Lefthander's Creativity

From: Ed Hopkins <hopkins@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Subject: Lefthanders' Creativity
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 95 14:28:11 -0500

We all know that there's a higher percentage of lefthanded
_creative_ people than the percentage of lefthanders in the
general population, but let's imagine a universe where there
was NO correlation at all between lefthandedness and creativity.
Let's say that 40% of this imaginary population is lefthanded,
and 50% percent of the population is creative, and 40% of the
creative people are lefthanded.  We could diagram it like this:

      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R        Creative half
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R
     ---------------------
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R        Non-creative half
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R

Now imagine that some sort of plague, or damping field, or something,
affects 60% the population.  Who is afflicted is chosen without regard
to handedness or creativity.  However, anyone who is touched by it has
their creativity suppressed (if present) and is forced to become
righthanded (if not already). (Also, their letters change to lowercase)

      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R
      l l l l r r r r r r        Creative half
      l l l l r r r r r r
      l l l l r r r r r r
     ---------------------
      l l l l r r r r r r
      l l l l r r r r r r
      l l l l r r r r r r        Non-creative half
      L L L L R R R R R R
      L L L L R R R R R R

Now scientists in this imaginary universe would see all the "l"s as "R"s
and would talk about the Creative Twenty Percent rather than the Creative
Half.  Count the number of "L"s.  Sixteen.  They would think only 16% of
the total population is lefthanded.  But fully 40% of the visibly creative
community is lefthanded, way out of proportion to their numbers in the
general population.  So even though we (looking from the outside) know
that there's no correlation between lefthandedness and creativity (in
that imaginary universe) the imaginary scientists think there _is_ a
correlation.

This false correlation would occur whenever there were two unrelated
traits that were suppressed or hidden by a single force.  For example,
if the same upbringing that forces lefthanded children to use their
right hands also caused gays to remain in the closet, an unusually
high proportion of openly gay people would be openly lefthanded.

Does any of this have any bearing on our universe?

-- Ed Hopkins
Alfredo1@aol.com