Jonathan Silvertown is a professor of evolutionary ecology at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of numerous books on ecology and evolution. His most recent book is called “The Comedy of Error: why evolution made us laugh.”
EPISODE LINKS
The Comedy of Error: why evolution made us laugh (Affiliate Link) https://amzn.to/3DVEh7d
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jwsilvertown
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(Note: The following transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.)
00;00;00;01 – 00;00;16;27
Eric R Olson
Why should you tell jokes? Because you like to hear the laughter. What’s going on there? And the hypothesis that I put forward in the book, and it’s not original to me, but it hasn’t been very widely talked about, is that actually what you’re doing is displaying something else?00;00;20;28 – 00;00;46;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Hey, guys, I’m miracles. And welcome to another episode of Synapse on science centric. Synapse is our signature discussion series, where we have thought provoking conversations with scientists, journalists, authors and other thought leaders. But before we dove in, a couple of quick reminders. The first thing is you can help keep this series going by reading this episode or writing a review on whichever platform you’re listening on.00;00;46;16 – 00;01;13;13
Jonathan Silvertown
We’re on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and pretty much all the major podcasts platforms. Number two, you can help support us directly through Patreon. We have a couple of nice benefits over there, including early access to new content, ad free content, and a monthly patrons only. Q&A with me where you can suggest new topics or guests. Check out the show notes or visit science centric ecommerce support for more info.00;01;14;00 – 00;01;35;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Our guest in this episode is Jonathan Silvertown, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of eight books, and his most recent book, due out in September, is called The Comedy of Error, which is all about the evolutionary origins of humor. So, Jonathan, welcome to the show.00;01;36;21 – 00;01;37;21
Eric R Olson
Thank you. Thank you for having me.00;01;38;01 – 00;01;56;04
Jonathan Silvertown
You are a evolutionary plant biologist by training and you’ve written a number of popular science books. How did you get into science writing? And with this most recent book, how did you get interested in comedy?00;01;57;14 – 00;02;31;15
Eric R Olson
Okay. Well, I’ve always been interested in writing. I wrote a popular little popular play, a textbook in plant population biology 40 years ago. I mean, I was still just out of graduate school. So I’ve been doing this for a long time and I just enjoy writing. And as time goes, all I find trying to find the way to get the most, the best audience, the audience that’s most of you stand.00;02;32;05 – 00;02;54;15
Eric R Olson
One of the things that people tell me they like about my books is the humor. And that’s before I wrote a book about humor. But I thought, well, hey, let’s go all in. Let’s look at the science of humor. And I which was unfamiliar to me, I have to say, as to most people and I can say that with confidence, because practically nobody has written about it for a popular audience before.00;02;55;22 – 00;03;33;19
Eric R Olson
And when I looked into what the professors of humor were saying, I was surprised to see that they didn’t really like people to laugh, or at least not to laugh at them. And they would say things like, The trouble with our subject is people and amateurs such as me enter it simply to tell jokes. Well, you know, I don’t apologize for telling jokes, but I tell them in a good cause, and that is in explaining to people in a fun way how humor works scientifically and why I think it evolved.00;03;34;04 – 00;03;38;15
Eric R Olson
And that’s something that is is new.00;03;39;04 – 00;03;52;19
Jonathan Silvertown
So I’m just thinking, how does one become a professor of humor? That seems like is is it are they coming into it from another field or how how do you get into all this?00;03;53;02 – 00;04;11;21
Eric R Olson
You’re asking the wrong person. You know, I’m a professor and I’ve written a book about humor. But the two are, as you’ve already pointed out, almost unrelated. It’s almost a joke that somebody who studies plant population biology writes on the subject, except that it’s a book on popular science. And what I would like to see I do is I write popular science books.00;04;11;21 – 00;04;17;19
Eric R Olson
And, you know, it’s about evolutionary biology, first and foremost. And the subject happens to be humor.00;04;19;09 – 00;04;34;02
Jonathan Silvertown
And do you find that? Do you find that? I mean, obviously, having a background in evolutionary biology helps in this endeavor. Right? I mean, you’re you’re you’re able to evaluate, like the research and things like that. Yeah.00;04;34;06 – 00;04;56;00
Eric R Olson
And I mean, you know, that’s something that some people studying. I psychology and so on, they come from that direction. They come from a humanities direction or they come from perhaps looking at brain mechanisms and so on. I’m looking at evolutionary causes is an unusual way to approach laughter and humor.00;04;56;11 – 00;04;56;21
Jonathan Silvertown
Mm hmm.00;04;57;20 – 00;05;01;14
Eric R Olson
But it actually lends itself beautifully to illustration with jokes.00;05;02;03 – 00;05;21;12
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes. And your your book is peppered with all kinds of jokes, some, and I’ll admit some of which I found funny and some of which I did it. So but I guess humor is somewhat subjective in terms of what we what what sort of jokes we enjoy.00;05;22;27 – 00;05;44;12
Eric R Olson
Yes. So it’s subjective. And it’s no surprise that some jokes are funny to some people and not to others because they play upon our preconceptions. I mean, the way a joke typically works is as a set up, which leads you your mind in one particular direction. And there’s a punch line which goes off in a totally different direction.00;05;44;26 – 00;06;09;24
Eric R Olson
And then there’s a resolution that happens in the brain. And this brings the two things which are incongruous together. Mm hmm. And if the incongruity of the surprise is sufficient, then that triggers laughter or sense of amusement, or both. And so, of course, you know, especially if you’ve heard the joke before, the incongruity is gone. Right. So that’s why you won’t laugh.00;06;10;01 – 00;06;30;19
Jonathan Silvertown
Is there sort of a Goldilocks zone of incongruity where, you know, if it’s too if there’s too much in kangaroo, it’s not funny. And if it’s and if you can if it doesn’t create incongruity for you, you can see the punchline coming, then it’s not funny. So is it is is there sort of a sweet spot?00;06;30;20 – 00;06;59;20
Eric R Olson
Sure. There is in some some interesting brain experiments, sort of MRI experiments have been done on this. So, yeah, there’s some quantitative data on it. But the example I like to use is if you go to an art museum and you look at surrealist art. Right. It’s incongruous, but it’s not funny. Well, why is that? Well, I guess the reason is there’s no resolution.00;07;00;11 – 00;07;26;05
