Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Column


	Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Column

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6-24-2008 7:48 AM

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why, are, you, reading this, nothing, better, to, do?

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/b8aa64e5-a44b-428d-ad0f-a5ad055732db/9C9742D6-1AD0-442A-80C1-F3679FE1FB65/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.livescience.com/history/080620-hn-sarcasm.html" href="http://www.livescience.com/history/080620-hn-sarcasm.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.livescience.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.livescience.com/history/080620-hn-sarcasm.html"><P>
Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.
</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.livescience.com/history/080620-hn-sarcasm.html"><P>
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the <A href="http://www.livescience.com/health/top10_mysteriesofthemind.html">right brain</A>. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.
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Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
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How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?
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