Why are so many Presidents left-handed?
I often notice left-handedness, perhaps because I am a left-hander. A few days ago, while watching a video of the most recent Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama debate, I noticed that Barack Obama was left-handed (he was taking notes with his left hand). That video reminded me that Bill Clinton was also a leftie.
After reading this ABC News article, I was reminded that Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were also left-handed (George W. Bush is right-handed). The same article indicates that John McCain is also left-handed. So is John Edwards.
Pretty startling statistic, given the fact that only about 10% of people are left handed. The ABC News article suggests an explanation:
Scientists and historians agree that being left-handed, which is often associated with outside-the-box thinking, can be a political strength.
Heh, now I understand why all left-handed kids (like me) were forced to become right-handed when I first went to school. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking outside the box, right?
So this is what became of me:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~pablito/Zon/Venus_2004/Galerie/
Picture 5 shows me and my box
Skblllzzzz: So you’re out there tracking Venus? Cool. Did you stick with the right hand or did you revert?
It seems like the interpretation jumped a hurdle worth mentioning. Out-of-the-box thinking, often considered a component of creativity, appears associated with adversity. Eminent people in a variety of fields, from the sciences to the arts, are more likely than normal to be left handed. Much of the current thinking is that overcoming the adversity of operating as a leftie in a right-handed world promotes creativity.
It strikes me as important to note, however, that most of the research on this topic involves simply surveying eminent/successful people and looking at the issue from the top-down. As far as I’ve encountered, little research exists on the effects of left-handedness/adversity on the population as a whole.
This may be related, but it seems to me that there is a higher percentage of lefties in government civil service. Government agencies also seem to employ a higher percentage of diabetics as well. Don’t know what the connection or cause and effect is though.
Do any of you know why handedness even exists — why evolution produced this seemingly unnecessary (even maladaptive) trait? Do other primates display handedness? Do other mammals? Do reptiles? Do fish?
Grumpy: This article from Wikipedia mentions quite a few ideas on handedness. It sounds like no one has any clear-cut answer regarding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness
Here’s a BBC article, also without strong conclusions as to why handedness occurs, but mentioning that handedness is a fact among other vertebrates. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/341feature1.shtml
Handedness is not just a trait observed in many animals and plants. The very molecules we are made of exhibit handedness. Whether a long molecule twists to the right or left may determine how it can or cannot be used by our metabolism. Mad cow disease is caused by a normal neural molecule (prion) that gets twisted the wrong way, and then acts as a catalyst to wrong-twist others of its kind.
Those molecules are made of atoms that are made of particles that themselves exhibit a form of handedness. Physicists would love to find an answer to why there is so much matter and so little anti-matter in the observable universe. Every experiment shows that they are created in equal proportion, each type “twisting” the opposite way in a magnetic field.
Here’s a more general wiki on asymmetry
Here’s something I just don’t get: left hander stores with left handed merchandise. I really really REALLY don’t get it, and I’m left-handed. I don’t get it, even thought I’ve watched all of these videos explaining why lefties “need” these products. http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/top10.html
A left-handed pen? Come on!
And I just don’t get left-handed guitars. You need both hands to play the guitar, right? In fact, on a “right-handed” guitar, the left hand probably does more difficult work. I’ve played the guitar professionally, so I speak from some experience. Sorry–I just don’t get it. I probably never will.
[I hope that my brother in law, Steve, a (talented) left-handed guitarist might be tempted to weigh on on this topic].
My brother is left handed and I am a righty, but borderline ambidextrous. We were in Germany in 6th/3rd grades, so were writing with fountain pens in school. I immediately saw the need for special writing tools for left-handed writers.
Arabic and Hebrew are written in the left-handed direction. Righties are at a scriptural disadvantage in a culture where the left hand is considered essentially sinful.
Scissors are a prime example of a necessary specialty left-handed tool. Try using normal scissors with your sinister hand, and you’ll see the problem. It is not a lack of coordination, but an actual engineering difficulty. Other tools and instruments also evolved for best ease of use for right handers. Some are more obvious than others.
That stores catering specifically to this large minority emerged in shopping malls and then online is no mystery. One can now reach a specific demographic from a large pool with ease. Marketing is all about portraying a minor annoyance (eg: occasional bad breath) as a major condition (”halitosis”), and pandering to it.
i am from the generation where in school if you were left handed, they tried to make you use your right. as a result i have two left hands. If i am doing a project and cant use my left hand, i have to manuever myself until i can. In the military they hated me, cuz i didnt respond to marching commands. they went left , iwent right..anyway I am proud there have been left handed presidents, even if they are democrats!!!