Eric R Olson
Hmm. Okay, so you’re getting the set up, but there’s no punch line and there’s no resolution. So Salvador Dali was a great fan of Groucho Marx, and he actually sent Groucho Marx a kind of storyboard for a what he thought would be a hilarious movie. And it was full of people with multiple arms answering telephones and so on.00;07;27;06 – 00;07;31;13
Eric R Olson
And it was called something like Angels on Horseback Solid or.00;07;32;04 – 00;07;32;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Something.00;07;32;28 – 00;07;56;28
Eric R Olson
Like that. And Groucho just didn’t find it funny. And the thing was that Dali was doing what surrealists do, which is to invent weird looking stuff, but that on its own is not enough. People go, That’s weird, right? Yeah. There needs to be a resolution that has to be so. As in as in puns, for example.00;07;56;28 – 00;07;58;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. So, so, so.00;07;58;11 – 00;08;24;13
Eric R Olson
If you my favorite one, which is I went to the zoo the other day and they only had one animal. It was a dog. Yeah, it was a zoo. Or I should say it’s a ship to see how you try to. I’m going to that as you were just observed. But so there’s a pun and something I don’t do in the book is explain jokes.00;08;24;13 – 00;08;26;08
Eric R Olson
They either work or they don’t. You just move on.00;08;26;20 – 00;08;48;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. I’m so, so sorry to go back to this idea of Dali trying to to create a coming up with this movie idea. So, you know, there is there is a form of visual humor that comes to mind, which is cartoons like cartoon strips where there is visual humor. And there but there’s a resolution. You get to that last panel.00;08;48;18 – 00;08;58;26
Jonathan Silvertown
And in the cartoon strip or the comic strip and and it’s like, oh, okay, I get it. It’s, you know, you get the joke. So I think, like, yeah, you know, but, but just having like you get.00;08;59;23 – 00;09;45;16
Eric R Olson
The incongruity hypothesis as it’s called, is it actually works in pretty much any medium. So it works if somebody is slipping on a banana skin. Right. It works in music. So, you know, there are there are musicians and bands who specialize in. So this PD Cuba, for example, look it up on YouTube. Absolutely hilarious. Brilliant musician, an actual classic musical with a slightly and Peter Cuba was a 20 seconds son of boss family of 21 states and he was born before he died before he was born.00;09;45;16 – 00;10;15;00
Eric R Olson
And I mean, it just goes on and on and the music is highly incongruous. So you get all these weird things happening during a piece of PVC is ballocks. I mean, even speaking of names, of course. And yeah. And this this turns out to be cross-cultural. So, you know, in gamelan in Indonesia, they in Bali, they, they, they, they have musical jokes and everybody understands how it normally works.00;10;15;05 – 00;10;20;12
Eric R Olson
And then suddenly they go off in a different direction with the camel and orchestra and everybody loves.00;10;20;22 – 00;10;21;03
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;10;22;15 – 00;10;28;21
Eric R Olson
So, and it’s the same phenomenon in whatever medium it occurs. So it’s.00;10;28;21 – 00;10;29;04
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;10;29;12 – 00;10;45;11
Eric R Olson
You know, it can be sarcastic, it can be verbal, it can be visual comics or it can be musical and anybody can get joke smells. You probably can I how that would work but I’m sure somebody will do.00;10;45;26 – 00;10;49;06
Jonathan Silvertown
Every, every sensory mode you can, you could have a joke.00;10;49;06 – 00;10;51;04
Eric R Olson
Yeah I yeah maybe I’ve just.00;10;51;04 – 00;11;09;04
Jonathan Silvertown
Invented something that’s really interesting. Well, there’s definitely taste there. There’s these jelly belly candies that, that, that taste terrible. And you and you have and you eat them and some of them taste good and some of them don’t. My kids, I have two kids. They love this, right? Yeah. And it is a bit of a taste, a joke like.00;11;09;05 – 00;11;10;00
Jonathan Silvertown
And it’s supposed to taste.00;11;10;00 – 00;11;12;12
Eric R Olson
Yes. There you go. Yeah. It’s it’s.00;11;13;03 – 00;11;14;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. Yeah.00;11;14;02 – 00;11;22;19
Eric R Olson
It’s a practical joke actually. It’s yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in using another sensory modality using Yeah. Taste and yeah.00;11;22;19 – 00;11;51;04
Jonathan Silvertown
So I think, I think everybody knows that that feeling of, you know, this incongruity and this resolution and it feels like this subjective feeling inside of us and it it produces laughter. And when you think about what laughter is, it’s it’s sort of a weird, like, involuntary response that we have to something that we find funny. What is laughter?00;11;51;04 – 00;11;58;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Why? Why do we. You know what’s going on there? We don’t even really think about it when we do it because it’s involuntary. Yeah.00;11;58;07 – 00;12;26;08
Eric R Olson
So it’s a really good question. So most laughter is not humorous. Um, so researchers who’ve listened in on laughter and conversation and so on find that something like two thirds of the laughter happens in conversations, the kinds of things you’ll ever hear in a bar or a cafe or wherever. Two thirds of it doesn’t come from the audience.00;12;26;08 – 00;12;42;26
Eric R Olson
It comes from the person speaking. And it’s nothing to do with the jokes I have. You know, people will occasionally laugh at their own jokes, which is a bad idea, but because it spoils the surprise. And so it’s like jokes coming off, people go, okay, so.00;12;43;12 – 00;12;51;20
Jonathan Silvertown
By the way, by the way, I think that’s my problem. I start laughing at the punchline before I say it. So thank you for that. You can.00;12;52;16 – 00;12;54;09
Eric R Olson
You just don’t do it, you know, like in.00;12;54;09 – 00;12;54;21
Jonathan Silvertown
Front of an.00;12;54;21 – 00;13;14;12
Eric R Olson
Audience, especially do it with your kids. It’s fine. And so I think so. I mean, my kids, they’re grown now. But, you know, there’s this thing about jokes, so they expect them and they’ll grow, but they’ll love you for it. So, you know, you’re playing the role of a dad to those. So, you know, don’t knock it. But what we.00;13;14;14 – 00;13;34;29
Eric R Olson
Oh, yeah. Okay, so what is laughter? So what’s interesting is you think I mean, you know, I don’t know how long the human species have in speaking, talking, I should say. But, you know, it’s it’s certainly not us, you know, it’s maybe two or 3 million years maximum, right? So we go back to our common ancestor with chimpanzees.00;13;34;29 – 00;14;08;05
Eric R Olson
Chimpanzees are our nearest living relative. That’s about six and a half million years ago. So human speech is younger than that. And there certainly wouldn’t be any jokes before the speech. There might have been visual jokes, but people and some interesting work with gorillas which show that they are intelligent enough to find things funny and funny that possibly are some gorilla jokes is a theoretical Koko who seems to have a sense of humor, but I don’t think you’d get well.00;14;08;05 – 00;14;30;15
