Scientific study reveals lefties are more intelligent.

[sjastro]

As a left hander what can I say.:)

"An American scientist has gathered new evidence on the link between left-handedness and intellectual creativity, confirming that "true left-handers" tend to be more intelligent and eloquent than right-handers, and better at solving problems.

Dr Alan Searleman, from St Lawrence University, New York, presenting his findings to the American Psychological Association's annual conference, said: "Left-handers have a higher 'fluid' intelligence and better vocabulary than the majority of the population. This is perhaps why there are more of them in creative professions, such as music, art and writing."

Dr Searleman says that people who throw balls with their left hands, use their left eyes to look through peepholes and place their left ears against the wall to eavesdrop on conversations are twice as good at problem-solving and have wider vocabularies than their right-handed peers.

He enlisted 1,200 people for memory, vocabulary and problem-solving tests. They were asked questions including: Do you hold a match while striking it with your right or left hand? Which ear do you use to listen to another person's heartbeat? Which eye do you use to look into a dark bottle to see how full it is? He found that people who were "true left-handers", who did everything on their left side, from kicking a football to picking up a glass of water, scored one-third more highly on vocabulary tests and twice as well on problem-solving tasks.

People who were found to be "mixed", using both their left and right hands, ears, eyes and feet for different tasks, achieved the same scores as "true right handers".

The research also found that more left-handed people were intellectually gifted, with IQs over 140, Dr Searleman said."

[mental4astro]

What can I say- this is only because you are all sporn from the Devil, and you all need to be purged from this world and returned from wence you came!!! :P;):lol:

[Terry B]

Why bother doing this research? I would have thought that the result was self evident.:D:D

[TrevorW]

Obviously the Dr was a lefty

[multiweb]

Yeah I'm trying to type this with my left hand now... :P .. not that easy indeed :lol:

[sjastro]

Having been in a Cathoilc boarding school for a couple of years and having my knuckles rapped everytime I was seen writing with my left hand, being "purged" is not far from the truth.:D

Steven

[Wavytone]

"more of them in creative professions, such as music, art and writing"

All he's proved is lefties tend to be blah-tists.

Arty-farty blah doesn't equal intelligence.

[starlooker]

How can eavesdropping be meaningfully, scientifically evaluated? Maybe only from a behavioural sense.

[mental4astro]

And the Good Book said - Let there be LIGHT!

And it came in the form of genetic engineering- which should soon see the eradication of this throw-back, inferior line of human development, :cool: !!!

[OzRob]

I remember reading a long time ago the left-handers are more likely to be gay... :party:

[pgc hunter]

This lefty is as straight as the Eyre highway buddy :P:D

[matt]

LMAO!!!!!

I guess the lefties will conveniently overlook that little bit of research;)

I'd like a survey done of how many of them own and wear a cravat and enjoy singing show tunes....LOL

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Oi!!!
I (occasionally) wear a cravat (Favourbrook, naturally) and enjoy musical theatre (tho' not ALW) and I aint f****** gay an' I'll f***** have a go at anyone who says I f****** am!
Hocccch, Ptuuuuiii!:D

('Course there was that confusing time in high-school.....)

[TrevorW]

I rather be ambidextrous that way I could do it with both hands

[matt]

I dunno...

That little outburst just makes me more convinced, sweetie!!!!!:rofl::rofl:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Oh yeah...'an I aint a "leftie" either. Anyone who says I am, et. etc. ....

Suppposedly this is where we get the word "SINISTER" from, the Latin for 'left' being 'sinestre' or something.
People born left-handed were thought to be touched by the devil and therefore sneeky, evil and untrustworthy.
But who are we right-handers who enjoy God's grace and are above reproach, to cast dispersions and call them "unclean"?

[bones]

:cool::cool::cool:. Best news I've heard all day.

To top it off, think on this. If the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa, then left handed people are the only ones in their right state of mind :P.:screwy:.:rofl:

[renormalised]

What a load of BS!!!:P:D

It's a combination of both genes and upbringing. I know plenty of "lefties" who can't count to ten, let alone figure out anything more complicated.

