I like this article for the most part and think it makes some good points. I am a big fan of applying evolution to humans, even when it gets controversial, and I think that humor is indeed more important to the success of a male than a female. Sexual selection is often the most powerful and direct influence on evolution, and a trait like humor that is usually looked on as attractive in males, could have a huge influence on a population's genetic makeup / gene expressing. I like his idea of males primarily trying to impress the females with humor, and the females being the interpreters of what exactly is and isn't funny.

My criticisms however would be that a lot of his models seem to be things he invented himself, and although they seem to work, and are alluring on their own, they don't have much actual evidence behind them. I really wish he would have gone deeper into the neuroscience behind humor interpretation as he started on the first page (probably because its my major), but unfortunately he seemed to want to shy away from appearing too "sciency". Less hypotheses and more neuroscience would make this article carry more weight.

Of course, while the scientific and cultural reasons why women tend to be less funny than men are worth investigating, the intentions behind Hitchens' article are rather troubling. He discusses the humor gap between the sexes, and gives reasons why men are generally funnier, and.....well, that seems to be it. Hitchens goes in and states the reasons why males have developed a better sense of humor as though they're concrete and inalienable facts. He makes it sound like women are predisposed to be incapable of humor, unless they're willing to invoke it as a masculine trait.

Which is less an examination of gender roles and more the perpetuation of an idea that is simply false, that women are all but incapable of being funny. Apparently individual personality doesn't enter in....

I was looking for something along the lines of Prof KF's little comic, found this instead, and thought it highly appropriate
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/ethicalesq/CallahanBookStore.jpg