A site called “Lefties for Obama” mentions all of the left-handed presidents:
James Garfield, 1881
Herbert Hoover, 1929 – 1933
Harry Truman, 1945 – 1953
Gerald Ford, 1974 – 1977
Ronald Reagan, 1981 – 1989
George Bush, 1989 – 1993
Bill Clinton, 1993 – 2001
Barack Obama, 2009 – 2017?
Minimal groups paradigm, anyone?
I disagree, there are some items which, by the way they are made, are harder, if not impossible for a leftie to use. I admit to being right handed, but have several left handed siblings and a left handed son. He has alot of trouble using knives to do things like peeling potatoes, because the actual cutting edge is tailored to be used by the right hand. Since he likes to cook, we spent almost $20.00 on a peeler that can be used either way. Scissors are also a problem, which is why there are left handed scissors for children and adults. Office Max offers notebooks bound on the right side which we purchased all throughout my son’s school years so he didn’t have to endure the binding sticking into his hand and having ink all over his hand like my siblings did.
Not being able to do things with the ease of the rest of the world is not a minor annoyance, it’s a major frustration. One you wouldn’t know of unless you’ve encountered it yourself, or seen a loved one try to cope. Try eating your dinner with your left hand, or cutting something or trying to write a letter or write out a check to pay your bills. Then you will understand. It’s not their fault they are left handed, God made them that way. It’s the rest of the world’s fault for thinking that because lefties are a small minority, that they don’t count.
Cookie: I disagree with you. Lefties can learn to use the tools of the right-hander world. I really don’t understand your claim that lefties need special knives and peelers. I’ve been a lefty from birth, so I speak with considerable experience. Lefties can adapt. It might take a little bit of effort, but lefties can figure out how to use those “right handed” knives notebooks. Or they can sometimes even learn to use those right hands. Those right hands aren’t useless appendages. They really allow you to do things if you practice using them once in a while.
If lefthanders constitute 10% of the population, then the chances of having 2 face off for the presidency is 1 in 100. Having 3 lefties in a row (Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton) 1 in 1000. This is not an anomaly.
The Right-hemisphere is considered the artful/creative side of our brain, and for lefties, the RH is dominant. Speech is thought to be centered in the LH, altho I think research needs to be carried out on lefties for that to be considered a truism.
Among the recent presidents and candidates, Reagan, Clinton and Obama were/are clearly eloquent speakers. Good speechmaking comes from being well-read. Eloquent speechmaking elevates speech to an art. I would argue that well-learned men elevate use of the LH, lefthanders combine that with elevated use of the RH. Their brains may be firing on 2 cylinders instead of just 1, so to speak.
BTW, I think the reason golf is such a frustrating sport is that the “off” hand is so important in guiding the swing. Someone should experiment raising a righty to golf lefty (or vice versa) and see what develops from it….macabre, but a thought.
I’m one of 6 lefties in our family of 11 (including one lefty parent.) My husband is a lefty; our 2 kids are righties - go figure. I suspect there were even more natural born left-handed presidents than those listed because left-handedness was actively discouraged until fairly recently. You do learn to adjust to the righty world but for most things it’s no big deal (though getting a WHOLE table to yourself instead of a “right-handed” desk for exams was great.)
I think there is a way of think about left handed people that often makes them more intuitive, particularly to un spoken language, and I believe this helps with communication. I am one of three children. Two of us are left handed. My mother was but was made to become right handed. I have co-incidently shared flats with predominantly left handers and I work in a profession - physiotherapy where there I have found that at least half of my colleagues in the two departments I have worked in are left handed.
Co-incidence perhaps, but something to mull on!
Hemispheric differences in the brain are widely overstated in pop understanding. Each hemisphere does have a statistical tendency to favor certain kinds of functions, but many people have brains that work in the opposite way, or with two hemispheres that share responsibilities. I doubt that any supposed difference in lefties involves the lateralization of the brain. See the opening section of the wikipedia page here, which cites relevant research.
Erika: I checked out the Wiki page you listed. It turns out that lefties (who are right brained) tend to have “holistic reasoning language functions, such as intonation and accentuation, often are lateralized to the right hemisphere of the brain.”
After I’m reading this, I became convinced that these qualities would be helpful for a president.
But then I considered the left-brained qualities (that righties would tend to have more of: Linear reasoning and language functions such as grammar and vocabulary. I’m thinking that Presidents should have these qualities too.
I’m still wondering why presidents tend to be left-handed . . .
Members of groups perceived as disadvantaged often try harder. My casual observation is that short guys are more likely to body build, and lefties have to take chances and excel to be considered “normal”. President is a role, an occupation, a vocation one gets to by trying harder on a grand scale. Unless one rides parental coattails.
But this is just my untamed donkey speculation.