The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.
John CleeseWhen you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.
John CleeseThis is the most important joke I've ever heard. Niels Bohr, the founder of Quantum Physics, had a friend to dinner. As the friend left, he noticed a horseshoe nailed above Bohr's front door. He said to Bohr, accusingly, "Niels, you're a great scientist. You can't believe in superstitions." Bohr answered, "I don't, but apparently it works anyway."As with confirmation bias, we tend to lean toward superstitions that benefit us.
John Cleese