Eric R Olson
There were even possibly puns, but they were visual puns. Mm hmm. So the that the the mental abilities was there. But of course, you need speech before you can really get going. And so it’s not would have added to something much humor that is would have been an insult to something much older than that that thing with laughter and laughter is what behavioral scientists call a play vocalization.00;14;31;14 – 00;14;57;12
Eric R Olson
And so lots of social mammals, perhaps all of them have have a play vocalization, but it sounds different in different species. Mm hmm. So what is it? Well, as the name suggests, it’s it’s the noise you make when you’re playing. And it has a function. And that function is to say, I’m chasing you. I might be sort of off, and I.00;14;57;12 – 00;15;17;02
Eric R Olson
I’m an animal. Let me play by saying you were putting your tail or whatever. But it’s not this isn’t aggression. This is play. Yeah. And the signal of that is, is this play vocalization? And the reason why I mean, the reason why this is a hypothesis science, after all.00;15;17;14 – 00;15;17;20
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;15;19;04 – 00;15;31;10
Eric R Olson
That last is contagious is because during play we want a signal back, right? If one of us is playing and one of us is being serious, then that’s kind of dangerous for it’s not play.00;15;31;21 – 00;15;31;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;15;32;09 – 00;15;52;13
Eric R Olson
So, so when, when playing, you want this continual kind of reassurance that what’s going on here, which may be quite edgy at times, is actually play and that the, the physicality is not aggressive and it’s not going to lead to something nasty.00;15;52;20 – 00;15;53;28
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;15;53;28 – 00;16;04;00
Eric R Olson
So this is. This is a very good reason why laughter would be contagious. Hmm. Because you’re essentially sharing in the mood. You’re saying, yeah, I’m playing too.00;16;05;10 – 00;16;07;16
Jonathan Silvertown
Right? So play. Yeah.00;16;08;02 – 00;16;34;25
Eric R Olson
Yeah. So play itself has a social function, which is to learn how to be a social animal when of course, you know, everything depends on it in a, in a social species, if finding a mate, finding food so that survival itself depends upon knowing how to negotiate your social interactions. And you learn that as a child, as an infant through play and laughter is one of the ways in which that’s facilitated.00;16;34;25 – 00;17;00;11
Jonathan Silvertown
I just wanted to take a moment to thank the sponsor of this episode, Flow Spark Media. So Flow Spark Media is the video based media company that I founded in 2018. In addition to producing freely available series like the one you’re listening to, we also help science and technology focused organizations to develop, create and manage their video projects.00;17;00;28 – 00;17;28;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Our clients range from major scientific publishers to SpaceX Telecom companies to stem focused educational programs. Head over to Flow, Spark, AECOM, slash creative to find out how we can help you with your next project. Now back to the show. I think the the the other social animal that humans have the most experience with is dogs and playing with dogs.00;17;28;10 – 00;17;37;02
Jonathan Silvertown
And is there a do dogs have a play vocalize ation that we would recognize?00;17;38;02 – 00;17;44;20
Eric R Olson
Well, to be honest, I’m no expert on dogs. There is a joke, which is that they laugh, but they laugh with the wrong end.00;17;45;10 – 00;17;47;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Like tails.00;17;47;29 – 00;17;59;08
Eric R Olson
So I think that question is best directed at somebody who who has a dog. For a start, I don’t have one. I mean, I see people playing with dogs and for sure they play. You see them playing with each other.00;17;59;09 – 00;17;59;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;17;59;24 – 00;18;08;09
Eric R Olson
Um, they don’t seem to do so. They don’t seem to make a lot of no, you know, my, my casual observation of the park is they don’t make an awful lot of noise.00;18;08;09 – 00;18;09;08
Jonathan Silvertown
That’s it. Yeah.00;18;10;00 – 00;18;20;05
Eric R Olson
I mean, they can, but, you know, the, the the play is not constantly accompanied by sound.00;18;20;13 – 00;18;20;26
Jonathan Silvertown
Right?00;18;21;20 – 00;18;30;13
Eric R Olson
When they get very excited, they will bark. But a lot of the time it’s it’s it seems to me to be silent. Now, somebody who knows about dogs may say that’s wrong.00;18;30;13 – 00;18;45;29
Jonathan Silvertown
But yeah. So in the book you talk about this really interesting experience where researchers were playing a game of hide and seek with rats. Could you talk a little bit about that and explain what they were doing there?00;18;47;13 – 00;19;17;18
Eric R Olson
Yeah, so there was a really interesting paper a few years ago in Science up by some German researchers, and the Germans actually have a good sense of humor against stereotype. Just there’s some experiments that demonstrate this. It’s a great German joke, I can tell you, too. And they taught rats, lab rats to play hide and seek. Um, how long does it take to teach a rat to play hide and seek?00;19;17;20 – 00;19;30;09
Eric R Olson
Apparently about two weeks. So if you scale that by the lifetime of a rock, which is two or three years, it’s about a year to teach. A year of life. You’re right. But the equivalent of.00;19;30;09 – 00;19;30;23
Jonathan Silvertown
Rattling.00;19;31;06 – 00;19;55;20
Eric R Olson
My dog is, you know. Anyway, so, so but they get it. They get it. And of course, in hindsight, there are two roles. There’s the seeking role and there’s the hiding role. And the experiment is alternated one with the other and rats squeak. It seems to be their play vocalization. How do we know this? Well, they do it when they’re playing with each other.00;19;55;20 – 00;20;11;25
Eric R Olson
And if you tickle them, they make this noise. But it’s ultrasonic. Ultrasonic. So you can’t hear it with without technology or a small child probably could hear them. And because they can hear.00;20;11;27 – 00;20;14;08
Jonathan Silvertown
Oh, yes, that’s much higher rate.00;20;14;16 – 00;20;19;24
Eric R Olson
Not ultrasound, but much higher frequencies than adults count.00;20;19;25 – 00;20;20;15
Jonathan Silvertown
Right. Right.00;20;20;15 – 00;20;32;22
Eric R Olson
And it turns out that these rats, when they were seeking or squeaking away and taking their play vocalization, but they when they were hiding, they were quiet. And that is just.00;20;32;22 – 00;20;35;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Such an amazing result.00;20;36;06 – 00;20;57;13
Eric R Olson
But they they they obviously knew they were hiding and this was all being done. You know, the reward was just to be stroked. All right. It was cute. It was it was just it was all social. It was all social. And yeah. So this play vocalization thing is interesting.00;20;57;13 – 00;21;12;05
Jonathan Silvertown
And you and there is some sort of connection. You mentioned the rats being stroked, but there’s a connection between tickling and laughter. And that’s part and tickling is part of play. Is that how those things are connected together?00;21;13;04 – 00;21;38;09
