# On the nature of humor

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-nature-of-humor/264578>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 15, 2004, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-nature-of-humor/264578 "2004-09-15T18:40:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-nature-of-humor/264578/21 "2004-09-18T20:43:01Z")

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> [@Captain Amazing](#):
>
> Except political science is all about falsification. Here are parts of the abstracts from the most recent Journal of American Political Science:
> 
> Those are from the abstracts of just a few of the articles in the most recent Journal. You’ll note that in each article, the writers develop a hypothesis, and then test the hypothesis by data analysis. You can find the Journal here:
> 
> [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=showIssues&code=ajps](http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=showIssues&code=ajps)

Thanks for the information and the link, Captain. The American Journal of Political Science appears to be a publication of the [Midwest Poltical Science Association](http://www.mwpsa.org/content/default.aspx), where we can find the more mundane political articles that we lay people are used to seeing, like [Armed Females of America Endorses Aaron Russo for President](http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/5/prweb128231.php). Looking over what you’ve cited, though, I’d characterize it more as metadata analysis than scientific experiment. For example, it has been the perception of many sensible people for a long time that the two major parties were converging into homogeny; your journal writers merely confirm it. But don’t be bothered if Popper did not include your field of study in his rather rigorous test for science. It is not necessary that a discipline be Popperian to be significant. Both politics and science are branches of philosophy.

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**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-nature-of-humor/264578/22 "2004-09-18T20:59:53Z")

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> [@Liberal](#):
>
> But don’t be bothered if Popper did not include your field of study in his rather rigorous test for science. It is not necessary that a discipline be Popperian to be significant. Both politics and science are branches of philosophy.

He does, though, because it’s falsifiable. It’s not experimental, but neither is paleontology or anthropology.

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-nature-of-humor/264578/23 "2004-09-18T21:33:21Z")

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Well, Popper was talking about a specific kind of falsification (eee the above link), that is, falsification of a _prediction_. True, you can form an hypothesis that the two parties having been merging on issues and then test the metadata to see whether you’re right, but when you form an hypothesis that predicts which party will win the next three elections, _that_ is the hypothesis that you want to attempt to falsify. Right now, the political scientists are pretty much just analyzing polls, aren’t they?

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