WEBVTT - Selects: Why Do Lefties Exist? 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:06.520 Hi, everybody, it's February. No, it's not. It's not that 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:08.320 at all. But we're gonna go back in time today 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:12.000 because that's what we do every Saturday with our Saturday 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:16.119 Selects Picks, and we're going back to February because I 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.880 want to talk about lefties. Are you a lefty? Get 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:20.640 kick with your left hand? You have punch people with 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:22.840 your left hand? You're right with your left hand. Do 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.239 you eat with your left hand? Do you? Well? I'm 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:27.720 not going to talk about other things that you might 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.319 can do with left hands or right hands, but you 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.360 get the picture. Here's the episode, everybody, Why do Lefties Exist? 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.479 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know? A production of I 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:50.200 Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.240 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there too, 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.280 and this is stuff you should not the podcast. Man, 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.160 oh man. I would love for people to just the 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.760 fly on the wall in the studio sometimes and get squashed. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.080 There's a lot of fun prerecord today. People. I hate 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:12.920 that you miss out on that kind of stuff, But 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.520 you know what, that's a that's for us. We we 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.200 deserve a little something. Yeah, And that's called pre show 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.400 fun fun hammering out the details, hammer and other details. 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.880 I thoroughly enjoyed researching this one. Oh really, it burned 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.440 my brain a little bit. It burned my brain a 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.640 little bit too. But um, I just I didn't know 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.800 anything about handedness and uh no not really don't use 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.360 your hands much. Well, I mean as far as uh 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.000 why you are left or right handed or ambidextrous. It 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.200 was all kind of new information for me. I feel 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.840 like I had read that IO nine article, which we 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:50.760 should give a huge shout out, because I was in 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:55.000 forming partially the basis of this um episode. Yeah, why 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.280 are so few people left handed? From IO nine and 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.120 they sourced a lot of great stuff and Discover magazine 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.200 and their articles so and science and science. So it's legit. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:11.400 It is legit, uh possibly even to legit to quit yeah, yeah, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.720 which I could not do with my left hand. I 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.760 guess I can't. I just did it. You just did 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.160 to your sign sign signing to me. Yeah, I'm equally 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:25.000 bad at at doing too legit to quit finger motions 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.440 with either hand. I'm right handed, by the way, what 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.760 about you, I'm right handed, but that is weird since 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.520 you have your MC hammer pants on. I thought you 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.000 would be good at that. That's all. Just it's not 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.240 hard to put on pants. It's hard to do too 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.720 legit to quit finger motions. Yeah, I'm right handed. Um 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.519 to well, I was about to say to a fault, 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.960 but heavily heavily right handed, because after reading this, I 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.559 do believe that there is a bit of a spectrum. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.880 I think, um, oh, yeah, yeah, I think. I think 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.880 some people are way dominant with their one hand, and 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.200 some people skew more towards you. I can do some 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.399 things with this hand. Uh, and some people are ambidexterous, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.600 which we'll talk about very few though fewer than you think. Yeah, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.040 but um, I am heavily heavily right handed. I cannot 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:14.519 do many uh what's the word I'm looking for, um, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.919 trying to find my not like my fine motor skill tasks. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.760 I cannot do very well with my left hand. I 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.520 can just like club things and smack things and knock 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.920 stuff over and knock stuff over like Frankenstein clearing at 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.880 table pretty much. What about you? And can you do 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.240 anything with your left hand? I used to think I was, 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.040 you know, pretty much just strictly right handed, but then 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.440 I I especially researching this. I paid attention, and I'm like, no, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.160 I used my my left hand a little more than 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.760 I thought. I'm definitely not ambidextrous, and if there is 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.000 such a thing as a dominant hand, it's clearly my right. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.120 But this this article points out, or actually it was 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.400 a science Um article that said, there's there's this idea 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.760 that there isn't a dominant hand that you have uses 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.120 for both hands in one kind of specializes in one 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.160 thing and one specializes in another. And the the example 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.600 they used to illustrate that was um cutting like meat 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.680 with a fork and knife. Yeah. I was gonna ask 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.440 you about that, you know, like I was thinking about it. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:13.720 I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I do use 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.440 the knife pretty well with my left hand. I thought, crazy, No, 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.720 my fork is in my left hand. My knife is 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.520 in my right hand too, and then I switched the 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.520 fork over to my right hand. That's what I did too. 