Why Am I Left-Handed? | Quanta Magazine
About Quanta
Search
Search for:
Search<br>Search
Newsletter
Get the latest news delivered to your inbox.
Subscribe
Recent newsletters
Follow Quanta
Youtube
RSS
An editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.
Type search term(s) and press enter
What are you looking for?
Search
Home
Why Am I Left-Handed?
Comment
Save Article
Read Later
Share
Copied!
Copy link
Ycombinator
Comment
Comments
Save Article<br>Read Later
Read Later
Qualia
Why Am I Left-Handed?
By
Natalie Wolchover
July 13, 2026
An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once.
Comment
Save Article
Read Later
Kristina Armitage/Quanta Magazine
Introduction
By Natalie Wolchover
Columnist
July 13, 2026
View PDF/Print Mode
biology
DNA
evolution
genetics
molecular biology
Qualia
symmetry
All topics
When I was first learning to write, my letters and words ran from right to left, reversed as if in a mirror. Being left-handed, I was imitating the hand strokes of my right-handed teachers instead of reversing their strokes to replicate the letters. I gradually got the hang of writing in the correct direction, but it still feels natural for me to mirror-write. I have a mirror-written childhood diary. Leonardo da Vinci, another lefty, did that too.
Being left-handed is mostly no big deal. It is annoying how ink smudges under my hand. And I did once have to jump out of the way of a circular saw that I was holding backward; indeed, left-handers have more accidents while operating machinery. That aside, overall, I enjoy being left-handed. It grants entry into a smug little club, whose members — 10% of the human population — carry the secret knowledge that we are overrepresented among U.S. presidents, famous artists and musicians, and top athletes.
But our difference hasn’t always been welcome. My 91-year-old Texan grandmother remembers starting out left-handed (she, too, has examples of mirror-writing from early childhood) before being forced to switch, a common practice in much of the world until about the 1970s. The deep-seated disdain for left hands runs through our very language. “Left” comes from Old English lyft, meaning weak, foolish, worthless, or useless, while “right” means correct or proper. In other languages, the word for “left” can also mean awkward, unlucky, clumsy, suspicious, or sinister.
p]:my-6 [&>ul]:my-6 [&>ol]:my-6 [&>p]:text-3-5 [&>p]:leading-6.5 [&>li]:text-3-5 [&>li]:leading-6.5 [&_img.alignleft]:float-left [&_img.alignleft]:mr-5 [&_img.alignleft]:ml-0 [&_img.alignleft]:my-5 [&_img.alignright]:float-right [&_img.alignright]:ml-5 [&_img.alignright]:mr-0 [&_img.alignright]:my-5 [&_figure]:m-0 [&_figcaption]:relative [&_figcaption]:flex [&_figcaption]:flex-col [&_figcaption]:gap-2 [&_figcaption]:pt-2 [&_figcaption]:pb-4-5 [&_figcaption]:mt-0 [&_figcaption]:mb-6 &_figcaption]:font-pangram [&_figcaption]:after:content-[""] [&_figcaption]:after:absolute [&_figcaption]:after:bottom-0 [&_figcaption]:after:w-11 [&_figcaption]:after:h-0.5 [&_figcaption]:after:bg-gray-1a1 [&_.caption]:block [&_.caption]:font-pangram [&_.caption]:text-0xxs [&_.caption]:leading-4-5 [&_.caption]:m-0 [&_.attribution]:block [&_.attribution]:font-pangram [&_.attribution]:text-xs [&_.attribution]:leading-4-5 [&_.attribution]:m-0 [&_.attribution]:before:content-none show-dropcap" style="color: #000000;"><br>I n philosophy, “qualia” refers to the subjective qualities of our experience: what it’s like for Alice to see blue or for Bob to feel delighted. Qualia are “the ways things seem to us,” as the late philosopher Daniel Dennett put it. In these essays, our columnists follow their curiosity, and explore important but not necessarily answerable scientific questions.
In college, I decided to spend a semester in Ghana, unaware that left-handedness is still stigmatized across much of Africa. Upon arrival, I kept accidentally offending people by eating or paying with my left hand, because, traditionally, the left is reserved for dirty tasks and the right for social interactions. When my Twi language instructor, Professor Kofi Agyekum, demonstrated how ceremonial robes are draped around the left shoulder and arm, leaving a chief’s right arm bare and free, I asked what happens if the chief is left-handed. “Oh no, no, we don’t go in for that,” he said.
Fortunately, our brains are plastic. My grandma developed beautiful handwriting as a right-hander. I easily changed my habits in Ghana. And as a kid I learned to use scissors right-handed. Today, given a choice, I don’t think I’d be able to cut with my left.
That we can fully retrain our hands (and brains) reinforces how little it matters which hand naturally dominates. And that’s part of what makes the circumstance so mysterious. If it makes no material difference, then why am I left-handed? Or perhaps more pertinently:...