Religion and scientific research WITHOUT humor cannot be tolerated. No way.

Religion and scientific research WITHOUT humor cannot be tolerated. No way.

A sense of humor can be tolerated in scientific research and in religion as well, as long as the situation is NOT overturned into harming the basic principles of both. To ease things up while waiting for results of an experiment in a research, I used to say to my students, while holding the beaker, that I am waiting for the molecules to talk to me. Most of them will laugh & become pleased. But once, a student told me: With what language the molecules will talk? My reply was: Reactivity Language; they either react to tell me of something new or do not react. He said : "I got the point".

should we universalize 'human' characteristics or globalize 'culture' ?

is that the question?

Humor here, is definitively not humor there..

Provocation is not humor anymore..   Charlie Hebdo is provocative, but of course it depends where you are (who is the public).   They are french, and provocation in France  is probably the roughest of all. (do not ask me why, but CH has a long tradition of testing the humor levels of the french,  it is really tough to appreciate CH's humor)

French have in that respect a very different sense of humor than  japanese.

'human' topics  suffer a lot from our technology.

The speed of information dissemination is much too fast for our 'cultural' time scale.

So humor is not absolute, culture is not absolute, religion is not absolute.

Is then Science absolute ? 

No, there is no TRUTH..    so humor will always have its place in 'human' exchange.

But the exchange has to be 'human'. The internet is not..    the dissemination of information is too fast, it is provocative for most of us.

Time scales are getting lost.   'culture' is getting lost, there is no time anymore to adapt.

It is a dangerous time we live in..  we have to be aware of it. 

Are our 'human rights' absolute ?  They should at least be a political consensus.

lukas

Humor is healthy for each of us (decreasing our stress levels in our brains, enabling us a wider usage of our senses).  Does it mean it is healthy for a society?

Probably..  increasing our usage of senses, we may go on with discoveries. (should it only be that being more aware of oneselve's environment, communication is much more easier, more space for empathy and sympathy)

To make those discoveries accepted by our society, humor is the general way to introduce them little by little.  Just at the edge of provocation (which brings back the stress levels)

This takes a lot of time.    

Thank you for the answers. It is good to think about this question. Is it not so that a sense of humor makes us first of all different from animals or is that not so. In my environment of artists humor is never far away. It neutralises tension. It gives us the possibility to see it another way. But indeed, culture is not always receptive for it. Humor is also the fact to understand something what is not understood by others, to say it in such a way that only insiders can grasp it. So I am more for the fine structure, a nearly invisible way of communication. Bit by bit to give it away if the environment is ready for it.

Are we responsible for the information we send around.  I don't know yet it is very delicate.

Following up on Lukas' mention of  Charlie Hebdo's humor:

Charlie Hebdo's outrageous humor has something in common with the pursuit of scientific knowledge: it requires intelligence in order to be contemplated - with intelligence meaning the ability to go further than the first impression in order to reach a deeper understanding of the subject at hand. In short, thinking by yourself and maintaining above all an independent mind.

The opposite of intelligence is the kind of ignorance that makes reasoning stop at the first sight of any subject, thus leading to obscurantism. It can be found everywhere, including religion but also in science. Any case of scientific misconduct is a step towards obscurantism.

Humor comes with intelligence and the ability to express a critical view. It is sometimes the best way to stress the mistaken path taken in someone's reasoning and often better than a blatant 'you're wrong'.

About the phrasing of the question, I would like to comment on the notion of tolerance. Tolerance implies a slight negative nuance of the subject being tolerated. In the case of humor, tolerance is not the right word in my view. Humor is an absolute requirement - being the inseparable companion of a thoughtful free and critical mind. Maybe the question can be read as something like 'Isn't humor required in scientific research as in religion ?' Humor, as freedom of mind, is unconditional.

Thank you very much to say it so clear. It stresses the value of humor.

There is a kind of gap between the value of humor and the use of humor. It's like in between is laying  the silence of an accident.  

If we see the pillarization of art, science and religion I think that the biggest gap exists between science and religion. Humor doesn't even exist between these poles.

As art works on direct knowledge it is the most flexible and  the most equilibrated trying to absorb science as well as religion in a positive way.

Art is the bridge between science and religion, the wider the perspective the finer the homor can be.

But is the theorem of Gödel not science and humor at once.

Jim Al-Khalili writes in Life on the Edge: Gödel showed that any logical system complex enough to prove mathematical theorems has a fundamental limitation: application of their rules can generate statements that are true, but these statements cannot be proved with the same tools that were used to generate them in the first place. After all these years an idea of incompleteness comes in. I just see the cartoon. 

I didn't know that the eye of Horus was the symbol of the female side of the sun.

May be the trouble comes from the split of the sun.

The wheel is turning around, a pinky smile. 

Ann that polar light is hypnotizing! Once I want to see it,  it may change a lot.