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.880 I was gonna ask you that. So I'm definitely right handed, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.080 but you know, my left hand does a great job 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.280 holding the steak in place with my fork while I 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.440 cut it with the knife. Yeah, well, I come to 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.280 think of it, though, I play guitar in drums, So 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.560 I mean I have some left hand skill, I guess, um. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.200 And I know if you break your dominant hand, you're 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.040 gonna learn pretty quickly how to adapt, So it's possible 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.840 to learn, uh force do. Yes, it's all very interesting 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.599 to me. It is, and we should say if you 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.359 happen happen just randomly to be listening to this episode 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:02.640 on August Happy National Left Handed Day, Yeah, I looked 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:03.800 out when I looked that up, I was like, I 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:05.960 wouldn't it be one of those another stuff you should 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.640 know coincidence if this was happened to be released that No, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.480 not even close. Yeah. Um. And it's good that left 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:15.680 handed people have their own day because they've been fairly 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:21.960 maligned throughout the millennia. Yeah, let's talk about that. Actually, okay, Um, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.160 throughout history. In fact, even if you look at the 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:30.400 words throughout history, there is a you know, uh the 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.800 poopoo left handers basically, Yeah, Like the word l y 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.640 f T left yeah, from Anglo Saxon means weak and 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.200 that's where the word left comes from. Yeah, And the 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.279 word sinister from Latin is the word for left. Yeah. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.880 Anybody who saw that episode of the Simpsons where Ned 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.480 Flanders opens the left Toorium knows that because he says, 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.680 I have a a sinister reason to invite you all here, 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.839 sinister meaning left handed man. And that was when he 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.520 announced the Leftorium. That show was so smart, you know, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.359 very smart. So many of those jokes like just flew 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.560 over my head back in the day. Well they're coming 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.599 back to roost. Uh. There's a long list of um. 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.960 Countries who have languages that link the word right with 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.960 being good, uh, in the left with being bad or wrong. Uh. 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.320 And in some countries even making hand gestures with your 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.240 left hand is a no no well and a lot 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.080 of countries are a lot of cultures that eat food 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.800 with their hands rather than utensils. Um. Using the left 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.039 hand to eat or do a lot of things with 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.720 is considered taboo because it's exactly right. You use the 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:41.839 right hand to eat with, use your left hand to 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.200 wipe with right and um, I think if you pay 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.680 attention and notice, I'll bet you have a hand that's 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.840 dominant and that that um activity wipe in your butt. 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.680 Yeah yeah, I'm already are you Oh yeah, okay, But 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.200 if you if you try the other hand, I'll feel 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.600 very weird. Whatever whatever hand you use normally, it's gonna 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.479 feel weird if you use the opia, and you'll just 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.000 end up very messy. Sure, I wonder if you had 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.239 a subconscious thing like you know, I was just eating 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.520 these candy pecons with my right hand, and I know 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.160 I'm going to go back and eat them with my 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.600 right hand. Oh, I don't even use my hands to eat. 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.840 I'm I'm a little too germ conscious. I scoop food 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.280 up in the croak of my elbow, which is very 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.800 clean because it doesn't come in contact of other stuff, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:27.800 and then I eat out of the croak of my elbow. 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:33.440 That's pretty funny. Um. So why have people been I mean, 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.360 why have they picked on left handed people? There are 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.640 some theories that it's just a minority. You know, ten 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.280 of people are left handed, and throughout history minorities have 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.080 been picked on. That's right, this one thing. Um, there's 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.560 there's at least a couple of cultures that equate left 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.960 handedness with clumsiness. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Some 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:59.560 hypotheses theorized that UM tools tool making. For a very 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.280 long time time, UM has been done following right handed techniques. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.320 Still is in many cases. Um, and so when a 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.440 lefty was trying to make tools or do whatever using 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.840 right handed tools, they would have been clumsy with them. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.640 And therefore the idea that left handed people were clumsy 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:22.080 or weak or whatever could have developed and carried on. Yeah, like, uh, 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.600 colonial day, dad is teaching his two sons. Let's go 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.760 with the son and a daughter even, let's mix it up, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.480 how to use a saw. And you know, the son's 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.480 left handed and he keeps he can't saw. Well, so 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.359 the dad's just like he favors the daughter because she's 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.760 you know, she's better with the saw. It's just it's 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:41.760 easy to see how that could happen. Like he's mad 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.880 at Roger but pleased with Prudence because Prudence she's always 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.680 sawing things. Well that's a colonial name. Yeah, sure, well 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.080 I feel like it is. Okay, Well what else is there? Who? Goody? 0:08:54.160 --> 0:09:01.280 Uh goody Alice. Okay, it's timeless, um, but there's still that. