[ravenstine]

Scott Adams is a commentator and humorist, not a researcher or academic. Most reasonable people don't expect others in such a position to cite statistics and evidence, just as we don't shout "citation needed" every time a comedian makes a joke and doesn't mention a study proving their punchline is indeed funny because it's true.

Even if Scott Adams wrote something legitimately offensive, that article, like everything on Jezebel, has an obvious agenda and uses language that rip-snorts while tip toeing around the points Scott was making. If anything, it's made me more sympathetic to him because the obviously bigoted author can't stand the fact that a "white male" said something contrary to the women-are-wonderful stereotype.

[chapium]

Then maybe he shouldn't be using made up statistics to reinforce his arguments. He can't just spout bullshit and be immune to criticism because he's not a true "x".

[ravenstine]

I'm not saying that he's immune to criticism or that he's even right. I'm saying that I don't find Adams using "unsourced statistics" to be a compelling reason to believe that he's wrong, and it's generally lazy argumentation when people criticize non-academic public figures for not providing statistics for the things that they say. It's really better to just argue for exactly why Scott Adams is wrong. Sure, proving a falsehood is more difficult than making falsehoods and people shouldn't be making false statements in the first place, but that's the way of the world.

In the case of Scott Adams, it's especially not fair to say that he's wrong without actually providing a reason why because, as a person who has been writing humorous comic strips for decades, he's in a position to provide his intuition as to how many people don't understand humor. Whether his belief is actually correct is a matter for discussion. It might be one thing if Joe Dirt off the street was shouting that 30% of people don't understand humor, but it's not unreasonable for someone who writes humor for a living to provide his judgment on how people respond to humor. Scott Adams doesn't write the funniest stuff in the world, but at least give the guy some credit for his experience instead of just pointing out that he doesn't have proof.