The reason why about 90% of the world's population is right-handed.

Approximately 90% of the world's population is right-handed – an astonishing percentage considering the diversity of humankind in terms of culture, language, genetics, and habitats.

From holding a pen and eating to using a phone, most people prefer using the same hand.

According to a scientific report published in the Indonesian newspaper Tempo, cited by a TTXVN correspondent in Jakarta, this is not a coincidence but the result of millions of years of evolution. Archaeological studies show that the tendency to be right-handed existed long before the birth of modern humans.

Oldowan stone tools, dating back approximately 2.6 million years, are believed to have been primarily used by right-handed humans. Researchers also discovered numerous scratches on Neanderthal fossil teeth, characteristic of right-handed individuals.

Notably, this trait appears even in young children, suggesting that handedness is strongly linked to biology and neuroscience, rather than simply learning or environmental factors.

Scientists currently propose four main hypotheses to explain this phenomenon.

Firstly, tools have "shaped" the dominant hand. Jobs requiring high precision often need one hand for primary manipulation, while the other hand holds the object steady.

Over millions of years, the process of natural selection may have favored individuals with more efficient coordination abilities – and the right hand gradually became the prevailing standard.

Secondly, language and the brain. In most humans, language is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain—the part that controls the right hand. As communication became a vital element in social evolution, the left hemisphere developed more and more strongly, leading to the dominance of the right hand.

Thirdly, the left brain is better at complex planning. Activities such as cooking, toolmaking, hunting, or rituals all require the ability to program actions in a sequential manner.

Neuroscientific studies suggest that the left hemisphere of the brain tends to process complex sequences of actions better, thereby promoting fine motor skills in the right hand.

Fourthly, humans learn by imitation. Humans are creatures with an extremely strong capacity for social learning. A child will learn a skill more easily if they use the same dominant hand as their instructor.

Once the community leaned strongly toward right-handedness, this trend continued to be reinforced across generations.

Although left-handed people only make up about 10% of the population, they have remained a stable part of most societies throughout human history.

Many studies show that they are not inferior in terms of intelligence or cognitive abilities. In fact, in some combat sports like boxing, tennis, or fencing, left-handed people often have an unexpected advantage because their opponents have less opportunity to get used to it.

Some neurological studies also suggest that left-handed people may recover better from certain brain injuries due to their different neural connection structures.

Scientists believe that this "unpredictable minority" advantage has allowed left-handed people to coexist with the right-handed majority throughout tens of thousands of years of human evolution.

(VNA/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/ly-do-khoang-90-dan-so-the-gioi-thuan-tay-phai-post1112512.vnp