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.

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".

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.

Go after the argument please. This attempted character assassination is petty and weak.

They did go after the argument. The argument was an appeal to authority, and they dismissed the authority with evidence.

When the statement is as outlandish as "30% of people don't understand humor", the burden of proof lies squarely with the person making the claim.

An argument only holds if its premises are true. "Scott Adams claims X" is very weak evidence for X. He's a cartoonist with a history of making flimsy, self-flattering pronouncements.

Let's see some actual research supporting the notion that a third of the population reads and interprets satirical content as straight fact.

You write

> Let's see some actual research

which I find ironic given that you present your personal opinion about that person as if it were a fact. Maybe we should all start cleaning up in front of our own doors first whenever we feel an urge to not criticize (which would be okay) to bad-mouth other people.

In addition, you also do exactly what the comment you replied to ask you not to, seemingly without having given its content any thought whatsoever.

More, Scott Adams didn't say anything here. You merely read a comment from someone making a claim about what he said, in a short sentence. So you don't even have anything from the person you talk about himself. On top of that that claim would not be worth any severe criticism in the given context. Even if it were shown to be wrong, so what? It does not seem to me like anything substantial hinges on it, even if you took it as just a tongue in cheek kind of comment. Anecdotal evidence from reading online forums and discussions seem to indicate that the described phenomenon indeed exists, how many people are involved and if it's always the same ones or not don't seem to me to be of great importance since no quantitative predictions are involved.

> Even if it were shown to be wrong, so what?

Indeed. Who cares whether anything is true or not when discussing policy on websites with billions of users? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why do you ignore what I actually wrote? Wouldn't discussions be much better if you actually responded to what other people actually say? Given that you want truth, it's quite ironic that you yourself don't seem to be quite flexible.

"If X, then Y"

"X seems pretty bogus."

"Who cares if X is true? Anyway, Y Y Y"

That is a malicious and twisted misrepresentation of what I wrote. I actually wrote something about that right in that comment. That is quite the evil discussion style you got there - I'll leave you to it then.