Is There A Comedy Gene?

By Shlomo Yermoyahu

Is a sense of humor rooted in our genes? Does it come from our environment? No one seems to know the answer. I propose an experiment to answer the question once and for all: Identical twins separated at birth.

People with a reputation for making others laugh almost always have strong comedy influences, most often a household family member---usually a funny parent or sibling. But is biology the driving force? There may be a comedy gene, but proving it requires experiments establishing cause and effect relationships. Will our chosen experiment help us untangle this nature vs. nurture question?

We are apparently the only animal that laughs so it seems reasonable to think that this capacity would be reflected in the human genome. But where? And how does it work? Does it function independently or is it coupled with other tendencies? For example, if your comedy gene is in its recessive form and therefore switched off (in other words, you're not funny), might this work in tandem with another gene giving you, say, an intense and insuppressible urge to study and practice mortuary science?

Even if we can localize the gene in question--assuming it exists at all--what problems or dangers might be in store for us if we choose to play God and fiddle with this forbidden knowledge? Would genetic counseling then be necessary to avoid the sad fate of those afflicted with two parents, both carriers of the recessive form of the gene? Would in vitro fertilization be used to counter this or for parents who insist on a funny child? Or should we go a step further by uniting comedy-gene dominant individuals for reproductive purposes in a belief that humor should be nurtured, encouraged and even created in order to make the world a better place?

Before we trouble ourselves with these derivative problems, we must first clarify and unearth the true source of comedy. And here identical twins may help us. One twin would be placed with a funny family. The other with an unfunny family. Then, watch what happens.

With an eye toward creating unfunnyness, the simplest approach would involve placing one child with two parents, each trained as an actuary--someone working with the statistics of the insurance business. The likelihood of any kind of mirth in such a household would be very small indeed. Oh, perhaps the occasional snicker, just to be polite, but not much chance of sustained merriment. Surely, genetic influences would be operating in and through such a couple.

But wait. Not so fast. Using simple common sense may help us see that actuarial parents could be very good soil indeed for the growth of comedy--could in fact produce a comedian. Such is the perversity of human nature where pleasure in the inappropriate and in incongruity in general may well be at the root of what we think of as funny.

The alternative situation may point to a fundamental problem with our experimental design. A twin raised by a funny family, maybe two stand-up comedians, could result in a teenage rebellion that commonly vectors toward its opposite--in this case a pronounced sense of maturity and sobriety that brooks no nonsense. Or, the household with no one normal to model the straightness and ordinariness of the real world, could result in people (including the twin) too hip to laugh, trying only to outdo one another in increasingly crazy and far out ways that the rest of us can no longer understand.

Perhaps more fundamentally, what do we mean when we say something is funny? How can we recognize it in a measurable and scientifically reliable way?

People who study and teach comedy would seem to be of little help here. They are almost invariably not funny, except unintentionally. One common piece of advice given to those who aspire to make others laugh is this: Don't take yourself so seriously. Don't take life so seriously. But this is bad advice. Comedians do take themselves seriously, they do take life seriously, (that's why they're so funny!), responding with the development of strong attitudes channeling their frustration with the world and its BS in ways more constructive than say, overeating or gambling or violent crimes. The lesson: Serious is funny. Funny, not so funny (or at least not as funny).

Besides, a race of funny men and women could render the world unmotivated, undisciplined and, in the wrong hands, easier to control and subdue. Or compare this with a race of the unfunny. One group can't get much work done; the other has no fun doing it. Two tragedies. And who would win in a war between the funny and the unfunny? In a war such as this there can be no winners. Instead, this may be an illustration of the consequences of tampering with the serious and the silly within society at large and within ourselves.

Must we remain forever ignorant and confused about such matters? Will the question of the origins of comedy remain forever up in the air, mysteriously elusive? Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss here.