Here Comes Science!

I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, “We’ve got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?”, and so I nonchalantly type back, “Sure, here’s my address,” which was really hard to do when you understand that I was dancing jigglety-pigglety in my chair, pumping my fists in the air, and shouting “WOO-HOO!” at the same time. It would have been impossible except for my blogging superpowers. (Oh, yeah…I’m a TMBG fanboi.)

I got the album Here Comes Science the other day, and it is fabulous. It’s kids’ music, so it’s catchy and a teeny-tiny bit didactic, but don’t let that put you off — I’ve loaded it onto my iPod and am enjoying it all the time. It’s also contains a CD and a DVD: each song also has an animated cartoon to go with it. They’re great and enthusiastic songs — my favorites so far are “I am a paleontologist” and “Science is real”.

You should buy it. It’ll be available next week, or you can always stop by my house and I’ll put the DVD up on the big screen and we can all rock out in my living room — I’ll push all the furniture to the side so we can all dance. Or if you’re cheap and don’t like me, you can subscribe to the TMBG podcast on iTunes: they’re going to release a song a week.

Can’t wait? You can get a look at “Science is Real” right now.

I should warn you, though, it’s controversial. Yeah, right. Look at the comments on Amazon. The song “Science is Real” contains these lyrics:

I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science

This has prompted a few comments.

I love TMBG more than anybody, but was it really necessary to take a pot-shot at religion?

This guy must be one of those thin-skinned elf worshippers.

As a Christian I’m offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical. End of story.

(Shhh. Don’t tell him about Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9,10, Psalms 22:21 and 29:6 and
92:10 or Isaiah 34:7. Unicorns are biblical, too.)

This is why the accommodationist strategy is doomed to failure. There is no gentle demurral from religion that will not offend someone — even fun songs about science are expected to pretend that angels are real.

It’s culture time!

Let’s hear it for the arts!

  • The detestation of Genesis is universal, but hey you Brits! Instead of nagging on our creationist creepazoids, maybe you need to pick on the creationists in your backyard. Although, I have to say, the English creationists seem much less unpleasant than Ken Ham.

  • It’s time for some monkey music, composed from patterns in tamarin monkey calls. The ‘fearful monkey music’ is irritating to even this ape, and the ‘happy monkey music’ doesn’t make me happy at all. Maybe we’re not so related after all. Especially since the monkeys seem to like Metallica.

  • I also can’t dance. But you can now watch science-based dance, with ballet compositions built around Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition (I wonder if it ends with everyone frozen motionless?), animal courtship dances, and the Big Bang, which must be very hard on the dancers.

My kind of art gallery

A gallery in Glasgow has put out a Bible and suggested people write in it.

The Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow has invited art lovers to write their thoughts down in an open Bible on display as part of its Made in God’s Image exhibition.

Next to the Bible lie several pens with a note saying: “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it”.

It’s an interesting idea. I’ve signed a few bibles at people’s request myself — I usually mark up the first page with the question, “Where are the squid?” — so I like the sentiment that people ought to be free to comment on it. Some people, of course, are having the vapors over the fact that some scribblers say very rude things. It comes with the territory, though.

It’s unsurprising stuff, really, but the last line of the article made me laugh.

A Catholic Church spokesman said: “One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced”.

They are so predictable!

Heidi Klum has a rival

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She’s beautiful and German. She’s also naked, with very large breasts, and she isn’t wearing any underwear — in fact, she’s posing almost obscenely, and has rather prominent labia in view. She’s also 35,000 years old and has no head.

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A few other interesting details: she doesn’t seem to be entirely naked— there are markings like bands and hatchmarks that are suggestive of some kind of clothing. More attention was paid to carving the hands, which have 5 and 4 fingers marked out, than to the head, which is nonexistent. In its place, there is a well-polished, carved loop, suggesting that she was probabl worn as a pendant. She’s also carved out of something you can’t get anymore, mammoth ivory.

These Venus figurines have been found in many places in Europe, but this is the oldest one yet discovered. You have to wonder what they were for. Crude stone-age porn, whittled out by horny, bored mammoth hunters? Fertility fetishes worn by women trying to get pregnant? Symbols of some complicated body of religious belief now completely lost to us? Imagine if, tens of thousands of years from now, archaeologists who have lost all records of our civilization were digging around in Europe and kept unearthing one of our common kinds of statuary—figures of a tormented dead man, arms outstretched, strange wounds carved into hands, feet, and side. It would probably make about as much sense as these fascinating Venus symbols.

Conard NJ (2009) A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in Southwestern Germany. Nature 459:248-252.

John Holbo makes a discovery

And it’s gorgeous. Holbo has found a set of scans from a 1972 biology textbook (and an associated blog) that will blow your mind, baby. Here are some eukaryotic cells.

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I think this is a very trippy metaphor for the synapse.

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I like it. It’s got style. I’m going to have to cruise some used bookstores to see if I can find a copy of Biology Today. If nothing else, I can imagine using some of those illustrations for talks…I’m also going to have to get a polyester suit with very wide lapels and a paisley print shirt, let my hair grow out, and shave the beard, but keep the mustache. Oh, I remember the 60s and 70s!