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.000 If you're lefty today, you might be frustrated with things 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.439 like scissors and can openers and spiral notebooks and things 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.160 that sort of favor the right handed. Yeah, you're sitting 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.120 next to a right handed person at dinner. The elbow thing. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.839 It's the worst. It's because there's so few left handed people. 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.439 If you're planning a dinner party, first of all, it's 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.000 just common courtesy to know the handedness of all of 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.520 your guests and then to put them appropriately right. To 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:29.520 put the left handed person at the end of the 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.440 table so that their left hand is their left elbow 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.400 is off the table, and they don't have to worry 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.400 about bumping into other people. Yeah, my mom is left handed, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.080 my father is right handed, and you came out right 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:48.680 handed crazy, I sure did so. Um, despite everybody knowing 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.560 that there's a right handedness and a left handedness, it 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:56.400 turns out, after investigating this kind of thing, science is 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.480 really baffled as to what exactly is going on. Why 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.960 we would have handedness, yeah at all, where it comes from. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.680 Why the proportions seem to be steady. There's a lot 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.600 of questions that you know, come up when you look 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.240 into handedness. Whereas you know the average person who just 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.679 kind of taken for granted, but no, not the average scientists. No, No. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.600 There are a lot of interesting theories though. Um. One 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.960 is is that, uh, as we all know, we have 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.240 a left hemisphere in the right hemisphere of our brain, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.520 and we are one of the only mammals that are 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.280 very much um, have a it's called brain lateralization when 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.559 primarily and this isn't across the board, but primarily one 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.280 hemisphere controls certain things and the other controls other things. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.400 And that is primarily controlling the opposite side of the 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:51.760 body as the hemisphere. UM. But language and um controlling 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.080 your you know, fine motor skills like things you do 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.840 with your hands and your fingers have often been linked 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.720 because uh, they are generally on link together and on 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.000 one hemisphere of the brain right for for the most part, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:07.599 people who are right hand and they make up the 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.400 vast majority of human beings. By the way, Yeah, I 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.679 saw as low as seventy, but nothing lower than that, 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:19.040 you know, eighty didn't Yeah, you're right, sorry, exactly, UM. 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.839 Those people have their language center in the left hemisphere, 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.360 and I guess also their motor cortex in the left hemisphere, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:33.400 and the know, the left and the Uh. There's a 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.360 lot of questions about why this would be when the 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:39.120 brain supposedly is a is always looking for efficiencies as 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.319 much as possible. So they're saying, okay, well, these are 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:48.480 two very human activities speech, language, and using your fingers 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.240 to do stuff right right, So, um, they're also some 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.560 of the more complex activities that humans engage in. So 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.280 it makes sense that you just leave it up to 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.720 one side of the brain so that these things can 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.280 um not have to cross over the corpus colossum. Yeah, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:06.640 it's it's just like cluster together. It makes sense. It 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.000 does make sense, but it's also a pretty thin explanation. 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.199 If you you could also say the other the exact opposite, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.000 that it would make more sense that our motor skills 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.160 and our language skills would be in opposite sides of 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.959 the brain to give each other a break, rather than 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.280 just weighting it down on the same side. The point is, though, 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.600 is if you crack open a human brain and you 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.400 look for the motor cortex and the language region, the 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:35.640 language center, you're going to find them most likely, statistically speaking, 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:40.400 on the left hemisphere. Hence more right handedness right because 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.680 of what you said that, um, that brain lateralization where 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.880 stuff that's carried out in the left hemisphere is going 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.520 to manifest itself in the right. So if you're shaking 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.559 somebody's hand using your right hand, the left hemisphere is 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.920 blowing up. That's right. If you're taking in um visual 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.280 information with just your left eye because you got right 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.400 eye closed or it was poked out by a seagull 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.360 or whatever, then your right hemisphere is going to be 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.640 active rights right. Interestingly, though, if the opposite isn't true, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:15.520 If you have your language center in your right hemisphere, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.160 it doesn't always mean that you're going to be left handed. 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.200 It means you're more likely to. But um, I like 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.000 the way this article looked at it. It's it's an 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.720 evolutionary rule of thumb. It's not. I think they said 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.000 between sixty one and seventy of lefties have the language 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:37.160 centers on the left um over of right handed people right, 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.040 which raises a really great question. Are is there such 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.800 a thing as right eas and lefties or is there 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.160 such a thing as right ees and non right ees? 