Eric R Olson
Yes. So Darwin actually wrote a little bit about this in his book on the expression of emotions in animals and man. And he said that humor is like a tickling of the mind. He said it was extraordinary how how similar it was. And I, I think, you know, that’s I can’t think of a better, a better way of describing it, actually.00;21;38;12 – 00;21;38;23
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;21;39;06 – 00;21;49;10
Eric R Olson
Um, yeah. So Darwin, the most prescient scientist I’ve ever heard of, anticipate all kinds of things.00;21;49;10 – 00;21;50;05
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, yeah.00;21;51;05 – 00;21;52;23
Eric R Olson
But you how it us did you realize.00;21;52;23 – 00;21;54;17
Jonathan Silvertown
That but yeah.00;21;54;18 – 00;21;54;28
Eric R Olson
Anyway.00;21;55;18 – 00;21;56;20
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah so it’s.00;21;57;02 – 00;22;23;07
Eric R Olson
So yeah these things are linked and from an evolutionary perspective, the play vocalization came way before humor. And so the laughter came before the humor. At some point, laughter in the humor got attached to each other. And then the triggers are things like jokes and so on. Obviously there’s a cultural much, much later. So there is a sort of evolutionary timescale you can put to the different elements of humor.00;22;23;07 – 00;22;47;29
Eric R Olson
And the thing about evolution is that, of course, it operates in little steps, so you wouldn’t expect it all to appear in one go, right? There are some things that occurred first that could be quite ancients, ancient. So I mean, play vocalizations are probably 20 billion years old. It’s all the same as the apes and monkeys or and then, you know, humor, humorous laughter, probably.00;22;48;08 – 00;22;53;09
Eric R Olson
No older than speech. So one can put things in an order.00;22;53;17 – 00;23;18;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. So. So what you’re saying is or what I understand is that evolution can only build on what’s already there. So to go from this put play tickling, play, vocalization, and then it’s some point it gets attached to language, which is what you mean by humor, correct?00;23;18;02 – 00;23;34;18
Eric R Olson
Well, I mean, you can have non vocal or verbal humor, right? Right. We already discussed those things. Right. So I’m guessing that before people were telling each other jokes, they were laughing at people. You know, you’re about to sit down a rock. Somebody Brooks pulls a rock away.00;23;35;29 – 00;23;38;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Funny. Yeah.00;23;38;02 – 00;23;40;04
Eric R Olson
Before anybody knew what the word for rock was.00;23;40;10 – 00;24;12;15
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes. So so maybe that’s the maybe that’s the connection and the play to the visual or you know, sensory humor puns or whatever. And then and then into connection, connecting that to language that maybe that’s the intermediary step between those two. Yeah, we’ve got humor, we’ve, we’ve got incongruity. We’re attaching this incongruity to play. But then humor has also this connection to sexual selection.00;24;13;09 – 00;24;30;00
Jonathan Silvertown
So could you like walk us through that? Because I, I think even after I had read your book, I was still like, why, why? Why does play and tickling the mind and connect to sexual how does that connect to sexual selection?00;24;31;00 – 00;24;51;09
Eric R Olson
Well, that’s a very good question. And I’m sort of a core of the book. So essentially the idea is that why why do we perform humor? What what what function does so so, you know, okay, people laugh in response to jokes, but. So what?00;24;51;18 – 00;24;51;28
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;24;51;28 – 00;25;21;21
Eric R Olson
I mean, you know what? Why why should you tell jokes? Because you like to hear the laughter. What’s going on there? And the hypothesis that I put forward in the book and it’s not original to me, but it hasn’t been very widely talked about, is that actually what you’re doing is displaying something else? So if you think about the peacock’s tail, you know, famously the peacock’s tail p hens are very boring looking gray know dowdy birds.00;25;22;15 – 00;25;45;02
Eric R Olson
The male, the peacock has got this ridiculous train which it rattles around and the males get together in what’s called a lark, you know, display. And then the females choose which wants to meet with depending on it appears, you know how impressed they are by the, by, by the train, by the display. So imagine humor being similar but operating in both directions.00;25;45;02 – 00;26;11;21
Eric R Olson
Because I’m not saying here is just males displaying to females. It’s both sexes. Yeah. Deciding you know, whether they like this or that person as a mate. Well, why would you even think about this? Well, simply because if you ask people what they look for in a mate and in the days before, you know, Tinder and all those sorts of things, people advertised and left a record in newsprint as to what they were looking for.00;26;12;00 – 00;26;37;17
Eric R Olson
There was this thing called GSO h good sense of humor. Now, when men said they wanted a good sense of humor, they usually meant they wanted a woman who lost their jokes, and women tended to to mean they wanted somebody who would make them laugh. Um, I mean, that’s, that could be a prejudice on my part, but actually it’s supported by, by some evidence.00;26;37;18 – 00;26;55;10
Eric R Olson
So there definitely was an asymmetry there. So what you mean by good sense of humor may vary depending on whether you’re telling it or hearing it, but I think that these are similar enough that actually it’s the same thing, essentially. Yeah. So. LAUGHTER is this is this way of of creating empathy with somebody?00;26;55;16 – 00;26;55;25
Jonathan Silvertown
Mm hmm.00;26;57;00 – 00;27;07;27
Eric R Olson
And cross-cultural studies have shown that it applies, you know, in 40 or 50 different languages and cultures. It really is up there in the top three.00;27;08;06 – 00;27;10;22
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. Uh, so.00;27;10;23 – 00;27;13;05
Eric R Olson
Interesting for both sexes.00;27;14;00 – 00;27;14;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;27;14;15 – 00;27;20;17
Eric R Olson
So, uh, okay, so this is a pretty big clue that it’s something to do with mate choice.00;27;20;17 – 00;27;20;28
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;27;21;07 – 00;27;49;15
Eric R Olson
And an evolutionary biologist goes, Hey, mate choice. Okay, I know how that works. Darwin called it sexual selection. He invented this well discovered. Shall we say, this this process, his second greatest idea after natural selection. It’s a form of natural selection. Right. And basically it says that things that colloquially make you sexy get selected for right. Because you get more mates, natural, more offspring.00;27;49;24 – 00;28;13;12
Eric R Olson
And the energetic tendency towards that trait, such as a big tail with flashy markings all over it, will be perpetuated. And well, it’s a whole field of evolutionary biology in itself, but. Okay, so why. Yeah. So it’s a weird thing isn’t it, for somebody to say they want.00;28;13;25 – 00;28;15;27