1200 people is statistically insignificant anyway. In order to get a true gauge of the differences between left and right handed people, you'd actually need to study many thousands of people...and that would take decades.

[Matt Wastell]

I read a study once that said lefties have a lower life expectancy - must wear out their superior brains! Ha!

[Octane]

What happens if you're left-handed /and/ a red-head? :S

:P

Regards,
Humayun

[GrahamL]

Your always up for a bit of man love but only on the weekends :D

[CoombellKid]

lol where did ya read that Playboy???

Another lefty here... and definitely a womans man! some of us cant
handle the right handed world like Jimi Hendrix.

Cheers,CS

[OzRob]

Ooops I have been caught out…:lol:

To legitimise my claim I did a bit of a search and came up with this. A study indicated that (gay women) have a 91 percent greater chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous than straight women, while gay men are 34 percent more likely than straight men to not be right-handed.’ (Source (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200011/sexuality-hand))

Watch out from them left-handed women…:rofl:

[mithrandir]

Whether a given number of people is a statistically valid sample size depends on what your are trying to measure.

If 50% of the population have the characteristic for which you are testing, 1200 is probably oversampling. If it was 1% it is not enough.

Left handed people are around 8% of the population.

For left/right comparisons, 1200 is about the right size for hypothesis testing for statistics valid at the 95% confidence level. Every extra conclusion you draw means you need a bigger sample size, so I'd agree he hasn't tested enough people.

Then again, this is soft science. You can't believe anything they say.

[CoombellKid]

....and ummm errr hehehe how did I know:rofl::whistle:

Cheers,CS

[dannat]

i went to lecture at latrobe the other day by a prof who has collected data both here ans o/seas and reffered to another study that says of all scietific research whether published in nature/science/whatever abut 50% of papers have errors in them, wheter it be form misconduct..or stat alalysis (most common)..it seems most scientists love to use facts figures but only use them to show there own point of view

[AdrianF]

From my experience lefties are more likely to be the trouble makers :D. I have a class of apprentices monday to friday and 3 of them are lefties (out of a class of 14) and they are the instigators of most of the trouble in class.
They are late 90% of the time, try to leave early 4 days out of 5, especially Friday's.
They are driving me round the bend:screwy:

Adrian

I also read somewhere that 90% of statistics are made up by someone trying to protect their job.

[renormalised]

Statistics is the maths they use when they want to turn something that's simple and comprehensible into something horridly complicated and totally incomprehensible:P:P:D:D

[Robh]

You didn't see the research scientist's original advertisement for the sample.
"Wanted. Left-handers for study. Only those with IQs over 140 need apply".

By the way, I'm left-handed.
Rob

[Kevnool]

So it must mean your normal when you throw darts with your left and write with your right.

Cheers Kev.

[GeoffW1]

Oooohhhh......:rofl::rofl::rofl:Win d the focus knob ? :question:

[Kal]

From the same research by Dr Searleman:

On the downside, left-handers were not so good at remembering things. "Although left-handed people had poorer memories they were twice as good at all the problem-solving tasks," he said.

I'm right handed, and I'm always forgetting things. Then again I have pretty good problem solving abilities.

[spacezebra]

Thank you for the post - very interesting reading on this topic.

Cheers Petra d.

[Terry B]

So this just means that all lefties can apply. The definition still stands.:D

[AstralTraveller]

I'd suggest that 100% of papers have an error in them, it's just that some are more significant than others. However if there is a study that suggests that scientific fraud is commonplace then I'd suggest there is a significant error in that paper!

Of course as astronomers we should be aware of a major bit of scientific fraud and misconduct - the famous work by Hubble. Firstly he used the data of Slipher without any acknowledgement (= misconduct). Secondly, apparently the data set used in the first paper was not large enough to draw the statistical conclusions he drew. To be sure he was correct and he soon afterwards had enough data to prove that, but he did publish (and was accepted) too soon.

[Ric]

Very interesting thread, I always knew I was special. :P

Another true lefty. :thumbsup:

[OzRob]

A closet lefty???...:D

[AstralTraveller]

I'm a right-handed true leftie. :)