Former Cornell Physicist Maps the Evolutionary Origins of Laughter and Issues a Stark Warning for the 21st Century

New book "Origin of Humor (Volume I)" bridges neurobiology, anthropology, and deep history to decode why humans laugh, and why they destroy themselves

ONTARIO, N.Y., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new book by a former Cornell physicist offers a novel perspective on human behavior, exploring the hidden biological mechanisms of laughter and their unexpected connection to global conflict.

In "Origin of Humor (Volume I)," the author builds upon a hypothesis by researcher I.M. Suslov that humor increases human intelligence by allowing individuals to forget incorrect neural inputs. This framework explains why a toddler laughs while falling down when learning to walk, or why adult sarcasm targets self-centered, irrational behaviors.

The author then asks the joke question, "We laugh, how is our voice box wired up to our brain?" That joke question turned into a six-year odyssey of deciphering over a thousand research papers. The second half of the book are detailed notes on how the brain is wired. Most don't realize speech and laughter are wired differently to our brain's motor areas. The book highlights the brain's multiple laughter pathways.

"Origin of Humor (Volume I)" categorizes these evolutionary laughter pathways into two distinct networks. Behaviors along the limbic (emotional) pathway include "mating laughter", "evil laughter", "nurturing laughter, "spiteful laughter" and "pack laughter". These are all coordinate behaviors involving the release of hormones. Behaviors along the basal ganglia (reflex) pathway include tickling and finding food, which eventually evolved into more advance abilities like problem solving and navigating complex social situations.

Spanning 14 meticulously researched sections, "Origin of Humor (Volume I)" explores humor not just from an evolutionary perspective, but also through anthropological, historical, philosophical, religious and psychological lenses. A section on "psychological archeology" examines shifts in global temperaments across historical periods through the lens of art.

The text also features critical reviews of humor theories from historical figures like Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. It tracks cultural attitudes toward laughter through deep history, including Confucius's and Plato's disdain for mocking laughter, satire during the fall of Rome, the suppression of mocking by early Christianity, the rise of "Eutrapelia" via St. Francis of Assisi, the satirical shifts led by Voltaire, the impact of climate change on the nastiness of the French Revolution, the rise of communism via comic figures like Eckensteher Nante, and Mark Twain's reinvention of the stand-up comic in the American ideal.

Additional chapters analyze childhood development, nurturing, mating, marriage, gossip, money, and spite through the lens of humor.

However, the book's most alarming revelation lies in its analysis of humor's dark side: the "evil laugh". By applying statistical analysis to human conflict over the past two millennia, the author discovered that instances of war and genocide adhere to the exact same mathematical power-law distributions as earthquakes. Applying these natural patterns to modern civilization, the data predicts that between two and three billion people could perish from war and genocide during the 21st century. For more details on this prediction go to www.ozmioz.com or check out this video.

Work has already begun on Volume II, which will focus on migration, and the self-organization of management hierarchies.

"Origin of Humor: how evolution and civilization are always changing why we LAUGH and why we murder"
By Ozmioz
ISBN: 9781663278623 (softcover); 9781663278630 (electronic)
Available at iUniverse, Amazon and Barnes & Noble 

About the author
Dr. John McCarten is from Kansas and holds a doctorate in physics from Cornell University. His career has spanned the country, including stints in Los Angeles, Houston, Los Alamos, South Carolina, and Rochester, NY. From 2001 to 2020, he was technical lead on image sensor projects for cameras that generated more than $1 billion in sales. He has over 30 patents, several of which are used in modern smartphone cameras. He has worked with John Bardeen, co-inventor of the transistor. McCarten writes under the pen name Ozmioz, a linguistic play on Ogmios, the Greek and Celtic god of eloquence. The moniker is also a familial nod to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" since his father, like the Wizard of Oz, is from Omaha, Nebraska, and his mother's nickname is the Wicked Witch of the West. To learn more, please visit www.ozmioz.com.

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SOURCE iUniverse