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.760 Because if there, if if a righty and a lefty 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.000 are equally exactly the same thing, if handedness is completely 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.000 u binary like that, Yeah, then if you're a lefty, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.800 your language center should be on the right hand side, 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:02.760 and that, like you said, that's just not the case 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:07.280 in most lefties even Yeah, that's true, And the I 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.760 nine article also points out that it's they don't know 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.480 why necessarily, but this is just how we evolved. It 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.000 could have just been the opposite and then we'd have 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.680 more lefties. Right, Yeah, well that's the idea. But I think, um, 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.480 there are a couple of the explanations, possibly of genetic 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.480 mutations along the way too, In particular, uh one about 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:34.240 two hundred thousand years ago that basically mutated us to 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.320 the fact that we are going to be more right 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.000 handed in the in the language center is going to 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:43.040 be on the left hand side. Uh. And then more recently, um, 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.280 there's a theory that there was a second mutation uh 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.280 two between twenty thousand and a hundred thousand years ago 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.560 where that basically balanced things out or it canceled that out, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.520 which means the possibility of left handedness became a thing, 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.760 or else we would have all been right handed. Right. 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:02.680 That makes sense too. It does make sense and that 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:08.240 the humans possibly evolved to use their hands more, and 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.000 by using their hands more, our brains were forced to 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.880 become specialized and basically forced to choose. So then some 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.920 sort of gene was set up that made the developing 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.240 human brain most likely to be a right handed person, right, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.400 and then that second gene came along and canceled that 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.440 out in some parts of the population. Yeah. I think 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.080 it's the D gene and the C gene. Um. There 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.960 are two alleles, which is the manifestations of a gene 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:42.000 at the same location. And the D gene is more 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.320 frequent in the population, so it's more uh, promotes the 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.040 right handed preference. The C gene is less likely within 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.800 the gene pool. Uh. And so there you have like 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:55.080 a fifty fifty chance of being left handed if you 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.920 have that C gene. Okay, I got you. Yeah, But 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.080 you don't have a fifty chance of being a left 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.840 handed person in general. You have about it only if 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.920 you had chance. Yeah, because the D gene is more prominent, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.160 and that means almost certainly you're going to be right handed. Okay. 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.280 So the caveat we should add to all of this 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.480 is that, um, this is all just strictly conjecture. Um. 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.440 And we'll get to a little more of this conjecture 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:38.920 right after this. So, Chuck, we were saying that it's 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:43.440 possible that genetic mutations far back in human history account 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.280 for this, and um, there is a lot of evidence 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.280 that there have humans have been mostly right handed for 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.880 about the last two d thousand years. Fossil evidence suggests this. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:59.720 Looking at um neanderthal skeletons early human skeletons, UM, you 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.000 can see evidence on the skeletons of right handedness, and 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.600 they think that it's so obvious and obviously prominent because 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.280 these people were using things like spears, So if they 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.600 did have a hand preference, then a spear would definitely 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.480 develop that arm connected to that hand, and it would 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.440 stay in the fossil record through the skeletons right They 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.840 also have looked at other fossils as far back as 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.479 one point six million years. There's a skeleton called I 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.360 want to say the Kokomo Boy even though it's not, 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:39.159 but I love that song. It's the Nariokotome Boy. Sure 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.080 uh and he is a one point six million year 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.600 old Homo air gaster and um they he he was 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.719 clearly right handed as well. Other fossils have turned up 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.639 evidence of right handedness the the teeth. Striations on the 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.439 teeth suggest eating with their right hand. So what we 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.200 what we can say with a pretty decent amount of confidences, 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.520 at least for the last two hundred thousand years, humanity 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.679 has been a majority right handers, and there's been maybe 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:14.560 about this constant ten proportion of left handed people, which 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.520 makes the mystery even more crazy to me. Yeah, but 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:22.080 it also makes sense that um an early tool building 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.480 and teaching how to use tools. UM, I mean it 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.040 holds true today. They've done studies that you know, you 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.680 teach your son or daughter to tie a tie, and 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.200 it's it's going to be more difficult if they're left 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:34.960 handed and you're right handed for them to try and 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:37.760 do it with their left hand. So there they'll pick 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.080 it up easier if they go against their instinct and 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.880 learn it how you've talked with. The studies have shown