Good news for those that are left handed! You are probably not going to die younger than your right handed friends.

I have, as everyone does, many good friends that are left handed. Growing up, I would joke around with them about the horror of the one pair of leftie scissors and the smears of ink left on their hand from to write over freshly written ink. Still, I never thought it anything but an inconvenience for my friends until I heard LEFTIES DIE EARLIER THAN RIGHTIES.

I first heard this via a Skeptoid podcast, and later looking at the site found confirmation.

” So the prevailing theory for why left-handers die out of the population is that a combination of factors put them at higher risk of impaired longevity: accidents, neuropathology, immune deficiencies, and other causes.” (Skeptoid, Brain Dunning)

I was happy to find though that perhaps my fear of my leftie friends dying at the same earlier rate as smokers might be incorrect. As Mark Twain commented “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” While statistics are helpful and often reasonable accurate (I don’t have the degree of prejudice Twain and/or Benjamin Disraeli had against statistics), it’s also important to step back and take a critical look at statistical analysis.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/sinister-statistics-do-left-handed-people-die-young.html

Relooking at the statistics that give the most dire “will die younger” analysis gives us a little hope. While there are many differences between lefties and righties, perhaps the prognosis is not so grim as once thought. This is an important part of skepticism, we’re willing to listen to new evidence and accept it. We don’t stick with something just because we don’t want to change our minds. Skeptics do not “know it all”, and we are indeed “open minded”. Happily open minded in this case to find that lefties have much better survival chances than perhaps we thought.

Paul McCartney, President Obama, Angelina Jolie, Prince William, and Tiny Fey will all hopefully be with us much longer than I expected.

Sadly, this also means Justin Bieber will also be sticking around.

Related articles