A joke about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson has been rated as Britain's funniest joke. 100,000 people were invited to submit and rate jokes as part of Laughlab, a massive scientific investigation into the psychology of laughter.
Forty-seven percent of those taking party in the study rated the detective joke tops. The winning joke goes like this:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go camping, and pitch their tent under the stars. During the night, Holmes wakes his companion and says: "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce".
Watson says: "I see millions of stars, and even if a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.
Holmes replies: "Watson, you idiot. Somebody stole our tent".
The University of Hertfordshire study also identified Britain's worst jokes and also found out what men, women and people of different nationalities find funny. Out of 11 countries, the stereotypically dour Germans voted more jokes funny that any other nationality. Canada came last in the experiment.
The childhood "two chicken" jokes were voted worst jokes by 74% of the group. The study also found that men and women find different things funny. The study's author said that males use humour to appear superior to others, while women are more linguistically skilled and prefer puns.
The study found that the highest rated male jokes involved aggression, putting women down and sexual innuendo.
Laughlab, the largest scientific study ever into the science of humour, was launched in September at the BA Science Festival in Glasgow. It will continue until September 2002. A new phase of the experiment is starting today with an investigation into the link between personality and humour.
"The response has been enormous with over 10,000 jokes submitted and over 100,000 people from over 70 countries rating them,"commented Dr Wiseman.
The Laughlab website can be accessed on www.laughlab.co.uk.
