carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) (05/22/84)
We had a general colloquium speaker here at Bell Labs last winter (and I've forgotten his name) who is doing research on left-handedness. He has found that 4 characteristics seem to be linked: left-handedness, diseases of the auto-immune systems (eg. asthma), math ability and dyslexia. Not that you get left- handed, dyslexic, asthmatic math geniuses, but you tend to get math geniuses with a left-handed brother, an asthmatic uncle, and a dyslexic father (or some combination like that) (all these characteristics are really difficult to define precisely, so they mostly went on "having most of the qualities associated with x") Their working theory is that a large pre-natal dose of testosterone actually inhibits the development of the left side of the brain (controlling verbal skills and the right side of the body) and gives the right side an advantage in the competition for resources.