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody yeah.00;28;16;10 – 00;28;17;19
Eric R Olson
I mean yeah, yeah.00;28;17;20 – 00;28;31;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Why, yeah. Like, why is that. Why would that be so attractive? Why, why, why? Why, why would so, so electing mates on that basis. Yeah, that’s, that’s essentially a play behavior you know, like as we’ve talked. Yeah, that’s.00;28;31;02 – 00;28;51;18
Eric R Olson
So I want, I want to have children with somebody who plays right. It doesn’t make sense, does it. You’ve got to mean something else. And so the idea of this hypothesis is that actually being good at making people laugh is an important social skill, and it reflects intelligence.00;28;51;24 – 00;28;52;21
Jonathan Silvertown
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.00;28;53;03 – 00;28;56;29
Eric R Olson
So which is a measure of wits?00;28;57;20 – 00;28;59;10
Jonathan Silvertown
Uh huh.00;28;59;10 – 00;29;13;25
Eric R Olson
Okay. And so, you know, you could you could set all your all your prospective mates an intelligence test that might take a while, but much better. Much more fun to see if I can make you laugh.00;29;14;02 – 00;29;14;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;29;14;22 – 00;29;24;00
Eric R Olson
And there’s quite a lot of evidence in support of this, including some work that shows that being funny does correlate with intelligence.00;29;24;03 – 00;29;24;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;29;25;16 – 00;29;36;23
Eric R Olson
And so, uh, yeah, this is the hypothesis in the book. Yeah, a lot of it the second half of the book essentially about examining this idea.00;29;37;02 – 00;29;38;06
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;29;38;06 – 00;29;39;10
Eric R Olson
So and.00;29;39;19 – 00;29;41;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. So let me so is does that.00;29;41;29 – 00;29;44;06
Eric R Olson
Make it clearer to you? I don’t know, but yeah.00;29;44;06 – 00;30;24;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes, absolutely. You also mentioned something in the book about debugging, which I thought was interesting that that maybe you’re displaying. Well, if we think of if we think of what intelligence is, or at least as I understand it, is it has to do with pattern recognition. So if you’re able to detect patterns of incongruity or create these patterns of incongruity for other people, maybe that’s how that’s connected to intelligence that you’re somehow able to detect these things, because if you’re not very smart, there’s a lot of jokes that you’re not even going to pick up on, right?00;30;24;11 – 00;30;32;20
Jonathan Silvertown
You’re not even gonna notice the, the incongruity to then to, to benefit from the feeling you get from the resolution of it. Right.00;30;33;14 – 00;30;57;09
Eric R Olson
Let me come to that in just one moment, but I’ll say one more thing about the that the sexy hypothesis, which is the following, that in evolutionary biology, things like the peacocks train that are sexually selected must always, in fact involve a cost to the displaying animal to the male if it’s a male or female. If it’s a female, why?00;30;57;09 – 00;31;20;00
Eric R Olson
Because if it doesn’t involve a cost, you can cheat. Well, I mean, if you can have a clip on tail that you bought down the market, if I put in an offset or you can wave around the palm fronds, you know, and the female will react as though it was a tail. It’s worthless as a signal because it isn’t correlated with some intrinsic value in the prospective mate and how good a mate you’ll be right?00;31;20;17 – 00;31;52;14
Eric R Olson
Whether you have nice babies or lots of babies or whatever it might be. So humor fulfills this purpose as well, because it’s actually difficult to tell. To do good humor. It’s actually risky. It’s risky. You talk to listen to any any, any stand up comedian talking about things. And every time they go off on that stage, they are really putting themselves on the line because you never know whether it’s one or two people act as we are or a big audience.00;31;52;14 – 00;31;57;04
Eric R Olson
And you tell a joke and nobody laughs. That’s a pretty uncomfortable feeling.00;31;57;16 – 00;31;59;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, it’s a.00;31;59;11 – 00;32;24;04
Eric R Olson
Pretty good demonstration that you haven’t really read the room, you haven’t got the nous, the wit to interact. And, you know, the ladies go or the men go by. So look, come here. You don’t want to hear. So, okay, so that all kind of makes sense. It fits into conventional evolution, understanding of sexually selective traits really well. Okay, but what else could be going on?00;32;25;09 – 00;33;05;00
Eric R Olson
So that was this prior hypothesis, which was that actually what’s going on is that the incongruity that’s being spotted in humor is a way of actually spotting mistakes. So if you if you imagine the world being like computer code and where there are bugs, it’s dangerous. The code will fail. You know, you’ll cross the road, but you’re not the wrong way before crossing.00;33;05;01 – 00;33;07;21
Eric R Olson
That’s a really serious error, which could cost you your life.00;33;07;23 – 00;33;08;19
Jonathan Silvertown
Right? Right.00;33;08;28 – 00;33;16;24
Eric R Olson
So. So being able to spot bugs, incongruities could be lifesaving, right?00;33;16;26 – 00;33;17;07
Jonathan Silvertown
Right.00;33;17;10 – 00;33;31;09
Eric R Olson
And because humor involves exactly that, creating an incongruity which is then resolved that people laugh, maybe evolved out of a mechanism for debugging.00;33;31;13 – 00;33;33;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Right, right. Right. Now.00;33;34;01 – 00;33;36;22
Eric R Olson
That’s a very neat idea, but it has a major flaw.00;33;36;29 – 00;33;37;10
Jonathan Silvertown
Okay.00;33;37;14 – 00;34;04;04
Eric R Olson
And the major flaw is that it works on dangerous incongruities. Right. So you should find having a narrow you should think it’s hilarious that this bus nearly ran you down because you look the wrong way or you thought it was 100 yards away and it was actually a small bus much closer or whatever, you know? I mean, you can imagine this.00;34;04;12 – 00;34;04;22
Eric R Olson
Okay.00;34;04;27 – 00;34;05;09
Jonathan Silvertown
Sure.00;34;06;01 – 00;34;12;12
Eric R Olson
What’s fascinating about humor is only works if the incongruities are essentially trivial.00;34;13;03 – 00;34;14;07
Jonathan Silvertown
Right? Right, right.00;34;14;16 – 00;34;37;12
Eric R Olson
So you might laugh out of nervousness if somebody pulls a knife on you or something, but you’re not going to laugh because it’s funny. Right. So. Right. So let’s make that clear. That one, you know, that every time you laugh doesn’t mean there’s something funny going on, right? That’s not funny. Ha, ha. That’s not the case. We’re talking here about humorous laughter and humorous laughter only occurs.00;34;37;12 – 00;35;03;03
Eric R Olson
And Darwin observed this again in what I mentioned in his book on emotions that one of the conditions for laughter in response to humor was There must be a it must be a serious situation. People should be in the mood, and it must be a matter of huge importance, right? Like I run out of money or my phones go flat, whatever.00;35;03;05 – 00;35;05;06
