Psychopathy has historically been conceptualized as a mental disorder, but there is growing evidence that it may instead be an alternative, adaptive life history strategy designed by natural selection. Although the etiology of mental disorders is not fully understood, one likely contributor is perturbations affecting neurodevelopment. Nonright-handedness is a sign of such perturbations, and therefore can be used to test these competing models. If psychopathy is a mental disorder, psychopaths should show elevated rates of nonright-handedness. However, an adaptive strategy perspective expects psychopaths to be neurologically healthy and therefore predicts typical rates of nonright-handedness. We meta-analyzed 16 studies that investigated the association between psychopathy and handedness in various populations. There was no difference in the rates of nonright-handedness between community participants high and low in psychopathy. Furthermore, there was no difference between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders in rates of nonright-handedness, though there was a tendency for offenders scoring higher on the Interpersonal/Affective dimension of psychopathy to have lower rates of nonright-handedness, and for offenders scoring higher on the Behavioral dimension of psychopathy to have higher rates of nonright-handedness. Lastly, there was no difference in rates of nonright-handedness between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic mental health patients. Thus, our results fail to support the mental disorder model and partly support the adaptive strategy model. We discuss limitations of the meta-analysis and implications for theories of the origins of psychopathy.
Like a lot of academic summaries, that sounds kinda dumb at face value. Like you just assumed left-handed people would be more insane or something? And didn’t even bother to try to do any experiment to verify it, just a ‘meta-analysis of other studies’?
Is it really surprising that so many people discount the findings of professional researchers when that’s the best that they can come up with?
Did people really still think that? Ok, maybe a few die-hard cultist-level religious people, but those people will believe anything that supports their ideals.
This is a really great example of what’s wrong with science these days.
I mean, I could easily cite 7 people claiming that ‘banana’ is a form of pudding, and then claim that it’s not a fruit or whatever, because other people say it’s a pudding. That doesn’t really add anything though.
and really scary. I believe one aspect of asbestos fibers being so dangerous is their morphology – tiny fibers or swords that can poke into cells and do all sorts of damage to DNA etc. Particles like plastic that are non-fibrous will probably be dangerous due to other mechanisms. For example, many additives are added to polymers – plasticizers to change their mechanical properties, initiators that start the polymerization process (for example, liquid styrene --> polystyrene, and catalysts. These are things that have to be modified for medical grade plastics (like silicone*).
And of course there’s all the stuff the particles pick up from their travels.
*There was a case in France where an unethical company made breast implants from industrial silicone oil, with terrible results:
