We often hear that if someone is left-handed, they are meant to be more creative. The likes of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci are undoubtedly among some of the most well-known lefties. But scientifically, there is no direct link that being a lefty results in increased creativity. In fact, scientists don’t really know what it means to be left-handed.

What is known is that genes do have some interplay at whether a person will be left-handed or not. When both parents are right-handed there is less chance that the child is left-handed, while when one or both parents are left-handed, then there is a slightly higher chance of a left-handed child. However, this still leaves us with only around 10 per cent of the people across the world being lefties. Why isn’t the split 50:50?

It turns out that evolution played an important role, but more importantly are the aspects of competition and cooperation. In a competitive world, being left-handed can give you a competitive advantage since your opponent would normally be used to right-handed opponents. This is mirrored in competitive sports today, where 50 per cent of players are left-handed. However, there is another social aspect that dominates the world we live in, that of cooperation, or the need to work together for the betterment of society. This means that we come together to build tools and instruments to aid growth. And given that things are mainly built for right-handed people, lefties find themselves at a greater disadvantage. So while the competitive aspect would have evolutionarily pushed towards a 50:50 balance between right-handed and left-handed people, the cooperative aspect helped push the distribution in the opposite direction, keeping the leftie population at around 10 per cent.

If you happen to be a leftie, August 13 was your day! Find out more about being left-handed at https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-are-some-people-left-handed-daniel-m-abrams#watch.