that, Yeah, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.480 so you learned faster from watching somebody and then using 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:51.080 the same hand. The Yeah, and that makes sense. Back 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.720 in the you know, with Took took In showing his 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.840 pal how to use the bone to smash skull. You know, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.480 it's if he picks of his buddy picks up with 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.800 this left hand, Took Took's gonna shake his head, no, no, yeah, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.119 use right hand or they're just gonna you know, they 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.199 want everyone wants to fit in, even back at in 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.080 the old days. Well that's actually a suggestion of why 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.359 left handedness is possibly not a little more prevalent among 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.360 a certain age group today because it was equated with 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:27.160 being weird or off or crazy or whatever. Um, and 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.320 parents and teachers would force children to learn how to 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.320 write with their right hand, effectively wiping out a lot 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:41.240 of the left handed population. Yeah, and um, just jumping 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.160 back a minute, I wanted to mention something important that 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.680 the whole correlation versus causation thing um with the whole 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.960 language center link. Uh, it's not necessarily that that's a correlation. 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.560 They appear to be strongly linked, but no one is 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.000 saying that because the language hemisphere is on the left 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.479 side of your brain, that's causing you to be right handed. Right. 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.399 They there, And again, the reason that they are linked 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.840 in a lot of scientists minds is that speech and 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:15.359 fine motor skills are basically uniquely human, almost uniquely human. 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.959 And it's just a little it's kind of like a 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.679 red flag or a signal that they're both usually in 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.520 the same hemisphere, and they do seem to be connected. 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.639 And one hypothesis for why they're connected, I thought was 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:34.520 pretty smart. Um. The idea that language spoken language emerged 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.880 out of gestures hand movements, which would require fine motor skills, 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.560 right that I don't have trying to do the two 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.240 legit to quit things. But the idea that language emerged 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.520 out of that would suggest some sort of connection between 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.480 the two, Like maybe the fine motor skill section is 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.320 the more ancient of the two, and then language evolved 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.280 out of that. But we also still need our fine 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.600 motor skills to like eat with a fork and knife. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.040 And I mean, so it stuck around. It didn't become 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:06.320 obsolete just because we started speaking. Yeah, I like that theory. Um. 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.000 We we did mention that this is a largely uniquely 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:14.520 human trait um, But they have followed. Uh, they've basically 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.640 been looking at our closest ancestors to try and figure 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:19.200 a lot of this stuff out. Although it did see 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.960 some studies that said that, like cats are left handed 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:24.920 because they'll go to swat things with their left hand, 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.719 but um, I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, there's 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:33.520 not only is it difficult apparently to um test or 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:37.160 do you attribute handedness to an animal, it's also difficult 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.880 to attribute handedness to a person because the idea of 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.320 whether or not you're left handed or right handed. Um, 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.800 it's still questionable, like if you write with your right hand, 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.320 but you actually can write better with your left hand 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.119 or something like that. Which what are you? Yeah, is 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.400 the one you're comfortable with, the one you that you're 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.800 actually better with. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. But 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.920 they have been looking at our our primate ancestors since 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.959 about the nineteen twenties, and they have found patterns. Um. 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:13.240 Apparently lemurs and are more left handed, and other prosim uh, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.560 prosimians um. Macaques and old World monkeys for the most 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.679 part are evenly split, and guerrillas and chimpanzees are about 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.000 thirty five lefty. Um. But this is interesting. The more, 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.960 as they say here, the more primitive the primate, the 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.800 more likely it is to be a lefty, which goes 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:40.399 in the opposite of the gene mutation. It's the exact opposite. 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:44.760 It implies that we were originally left handed right as primates, 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.680 and then as we evolved we became right handed. So 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:50.720 therefore right handed people are more involved than left handed 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.040 people in some weird way. Yeah. So again it's another 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:58.080 inconsistency where and of course this is in primates too. Um. 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.440 That doesn't necessarily mean it's the same thing with you. No, 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.000 definitely not. But I mean, if you're looking at our 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.800 ancestry and trying to figure out where handedness came from, 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:11.040 you have to go pretty far back right, And I 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:13.640 that's a pretty good example of how this body of 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:19.080 work or knowledge is very contradictory. Still, yeah, it's baffling, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.240 it's pretty awesome. Hey, Chuck, Hey, you sent me something 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.479 about um ambidextrous nous. Yeah. I thought this was kind 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.960 of interesting from mental flaws, like, like, it was just 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.440