Alexander the Great was one, as was Billy the Kid and John McEnroe. Now scientists believe they can explain why some people are left-handed, and it's all to do with coming out on top in a fight.
An estimated 10 percent of people habitually use their left hand rather than their right and for years biologists have been mystified as to why such a significant minority of people should be born left handed.
It is known that left handers tend to suffer more health problems and are at greater risk of serious accidents compared to right handers. So, all other things being equal, the left handed trait - which is largely genetic - should have died out long ago in prehistory.
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There must, therefore, be some hidden advantage to being left handed that counteracts the risks, but the problem for biologists was trying to work out what this advantage was.
"The advantage of being left-handed should be greater in a more violent context" One idea is that, in the days when arguments were resolved by violent conflicts, being left handed gave people the benefit of surprise during hand-to-hand combat with right handers.
This advantage, however, would only have persisted if left handers remained in the minority otherwise right handers would soon get accustomed to fighting with left-handed opponents.
Now two researchers from the University of Montpellier have found evidence to support this controversial idea. They believe that the more violence there is in a pre-industrial society, the greater the advantage of being left handed.
Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond compared homicide rates - which include murders and executions - in eight native societies around the world, from the Inuit of the Arctic to the Yanamamo Indians of the Amazon.
They found that as this measure of violent aggression increases in each of these native societies, so does the proportion of men who are left handed.
"Despite the drawbacks of being left handed, there are advantages"
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