what is the benefit of having a dominant hand/leg as compared to having equally skilled limbs?
In: Biology
Something nobody else seems to have pointed out is that the more dextrous side, in almost all cases, is the same side that your brain’s language processing happens on. (That means left handed people more frequently have their brain’s language centers flipped around, too)
It’s theorized that this is needed for the extremely fine motor control required to produce speech, and your hand also being more accurate on that side is basically an “unintended” side effect.
It’s *not* just training/habituation as some people have tried arguing, because we know that left-handed people forced to conform to right-handed training perform more poorly than when allowed to use their dominant hand. If it were entirely habituated, left handedness basically wouldn’t exist, because every child is taught to use its right hand to write first. (Or, if you want to argue that the difference is settled at a younger age, then the right/left distinction would be basically random)
~~Also, since ambidextrous people exist, we *know* the mutation for ambidextrosity is out there in the gene pool. So the fact that most people are still right-handed means that being ambidextrous simply isn’t enough of an advantage. (Or possibly a disadvantage)~~
Edit: Unsure about the last paragraph, probably best ignored.
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