Eric R Olson
I mean, things that you think are serious.00;35;05;11 – 00;35;06;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, yeah, yeah.00;35;06;17 – 00;35;10;11
Eric R Olson
Matter to this is essentially going to be trivial things.00;35;10;19 – 00;35;11;00
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;35;11;17 – 00;35;40;14
Eric R Olson
So that then in my mind anyway that refutes the debunking hypothesis because if you bugging hypothesis, the whole purpose of this is to get rid of the dangerous bugs and to test the mind or the mind of the other person. So the ability to get rid of dangerous books but it only works on trivia, right? So I reckon that hypothesis has got so many hypotheses about humor have have got some of the the idea, correct.00;35;40;14 – 00;35;40;28
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;35;40;29 – 00;35;53;15
Eric R Olson
I mean, yeah, yeah. The incongruity is important, but it’s not important in a sense per say, but because of what it demonstrates. Which is, which is if you follow my, my, my reasoning.00;35;53;21 – 00;35;54;01
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;35;55;17 – 00;35;56;27
Eric R Olson
Intelligence.00;35;56;27 – 00;36;26;18
Jonathan Silvertown
So, so it’s sort of this idea that in terms of sexual selection, that if your if you’re kind of testing your partner for this ability to to detect these incongruities, you knew that when when a real serious situation comes along, that they would be able to handle that because you’ve sort of tested them with these these smaller, trivial items.00;36;26;18 – 00;36;34;22
Eric R Olson
But yeah, but there’s no there’s no reason why if they can spot trivial errors, you know, they’re going to be good at the big stuff. I mean.00;36;34;23 – 00;36;35;06
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;36;35;27 – 00;36;38;28
Eric R Olson
So this is where I have a problem with that hypothesis, right?00;36;39;05 – 00;36;39;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Right.00;36;39;19 – 00;36;47;01
Eric R Olson
It, it, it fails at the very point on which humorists, which is you laugh at.00;36;47;24 – 00;36;48;03
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;36;48;15 – 00;36;56;29
Eric R Olson
Right. Right. So I mean, you know, put a chair away from somebody. They fall over fine if they fold over a cliff. That’s not funny. So.00;36;58;14 – 00;36;58;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, you.00;36;58;29 – 00;37;04;06
Eric R Olson
Know, it’s, it’s got to be trivial. We’ve only got a fall of a foot, right? 100 feet. No.00;37;05;25 – 00;37;20;29
Jonathan Silvertown
So you’re so you’re more you you think that the this idea that it’s just more of a test for general intelligence is is a better hypothesis for. Well, that’s why this is so accepted.00;37;21;17 – 00;37;36;14
Eric R Olson
Yeah, that’s right. So there’s some work that does show a correlation between humor, ability and intelligence. It’s not the best. I mean, the thing about social science research is that you repeat it, you get a different result. So I’m not going to say it’s nailed down.00;37;36;21 – 00;37;37;10
Jonathan Silvertown
Right. But.00;37;38;00 – 00;37;42;02
Eric R Olson
Um, the evidence is there and I discuss it in my book.00;37;42;02 – 00;37;42;10
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;37;42;16 – 00;37;45;23
Eric R Olson
In a humorous way.00;37;45;23 – 00;38;11;22
Jonathan Silvertown
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Jonathan Silvertown
Sign up today using the promo code science centric and you’ll receive 25% off any new hosting plan. So I wanted to switch switch directions a little bit here and talk about the social function of humor. And we did touch on that. I mean, obviously, you know, interactions between potential partners is is a social activity. But but but what role does humor have in terms of, you know, a group of people?00;38;47;07 – 00;38;48;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Do we do we have any sense of that?00;38;48;29 – 00;39;17;27
Eric R Olson
So, yes. So this has also been subject to some research, of course. And of course it has. And there’s some fascinating things that have been revealed. So people who laugh together feel closer to me. I mean, we’ve all felt this. I guess it needs research, but it has been research. They feel closer to each other. They tend to have better interactions with other people soon afterwards.00;39;19;19 – 00;39;49;11
Eric R Olson
So it just improves your mood. Of course, there are people who who kind of, you know, slug it as a therapy. So there’s some evidence for the act of laughter. I mean, just laughing. I mean, even without it being humorous, laughter has some physiological benefits and being a play vocalization, whether it’s stimulated by humor or whatever else, it does have this cohesive effect.00;39;49;11 – 00;40;19;13
Eric R Olson
It doesn’t have this with this effect. Of course, there are other functions as well, particularly a verbal humor while verbal. And so cartoons and things. So it can be it can be dismissive, it can be haughty. You know, you can laugh at somebody, um, so I don’t want to say think of racist and sexist jokes. I most certainly not going to say any I don’t in the book, but we they exist.00;40;19;21 – 00;40;26;09
Eric R Olson
We’ve heard them and they are used by people to put other people down. Right. So that is a function of humor.00;40;27;07 – 00;40;27;29
Jonathan Silvertown
In social.00;40;27;29 – 00;40;31;09
Eric R Olson
As in it’s what people use it for. I’m not advocating it.00;40;31;17 – 00;40;41;17
Jonathan Silvertown
So in that sense, it’s it’s saying like, look, we’re superior to that group, so we’re going to make fun of that group because look at us. Ha ha. We’re better than that.00;40;41;27 – 00;40;42;17
Eric R Olson
Yeah, exactly.00;40;42;17 – 00;40;42;26
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;40;42;26 – 00;41;08;02
Eric R Olson
I mean, you know, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes actually said that’s what humor was. That was the top the the you know, the the beginning and the end of it, you know, things that things of course, he was quite notorious for his rather bleak view on life, which he said was so brutal and short that that, you know, humor was essentially about putting people down.00;41;08;08 – 00;41;08;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;41;08;26 – 00;41;18;24
Eric R Olson
Well, you know, again, it can be, but it’s the essence of it. The essence is incongruity and etc.. We’ve gone over to another function is subversion.00;41;19;11 – 00;41;19;24
Jonathan Silvertown
Mm hmm.00;41;20;03 – 00;41;56;00
Eric R Olson
So essentially this is different from punching down and punching up. So racism, sexism, punches down, subversive humor punches up. Right? Right. So there was a Tunisian dictator who was displaced in power and he goes into a shoe shop to buy a new pair of boots and the the shoe salesman says, yes, sir, yes, sir. And immediately comes out with exactly the right size shoe, the right size of boots.00;41;56;00 – 00;42;12;03
Eric R Olson
The dictator says, that’s amazing. How did you know what size shoe I take? He said, Well, you’ve been stomping on us for so long. We all know what size boots you think it’s multiplier like. So I mean, there are many others.00;42;12;17 – 00;42;13;00
