are coiled counter clockwise 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.760 or left as opposed to the more typical clockwise arrangement. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.520 Now why is this useful, Well, it's because right claude 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.760 predator crabs are used to kind of can opening them 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.640 right with their with their claws, but they come upon 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.040 a sea snail who's a lefty with a counterclockwise swirl 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.559 or configuration to their shell and they can't get in 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.240 there and crack them open. Yeah, they have evolved to 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.920 eat right e's and then when a lefty presents itself, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.800 they can't cope with it. They have their their form 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:36.199 is not suitable to this altered form. Would like a 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.120 righty in in the um the boxing match with the 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.880 lefty right exactly can't really anticipate how this is going 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.960 to play out. Yeah, now that's that's why a boxer 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.360 knows that he or she is going up against a lefty, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.079 then they'll intensify their training, uh with a with a 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.080 left handed sparring partner, because because again the percentage is there. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.679 You can't go if you're a professional boxer, if you're 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.679 a professional tennis player, if you're just they do with 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.160 a sword in a on a medieval battlefield, chances are 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.920 you're going to encounter that left handed individual at some point, 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:08.960 and you don't want to just be completely decimated by 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.840 then when it happens. But even that, even the training 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.720 is not going to give you the advantage that lefties 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.480 have with the processing right. With the cognitive processing, study 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:24.000 leader Dr Nick Turban from the Australian National University took 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.400 left handed and right handed people and recorded the transfer 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.120 time between the two sides of the brain. And he 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.360 did this through measuring reaction times, and reaction times being 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.160 huge in sports. UH two white dots flashed to the 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.640 left and right of a fixed cross configuration on their screen. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.080 He compared this with how good participants were carrying out 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.439 the task to spot matching letters in the left and 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.800 right visual fields, which will require them to use the 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:50.960 same parts of the brain at the same time. Um 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.360 extreme left handed individuals, those people in the spectrum extreme 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.959 lefties were forty three milliseconds faster at spotting matching letters 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.800 across the right and left visual fields than their right 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:07.920 handed compatriots. So again you're talking about a more symetrical brain, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:13.840 a larger corpus clos um transmitting that information. So even 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.480 if someone is swinging at you and you've trained against them, um, 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.800 and you swing against them, they're they're taking in the 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:25.200 data quicker than you are. Well. Um. I mentioned earlier 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.920 about how war torn areas you might see an increase 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.200 in the number of left handed individuals in your myths, 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.440 and this comes back to a study from Para French 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.760 researchers uh Charlotte Foi and Michael Raymond. This is between 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.240 two thousand and one and two thousand four. They tested 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.400 the theory of lefty battle supremacy by examining the prevalence 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.320 of left handed citizens in area with areas with high 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.560 murder rates, because in theory, these conditions would allow them 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.600 a better chance to observe at least statistically the left, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.880 the lefty survival of the fist. And sure enough they 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.880 found that lefty population percentages in these areas win as 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.560 high as twenty seven percent, so again up from ten 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.520 percent of the population to because there's that much face 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.360 stabbing going on that the lefty face stabbers are going 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.640 to actually sustain their population, whereas the righties are going 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.600 to die of their face wins. Okay, so you have 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.840 some negative connotations of like schizophrenia, dyslexia, and so on 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.760 and so forth, but now you have criminality added to 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.640 It's just the culture itself is falling into criminality and 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.440 falling into violence. And you can't blame the lefties for 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.080 just being better at stabbing people in the face. That's 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:41.120 just that's just a fact, right, But an unintended consequence 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.240 might be that those lefties watch out, they're gonna shrank yea, yeah, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.560 I mean its survival of the Fittestralia. Well, okay, so 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.800 that's playing to this idea though, that that lefties are 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.080 inherently sinister. Yeah, there's something off about them, that their 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.360 their skills seem a little better. And we can either 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.880 chalk that up to again the inner workings of their 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.200 rain and how they have to to to deal with 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.240 a righty world, or it could be that they have 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:06.920 a touch of the devil, as say, it was a 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.920 pact with the devil. Right. Um. We look at at 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.120 the left and the right in religious terms sometimes, and 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.320 this is because if you look at text, you'll see 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.160 that Jesus ascends to heaven on the right hand of God. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.000 You have a virginal reference of descending into hell on 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.800 the left, and so you also have um. You have 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.960 also have it ingrained in language like an Italian, the 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:38.320 word for left is sinistra, which means sinister. So these 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.560 things are already at playing here for the giving us 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.160 this idea of how to proceed with lefties. And we 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.320 just did an episode on symbols and how that is 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.840 silently guiding us in the way that we perceived the 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.240 world around us. Yeah. In the English language, right means 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.960 both correct and right side. In our politics, left tends 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:05.840 to denote the more radical side, um, the more left 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.000 field right field versus right field. And and then you 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.240 have things like left handed compliments where it's a compliment, 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.760 but it's it's like a vile compliment that is meant 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.960 to to drive home some sort of an insult. And then, 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:20.720 of course, in various cultures, is also the idea that 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.440 the left hand is the wiping hand for the for 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.200 the pooh, and therefore to shake with the left hand 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.720 is is frowned upon, or to do anything with the 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.480 left hand. Okay, but what if what if the population 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.440 all of a sudden we're lefties, Well we'd have a 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.320 lot of stuff to change, right, I mean all the desks, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.840 which because suddenly the lefties there, this would be their 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.680 dream scenario. Suddenly they're in charge, they would probably wipe 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.440 the rest of us out. It's true, Um, And I'm 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.240 just gonna predicate this on a study. It's a two 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.320 thousand eleven study published in Psychological Science by Daniel Kasanto. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:17:59.800 And the idea is that you reverse the symbols of 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.840 and bad right and left. It's like, yes, it is 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.080 some some who have them and some who don't write 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.159 and uh, what they are doing is they're saying unconsciously, 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.879 right handers associate good with the right side of space 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.119 and bad with the left. Now, of course, people who 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.159 are left handed do not have the same association. They 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.920 think the left hand and the left spaces are perfectly fine. 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.200 This is what they found out when they messed with 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.280 hand dominance. And what they wanted to do first, though, 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.000 is they wanted to look at language and this idea 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.840 of positive things being associated with the right side. And 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.000 so to test this, they were asked, um, you know, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.680 right hand participants were asked which of two products to buy, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.800 which of two job applicants to hire, or which of 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.040 two alien creatures looks more intelligent? Um. Right handers tended 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.680 to choose the product, person, or creature they saw on 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.400 their right, and most left handers, most of them chose 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.520 the one on their left. Isn't that amazing that just 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.119 in this spacial confige duration you can put person to 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.080 a on the right, person be on the left, and 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.480 if you're right handed, you're you're more apt to hire 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.960 that person or to think that this person or creature, 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.520 alien creature, is more intelligent than one on the left. 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.520 And yet not to complicate via scenario that every time 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.880 we look in the mirror and we consider the person 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.520 most central to our view of the world, we're looking 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.119 at a we're looking at a reflection, we're looking at 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.200 a reversal. Um. But I think you're onto something. You're 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.159 about the correcting of right and left in terms of 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.040 their moral qualities, and about this this glove. Yeah, well 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.800 this glove. The researchers put this on the right handers 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.639 and the left handers, um, and they performed a motor 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.639 fluency task while wearing this really bulky glove, and it 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.440 turned these right handers in temporarily into left handers. And 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.159 about only twelve minutes of this lopsided motor experience, the 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.600 right glove participants judgments on an unrelated task showed a 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.560 good it is left bias like natural left handers do. 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.680 So it shows that you can just change up the 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:12.000 scenario and actually have the bodily experience change your psychological experience. Yeah. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:16.159 So it's essentially Sylvester Monkey mcmonkey McBean's uh star on 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.800 or star off machine this glove actor SEUs Yeah, and 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.440 gazing into the future and considering this possibility of of 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:28.879 suddenly they're being lefties. I can imagine them rounding up 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.359 all the rights and making us wear those gloves so 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.960 that they can change the way that we view the world. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:35.520 That might not be a bad thing, right, because did 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.200 you hear that all the time? Like you should change 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.320 the hand that you brush your teeth with because it's 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.320 good for the brains, good for the brain. Right, So 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.320 what if we decided all to do this? Is it possible? 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.600 What would happen if we changed our handedness? I think that, 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.760 I mean, it's worth worth drying. I want to do 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:53.760 more of it because I was trying to think on 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.040 the right end this morning. I was thinking, what do 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.879 I do with my left hand? Um, I if I 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.520 if my right hand is occupied, then I may use 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.679 my left hand to drink water or whatever or if 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.400 I'm on the train, I may read with my left 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.040 hand while I'm holding onto the bar with my right. 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:11.680 But for the most part of THO like, I don't 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.919 do enough with it outside of the manipulation of various 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.520 computer gadgets well. And as a result, actually your your 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:23.119 nerves are less developed. And that's that side of your hand, 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.840 by the way, um, because it takes a while if 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:27.960 you're going to switch hands to try to build up 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.159 his connections. It makes sense, right, because it's more of 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.520 a pathway that's being used. And people who have sustained 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.560 injuries now this and they're not able to use their 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.440 left hand. Um. Actually, according to poor act that she's 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:41.680 the professor of psychology that I had talked about before, 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.600 one student that she studied who had been in an 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.000