On being a south-paw

The Misanthropyst links to a disparaging article at ABC news regarding people who favour their left hand:

My wife is left-handed, and she is a 'tard. But then, they all are:

"It's not easy being a lefty. Statistics show left-handed people are more likely to be schizophrenic, alcoholic, delinquent, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as mental disabilities. They're also more likely to die young and get into accidents. So if evolutionary theory dictates survival of the fittest, why do lefties still exist?..."

...yes, why do they? The dummies...

Ummm... 'Scuse me? (take some deep breaths and try to relax here Dave -- you know that getting excited exacerbates your schizophrenia, alcoholism, lesdyxia and Crohn's... --ed.) OK -- let's visit the source -- excerpting from the ABC News article:

Researchers in France recently took an interest in the disproportionately high number of left-handed athletes who thrive in sports involving direct one-on-one contact, such as baseball (think Babe Ruth), tennis (think John McEnroe) and boxing (think Oscar de la Hoya or the fictional Rocky Balboa). Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond of the University of Montpellier in France figured the same reason so many left-handed people are successful in such sports could also explain a possible higher success rate among lefties in primitive combat.

Cool - the researchers are French -- that explains a lot. Here is one aspect of their research:

For example, when they singled out the Dioula of Burkina Faso in West Africa, where the murder rate was only 0.013 murders per 1,000 residents each year, they found only 3.4 percent of the population were left-handers. Data from the Eipo of Indonesia, meanwhile, where there are three murders per 1,000 people each year, show 27 percent of the population is left-handed.

OK -- What is the population density? poverty levels? I would bet that in the Savannah grassland culture of Africa things are a lot more mellow than in Indonesia. And why did they cherry-pick these two specific cultures? Finally, on page three of the article, a researcher from the U.S.A. gives some data that seems to differ from the French researchers mind-set:

Then again, as many lefties might point out, being left-handed can also offer intellectual prowess. Tests conducted by Alan Searleman from St Lawrence University in New York found there were more left-handed people with IQs over 140 than right-handed people. Famous left-handed thinkers in history from Albert Einstein to Isaac Newton to Benjamin Franklin seem to underline the point.

Indeed...