Are Men Funnier Than Women?

From the university that gave you a degree program in surfing comes another hot button research topic – one that is certain to please all the people who pay taxes to public universities and students/parents who pay the costs of sending young people to the hallowed halls of academe.  Researchers have conducted a study to determine if men or women are funnier.  I’ll wager you are not laughing about this, right?

The University of California at San Diego decided to let a researcher tickle our funny bones by spending time researching the subject of male/female humor and which gender is funnier.  Funny, I never thought that would be a topic worthy of research, but apparently the great minds at the University of California – which has and is undergoing tremendous budget reductions – thought this was just a great idea.

Men Funnier, But Not By Much

At any rate, the great discovery is that men are slightly funnier than women – by a whopping two percent.  Isn’t that hilarious?  The researchers had thought that a man’s humor is something like the feathers on a peacock, a deer’s rack of antlers, or something like that because it serves to attract the opposite sex.  Not so, say these laughing (or laughable) researchers.  There’s such a slight difference – that amazing two percent – that it’s not possible that laughter is a major factor in wooing and cooing to attract a mate.  I guess it’s back to dinner and a movie then, right?

Cartoon Captions

Here’s how this powerful study was conducted.  The researchers had groups of men and women write captions for New Yorker magazine cartoons.  The cartoons and the captions were then shown to another group of men and women.  The latter group was asked to rate the captions/cartoons thus producing scores.  It doesn’t seem like a good way to determine if a man or woman is funnier and ready to hit the standup comedy stage, but the researchers claim this was a good scientifically controlled strategy.

According to the rankings the men just eked out the women in tickling the funny bone.  If you want more results, hold on here they come.  Men found other men more funny, but by so little a margin that the researchers found it proof positive that the men could not launch a humor fusillade sufficient to attract anything more than flies, let alone a woman.  Another finding was that men used profanity and sex to color their funny captions, much more than women.  What a surprise!

The researchers said they plan to continue their research to undercover the secret of why men might be funnier.  Why they would want to do this, or why the university would let them is anyone’s guess.

So, what are we to make of this research?  That scientists are not funny?  That they will always find some publication willing to publish their inane research?  That tenure and promotion in academe defies reason when it comes to research?

How about the researchers be confined to a locked room and be forced to watch and listen several days of Henny Youngman routines?  Better yet, Rodney Dangerfield – take these researchers, please!

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