paleonet Handedness and Creationism

[Michael Sternberg <mstern@xxxxxxx>]

Researchers have published on the correlation between strong 
right-handedness and belief in creationism.

The citation is:
>Niebauer, C., Christman, S., Reid, S., & Garvey, K. (2004). 
>Interhemispheric interaction and beliefs on our origin: Degree of 
>handedness predicts beliefs in creationism versus evolution. Laterality, 
>vol. 9, pp. 433-447.

"It turns out that my colleagues and I have just published a scientific 
paper shedding interesting light on why some people persist in believing 
literal creationist stories despite the preponderance of scientific 
evidence in favor of evolution.  Namely, our work shows that strong 
right-handedness, relative to mixed- or inconsistent-handedness, is 
associated with an increased tendency to endorse literal creationist 
myths.  In other words, our research indicates that the more strongly 
right-handed a person is, the more likely they are to endorse literal 
creationist accounts of the origin of species.

It turns out that a growing body of neurological evidence shows that, while 
the left hemisphere of our brain maintains our current beliefs about the 
world, the right hemisphere is responsible for playing "Devil's Advocate": 
detecting anomalies with those left hemisphere beliefs and forcing an 
updating of beliefs when appropriate.  In order for this belief updating to 
occur, the right hemisphere has to interact with the left, and strong 
right-handedness is associated with decreased interaction between the two 
sides of the brain (hence, the lesser degree of belief updating in strong 
righties).

While there is certainly more going on in determining people's beliefs 
about the origin of species than simply one's degree of handedness, I 
thought your readers might like to learn about a neurological, brain-based 
factor that is clearly related to whether one believes in evolution versus 
creationism."
- Stephen Christman, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Toledo


for more see Eric Alterman's 2/17/05 Altercation Blog at MSNBC.com  at 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/