Truth Be Told: Sarcasm Is an Evolutionary Skill

Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.

According to Dr. Rankin, if you don't get sarcasm, you probably have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. 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.

Or perhaps more correctly, certain managers at my work either aren't as evolutionarily developed as myself or have brain damage (a popular opinion among my co-workers).



Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill | LiveScience