Today is the first day of classes for the spring term » « A little comparative religion would do Ken Ham a world of good

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: the marine bio geek quiz

It’s easy. You’re one of us if every time you hear the tune, “It’s a long way to Tipperary”, you hear the lyrics as, “It’s a long way from…”

Now you have to sing the rest of the chorus.

(Also on Sb)

Today is the first day of classes for the spring term » « A little comparative religion would do Ken Ham a world of good

Comments

  1. fishsci says

    A Lancelet! Cool!

    I remember seeing them in a research station on Heligoland. They were the first ever organism (and the last) that geve me the creeps for some reason. All wriggly, but no head.

  3. 'Tis Himself, OM. says

    A lancet? It doesn’t look anything like a British medical journal.

    Harumph! Harumph, I say.

  6. chezjake says

    sings:
    It’s a long way to amphioxus,
    It’s a long way to us.
    It’s a long way from amphioxus
    To the meanest human cuss.
    Goodbye to fins and gill slits,
    Hello lungs and hair.
    It’s a long way from amphioxus
    But we came from there.

    /singing

    First learned in 1959 from Prof. James Malcolm Moulton who taught me Comp. Anat., Histology, Embryology, and Marine Biology at Bowdoin College.

  7. joefelsenstein says

    From Joe Felsenstein:

    For a more detailed history of the Amphioxus Song, see my web site on it, which you will find here. It dates to 1921 and it is known who wrote the verses, where and when, and I even show an image of his own typed 1921 lyrics sheet. Plus some photographs of him and his family that I got when I visited his daughter a few years ago.

  10. evader says

    Apparently the white ‘backbone’ looking things… are it’s gonads…

    Just thought I’d add that amazing piece of information to this discussion.

  11. richarddawkins says

    The Amphioxus song has always vaguely irritated me, because a better lesson to learn from this lovely little creature is that it is a MODERN animal and we are not descended from it because it is our exact contemporary. It is PRIMITIVE, meaning that it resembles our common ancestor, that is, it hasn’t changed much in evolution. But so many people think of evolution as running from one modern animal to another, it is worth using Amphioxus to plug the opposite point.

  12. Denephew Ogvorbis, OM says

    Hmm. Never heard that version. Then again, I am a history major, so there’s lots I don’t know.

    And a Lancelet? For taking out small boils?

  13. says

    In reply to rucharddawkins (I assume the real one, hi Richard) who pointed out that “we are not descended from it because it is our exact contemporary” I want to make clear that I am probably older than any individual amphioxus. The point is valid, and yes, we should emphasize it.

    But we’re stuck with the song for one simple reason: biologists are lousy at writing funny songs! Physicists and mathematicians are much wittier. Our funny songs are rare exceptions, so let’s cherish them, even as we explain that they aren’t quite right.

  14. Serendipitydawg (Physicists are such a pain sometimes) says

    Katie Melua’s Nine Million Bicycles took some flak from Simon Singh for “We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That’s a guess — no-one can ever say it’s true” and the Pfft says:

    Melua and Singh met, and Melua re-recorded a tongue-in-cheek version of the song that had been written by Singh:
    “We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that’s a good estimate with well-defined error bars/and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you”.

    Now’s your chance to set the record straight, Richard!

  15. Serendipitydawg (Physicists are such a pain sometimes) says

    I also can’t wait to see how high flounder.com’s page counter goes… 16,400 and counting.

  16. says

    Right, and it’s why I can’t get too worked up about the taxonomic hairsplitting of amphioxus vs. branchiostoma vs. lancelet. The song isn’t about the modern beast, it can’t be, because those creatures are very distant from us and not on our direct line of descent — it’s about the ancient acraniate grade.

    And that’s why biologists don’t write funny songs. We get all hung up on those important subtleties.

  17. Tyrant of Skepsis says

    “We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that’s a good estimate with well-defined error bars/and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you”.

    Oh come on Dr. Singh, we’re not 13.7 billion light years away from the edge of the observable universe, it’s much further than that because of the cosmological expansion. Particle physicists… tz tz tz :)

  18. imnotandrei says

    @#11, & #16

    There’s a reason we’ve changed the lyrics at our house, to these two last lines:

    THough it’s a long long way from Amphioxus,
    A common ancestor we share!