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes.00;42;13;00 – 00;42;22;29
Eric R Olson
And, you know, it’s a test of open society, in my opinion, as to whether the government can find those kinds of things funny.00;42;23;11 – 00;42;26;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Right. Right.00;42;26;13 – 00;42;40;05
Eric R Olson
So, you know, in Britain, it’s actually, you know, most of the time our politicians who are at times mercilessly made fun of actually do find it funny. I mean, they like to pretend they find it funny.00;42;40;14 – 00;42;41;17
Jonathan Silvertown
They don’t not.00;42;41;29 – 00;42;45;02
Eric R Olson
Done to to actually show that it got to you. Right?00;42;45;12 – 00;42;45;23
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;42;45;23 – 00;42;53;06
Eric R Olson
But you try telling a joke about about President Xi and China and you’ll find a very different reaction in dealing with Burma.00;42;54;00 – 00;42;54;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes.00;42;54;22 – 00;42;58;20
Eric R Olson
So so there are places where humor did go.00;43;00;13 – 00;43;20;18
Jonathan Silvertown
Do you think that those, you know, very authoritarian places in the world particularly stomp on humor because they see it as that, because it does have that social bonding quality to it, that that that you could subvert a government if you get enough.00;43;20;18 – 00;43;29;01
Eric R Olson
People say that if somebody tells a joke against Hitler, you know, during the Nazi Reich, it’s a pretty good way of identifying the people you should shoot. It’s like.00;43;29;03 – 00;43;31;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Oh, right, right. So right. I mean.00;43;32;06 – 00;43;40;13
Eric R Olson
You know, the Nazis did actually do that. They had a law against filing jokes against the right. Yeah. People people were killed for. Yeah. For it, you know.00;43;40;13 – 00;43;40;21
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;43;42;22 – 00;44;07;20
Jonathan Silvertown
Well, I, I know that, you know, there’s a, there’s a famous book by this kind of 1960s radical Saul Alinsky. I forget the its rules for radicals. And I know that in that book, one of the one of the big things he he highlights is satirizing, you know, the people that use satire. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that you want to sort of, you know, neutralize politically.00;44;07;20 – 00;44;20;11
Jonathan Silvertown
So I do I do think that maybe humor is unique in that sense, that it has that ability, whereas, you know, direct argumentation is does not.00;44;20;11 – 00;44;26;20
Eric R Olson
Yeah, I think it works to us to a degree, but these days we have politicians who satirize themselves.00;44;27;19 – 00;44;27;24
Jonathan Silvertown
And.00;44;27;27 – 00;45;04;06
Eric R Olson
Seem to be, you know, talking about and I mean, Tom Lehrer, hilarious. Michael Song’s a professor of mathematics at Harvard, Stocked singing songs and writing funny songs. He said that that he couldn’t do it anymore because, you know, the the political world was sort of satirizing itself. And he just he couldn’t compete of what’s on this. And, you know, he stopped.00;45;04;06 – 00;45;13;06
Eric R Olson
Well, you know, it’s such a disappointment. This is a long time ago now you a recording set on YouTube, etc.. Absolutely hilarious.00;45;13;18 – 00;45;13;28
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;45;13;28 – 00;45;14;27
Eric R Olson
So yeah.00;45;14;27 – 00;45;38;23
Jonathan Silvertown
But yeah, well, I was thinking also yeah, I was thinking of like, you know, John Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show or former host The Daily Show during the Bush years. I mean, he was just savage. I mean, but people started to watch him instead of, you know, the cable news networks because it was just more entertaining to watch him, you know, roast these politicians.00;45;38;23 – 00;45;58;14
Jonathan Silvertown
So I think, you know, somehow can be so effective it in political change if you want, which is which is an interesting function. If you think then about all these other things that humor does in terms of sexual selection and play, and maybe it’s just maybe because it’s fun, it’s playful, you know, I don’t know.00;45;59;20 – 00;46;04;10
Eric R Olson
Yeah, but I mean, this, this, you know, and yet another style of humor is, is self-deprecating humor.00;46;04;18 – 00;46;05;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Mhm.00;46;06;10 – 00;46;22;16
Eric R Olson
So yeah, I mean I like to use self-deprecating humor too. Yeah. I’m not very good at it. Um, uh, and some, some, some stand ups, you know, essentially, but they operate entirely on the, on that.00;46;22;16 – 00;46;25;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. Rodney Dangerfield being there, it sort of.00;46;25;23 – 00;46;29;08
Eric R Olson
Can be used by politicians to make themselves seem human.00;46;29;16 – 00;46;30;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Right. Right.00;46;30;06 – 00;46;47;27
Eric R Olson
So, you know, I don’t think it’s as simple as, you know, satire undermines in some ways, it diffuses things, too. If you can’t laugh at yourself in a sentence, you diffuse the power of satire. Right. It’s only if you get really upset about it that people think, okay, we’ve got you now.00;46;48;03 – 00;46;52;03
Jonathan Silvertown
You know, that’s on the pile on starts.00;46;53;02 – 00;46;53;13
Eric R Olson
Yeah.00;46;55;10 – 00;47;11;05
Jonathan Silvertown
One actually one thing I want to back up a little bit talking about, you know, sexual selection and humor. Has anyone ever done a study to see if stand up comics have more sex or more sex partners than than the average person?00;47;12;14 – 00;47;37;24
Eric R Olson
Um, that is a study to see if they live longer and they, they don’t, uh, I don’t recall one that asks about sex. It’s possibly a difficult study to do. Uh, people, people notoriously don’t tell the truth about how much sex they.00;47;38;06 – 00;47;40;04
Jonathan Silvertown
That’s true. That’s very true. Yeah.00;47;40;28 – 00;47;41;11
Eric R Olson
Yeah.00;47;41;11 – 00;47;50;24
Jonathan Silvertown
So it would be hard to do well if there are any, any, you know, psychologists out there listening. There’s your study. I want to see it.00;47;50;24 – 00;47;51;14
Eric R Olson
There you go.00;47;51;18 – 00;48;19;09
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah. Sorry for the interruption. I swear. I swear. This is the last one. I just wanted to tell you about the reading room that we have set up over at Science Intercom. It’s a page dedicated to cool science and nature books, many of them written by authors who have appeared on this show. Any book you purchase through the links on the page directly supports the podcast and the other amazing projects we have in the works.00;48;19;22 – 00;48;55;27
Jonathan Silvertown
The nice thing is there’s no cost to you. So if you’d like to see a nice collection of science books that you can purchase, head over to science centric dot com and out our reading room. One other thing I just wanted to touch on, we’re we’re talking a little bit about the political aspects of humor is, you know, a lot of of famous comedians have kind of bemoaned lately that they feel like they’re in an environment where they can’t tell jokes like they used to, you know, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle.00;48;56;25 – 00;49;04;00
