Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!ncrcan!scocan!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Left Handed programmers (was Sinister Hackers 8-))
Message-ID: <1990Aug21.154720.4513@sco.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 90 19:47:20 GMT
References: <1488@chinacat.Unicom.COM> <19624@well.sf.ca.us> <12772@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1990Aug20.084113@bert.llnl.gov>
Reply-To: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 55

In article <1990Aug20.084113@bert.llnl.gov> howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes:
>I write with my left hand, but I don't think there's a deep reason
>for it, just an accident when I was learning to write that grew
>into a habit.  

Handedness is physiological, not psychological.  In left-handed people, the
right side of the brain is "dominant"; the reverse is true for right-handed
people.

(This is diverging from comp.  Anybody really interested in it should move
the converstaion to, say, sci.med.)

"Handedness" is a bit hard to define.  Very few people use one hand
exclusively.  I, for example, generally classify myself as "left-handed,"
but am, for the most part, ambidextrous.  I can write with either hand,
although the left-hand is much more legible, I can use a mouse with either
hand (although I have more practice with the right), I can shift with either
hand (manual transmission, that is), etc.  Some things I do one way only,
such as, oh, playing baseball or bowling (right-hand).

Most "left-handed" people are like that, but that's where the psychology
creeps in.  They prefer to use their left hand for lots of things, but,
because of society, they tend to get taught to use their right-hand (I was
taught, for example, to throw a baseball with my right hand; when I tried it
left-handed and did miserably, I was told that was to be expected, go back
to throwing right-handed [even though that didn't change things]).

>Here's my theory about left-handed hackers.  These people are
>drawn from a pool which tended to be early achievers.  Most of
>them were encouraged to draw, and may have actually learned to
>write, before they entered school.  Their "handedness" is
>therefore essentially random, 50-50.  The unwashed masses,
>however, mostly learned to write in school and, lacking any clear
>preference, were encouraged to use their right hand, the default
>choice.

Not meaning to be overly snide, but there are dozens of studies which
"prove" you wrong.  Handedness is *not* random, at least not in the sense
you mean.  The odds are more like 90-10, instead of 50-50.  There seems to
be some indication that it's genetic, but, if it is, it isn't related to a
single gene, but, rather, to a whole slew of them.

>It could well be wrong, but without strong evidence I'll
>prefer the explanation which doesn't postulate some mysterious
>neurological tendency, every time.

Go down to a library or, better, yet, a university, and try to find some
articles on the subject.  Some of the studies are really quite
fascinating...

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "let's face it, finding yourself dead is one 
seanf@sco.COM    |   of life's more difficult moments."
uunet!sco!seanf  |   -- Mark Leeper, reviewing _Ghost_
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.