Jonathan Silvertown
And there’s this concern about being canceled, you know, online. Do you have any any thoughts? Well.00;49;04;12 – 00;49;25;04
Eric R Olson
I think I mean, I think more generally, you know, it is worrying when people can’t. And I’m not talking about expressing racist or sexist views, but views that are simply some way outside the norm. So I’m not talking here about allowing people to be sexist or racist. We could discuss that separately. I mean, I have a firm view that it shouldn’t it shouldn’t happen.00;49;25;14 – 00;49;53;07
Eric R Olson
But when people talk about, you know, I mean, about gender, for example, and there was a well-known actor in Britain who was gay, who said recently that, oh, I think he said on Twitter that, you know, when he was young and just kind of discovering his sexuality, somebody could easily have convinced him that he he was transgender, whereas actually he was he was gay.00;49;53;25 – 00;49;54;06
Jonathan Silvertown
Right.00;49;55;05 – 00;50;15;23
Eric R Olson
And he was being honest. I mean, you know, and if somebody is being honest and not trying to put anybody else down, they shouldn’t be counseled for it, in my view. And he was I mean, he was pilloried for for saying this because he he you know, he was he was regarded as being transphobic.00;50;16;08 – 00;50;17;00
Jonathan Silvertown
Right. Right.00;50;17;18 – 00;50;35;21
Eric R Olson
You know, so this this kind of bothers me because I don’t think it does anybody good, least of all trans people, seem to not face these things in a serious way. Now, somebody may cancel me for this reason. So for telling you this in on the internet, but if so, that would prove my point.00;50;36;02 – 00;50;36;11
Jonathan Silvertown
Right.00;50;38;05 – 00;50;57;10
Eric R Olson
And so I think in case of some of these comedians, maybe they are saying things they shouldn’t be saying. Yeah, maybe. You know, it’s an edgy business and I’m not going to set myself up as a kind of judge of this. But yeah, I do think that free speech is important.00;50;57;22 – 00;51;02;27
Jonathan Silvertown
Right? And not necessarily just humor, but other form of.00;51;03;05 – 00;51;07;08
Eric R Olson
That isn’t to say that you should be allowed to incite violence or hate.00;51;07;17 – 00;51;07;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Right?00;51;08;09 – 00;51;10;12
Eric R Olson
That still leaves an awful lot of room.00;51;10;25 – 00;51;11;02
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah.00;51;11;11 – 00;51;13;06
Eric R Olson
Free speech on other issues.00;51;13;06 – 00;51;39;24
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes. Yeah, I 100% agree. I think, you know, where where where it’s difficult is is what how people define, you know, what’s what’s racist, what’s, you know, what their tolerance is for a particular brand of humor. And that’s going to be a little bit different for everybody. But I think in a in a pluralistic society, like you said, I mean, you have to make room for people holding different views to some degree.00;51;40;00 – 00;51;46;23
Jonathan Silvertown
But then there are some things that are out of bounds. And then we argue about, well, what’s out of bounds and what’s in bounds. And so it’s it’s tricky.00;51;47;21 – 00;51;50;15
Eric R Olson
Yeah. Well, what’s important is that we actually have that discussion.00;51;50;26 – 00;51;52;10
Jonathan Silvertown
Yes, but it comes down.00;51;52;10 – 00;51;56;15
Eric R Olson
If it’s closed down, then we’re not having the discussion. I don’t think anybody wins or not.00;51;56;25 – 00;52;11;15
Jonathan Silvertown
Yeah, I 100% agree with that. Yeah, it’s, you know, just if you just say, oh, well, you know, you’re racist or you’re chancellor. And then it’s like, well, that ends the discussion. I guess we can’t discuss, you know, why you think that or yeah, I think you’re right.00;52;13;22 – 00;52;38;08
Jonathan Silvertown
So my final question kind of in that vein is, you know, do you think that humor is essential, essential for a functioning society? Do you think we need humor? Do you think we need more humor? Are there are there societies that have become I mean, you talked a little bit about, you know, Hitler. I mean, are there societies that have become humorless and.00;52;38;21 – 00;52;39;11
Eric R Olson
Sort of, oh.00;52;39;14 – 00;52;40;07
Jonathan Silvertown
Fall apart? I mean.00;52;40;07 – 00;52;43;23
Eric R Olson
The the you know, the Nazis had jokes, but they weren’t very nice jokes.00;52;44;20 – 00;52;46;16
Jonathan Silvertown
Right.00;52;46;16 – 00;53;12;08
Eric R Olson
I mean, you could imagine the kind of jokes they had. Right. So I don’t think I don’t think you can actually expunge humor. I really don’t. I mean, you know, even if you manage to stop people telling jokes about about about you because you’re, you know, a president of some autocratic society, they’ll they’ll still find some some way around it.00;53;12;12 – 00;53;42;24
Eric R Olson
Right. I mean, and so I think I think it is deep in our in our psyche because not surprisingly, because you think about what it’s based on. It’s based upon play. Yeah. And play vocalization and, and, and, you know, something in our brains that recognizes incongruous ity so, you know, you can’t expunge that there are people who can’t laugh.00;53;43;22 – 00;53;56;19
Eric R Olson
You know, it’s a medical condition. But, you know, that’s interesting, isn’t it, that it’s actually you know, it’s a medical condition. There is something wrong there. Yeah. So I guess that’s that’s the kind of answer to your question.00;53;56;28 – 00;54;01;24
Jonathan Silvertown
It’s fun. Fundamental to being human. Yeah, I yes. In the same way that language is.00;54;02;18 – 00;54;02;26
Eric R Olson
Yeah.00;54;03;07 – 00;54;24;04
Jonathan Silvertown
Great. Yeah. All right, great. Well, this is this has been really fascinating. Your book is out, I think, in September. It’s called The Comedy of Error. And also, where can people find you in the digital space? Do you have a website? So I.00;54;24;05 – 00;54;35;02
Eric R Olson
Do. So my Twitter handle is at J w Silver Town and uh, my website is Jonathan Silver Town dot com.00;54;35;28 – 00;54;44;23
Jonathan Silvertown
All right. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Jonathan. It’s been really a pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I’m glad we were able to work a couple of jokes in there. So that’s great.00;54;46;06 – 00;54;48;12
Eric R Olson
Bye.00;54;49;19 – 00;55;08;29
Jonathan Silvertown
Well, that’s it for this show. I don’t know about you, but I really want someone to do that study on the sex lives of stand up comics. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to write us a review on iTunes or whichever platform you happen to be listening on. Also, remember, you can support us directly on Patreon and through purchases made on our website.00;55;09;17 – 00;55;33;13
Jonathan Silvertown
Head over to science centric dot com slash support for more info. Science centric is a flow spark media production. Our producer this episode was Alexander James. Guest booking was handled by Melissa David. Until next time, I’m Eric Olson.