SDF: Happy Birthday, Charlie D. (Darwin)

Editor’s Note: It’s Science Ditty Friday. Every Friday REALscience compiles a song (generally with an accompanying video) to kick your weekend off with a musical start. Have a favorite science song? Send it to ditty@realscience.us.

In the lead up to Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday in 2009, many artists chose to express themselves through music. Instead of just a simple Happy Birthday they chose to pay homage to the father of the theory of evolution in a more creative way. Some are professional — like Artichoke, Suzi Quatro, Bruce Springsteen and chumbawamba. Others not so much. But their youthful enthusiasm sung from the heart and dorm rooms across the world helped to mark the cultural significance of the great naturalist.

And a surprising number of people decided that the best way to capture the essence of evolution, natural selection and Darwin himself was through rap.

Baba Brinkman studied Medieval literature at the University of Victoria where he grew a fan base by rapping the Canterbury Tales. He is wrapping up a held-over run of the Canterbury Tales Remixed off Broadway in New York. He has rapped key business lessons and most notably for science enthusiasts The Rap Guide to Evolution.

As a teenager the 33-year old thought he’d either be a poet or a novelist. Then he discovered hip-hop. He studied Renaissance literature but found a way to incorporate his modern musical tastes.

After hearing his rendition of Chaucer’s masterwork, British genomics professor Mark Pallen commissioned Brinkman to write The Rap Guide to Evolution.

New York Times theater critic David Rooney said of Brinkman, “Unlike more sophomoric hybridists of highbrow content and popular form, Mr. Brinkman brings genuine passion, curiosity and analytical skills to his subject.”

Now his cerebral raps are going to tour college campuses this summer. The 90-minute interactive lecture about evolution goes beyond, as Rooney says, “Mr. Brinkman is more than an obsessively overstimulated Darwin fanboy with a talent for recitation.”

Understanding Darwin

His clever lyrics reflect a deep understanding of Darwin, his theory and the public response to it then and now.

Darwin first published his theory of evolution in the 1859 volume On Origin of Species to much fanfare and criticism. At the time, he said, “Whoever is lead to believe that species are mutable, will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction, for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed, be removed.” And the “load of prejudice” he originally referred to is still widespread. Even a few years ago, the number of people in the U.S. who understand the theory of evolution hovered just below 40 percent.

The heart of Darwin’s theory of evolution is Natural Selection, the idea that differences among individuals will lead to change at the population level as some variations are favored over others in the struggle for existence. In other words only the fit survive.

Evolution is often characterized in terms of survival as in survival of the fittest; however, it is actually a measure of comparative reproductive success. Natural Selection is by definition an open-ended process with no pre-conceived target or conclusion. Variation is a necessary precondition for natural selection to occur. Genetic variation is the product of random mutations and gene flow from one area to another.

Each genetic mutation comes with a cost and a benefit to survival and reproduction. The genes that survive and spread are the ones with the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio in the ledger of surviving descendents.

Evolutionary biologist and noted atheist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “The Blind WatchMaker” to describe Natural Selection in his book of the same name, as a response to the creationist charge that design always requires a designer.

Darwin was the first to show how the so-called Tree of Life houses all living things, from humans to plants to bacteria. The Wellcome Trust built an interactive Tree of Life to explore human connections to plants and animals.

Brinkman refers to Genetic Drift in his rap. This is a form of random or non-directional evolutionary change, different from Natural Selection which is non-random and responsive to the environment.

In an act of self-reflection (something evolution has given to humans) the Canadian white rapper compares his compares his lyrics to an elephant’s trunk. The elephant’s trunk is one example of an organ that was enlarged and made versatile by evolution. Another example is the human brain.

Recent genetic evidence has shown that humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are much more closely related than any of us are to the other great apes such as gorillas and orangutans, which prompted Jared Diamond to describe humans as “The Third Chimpanzee.”

The first fossilized evidence of sexually reproducing organisms is from eukaryotes of the Mesoproterozoic period, about 1 to 1.2 billion years ago.

Well before the dinosaurs, insects lived on earth. They first appeared around 250 million years ago. Then reptiles first appeared during the Triassic period about 220 million years ago, followed by flowering plants during the Cretaceous about 140 million years ago.

In closing, Brinkman refers to the “God of the gaps.” That is the belief that God’s existence is proven by those things that science cannot explain. Many people have pointed out that this argument doesn’t hold water.

Natural Selection 2.0
By: Baba Brinkman

“Whoever is lead to believe that species are mutable, will do good service by conscientiously expressing his
conviction, for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed, be removed.”

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

So what-ch-you know about Natural Selection? Go ahead
And ask a question and see where the answer gets you
Try bein’ passive aggressive or try smashin’ heads in
And see which tactic brings your plans to fruition
And if you have an explanation in mind, then you’re
Wastin’ your time, ‘cause the best watchmaker is blind
It takes a certain base kind of impatient mind
To explain away nature with “intelligent design”
But the truth shall set you free
From those useless superstitious beliefs
In a literal Adam and Eve, and that Edenic myth
‘Cause their family tree is showin’ some genetic drift
Take it from this bald-headed non-celibate monk
With the lyrical equivalent of an elephant’s trunk
It’s time to elevate your mind-state
And celebrate your kinship with the primates

The weak and the strong, who got it goin’ on?
We lived in the dark for so long
The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin’ on
Creationism is dead wrong

“The view which most naturalists entertain…namely that each species has been independently created, is erroneous.”

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

Okay, it’s time to reveal my identity
I’m the manifestation of tens of millions
Of centuries of sexual selection, best believe
I’m the best of the best of the best of the best
Of generations of competitive pressure genetically
But don’t get upset, ‘cause we’ve got the same pedigree
You and I will find a common ancestor eventually
If we rewind geological time regressively
And I could say the same for this hibiscus tree
And this lizard and this flea and this sesame seed
And if you still disbelieve in what your senses perceive
Then I could even use this rhyme as a remedy
‘Cause there’s so much variation in the styles in this industry
And differential survival when the people listening
Decide what they’re into and what really isn’t interesting
You could thrive like Timberlake on a Timberland beat
Or go extinct like Vanilla Ice and N’Sync
It’s survival of the fittest, but fitness is a tricky thing
It changes from place to place and from winter to spring
But the real question in this social-scientific simile
Is heredity, whether we inherit our techniques
From our predecessors, or invent them independently
But then we’re talkin’ memes and that’s a different thing
Richard Dawkins can I get a proper definition please?

The weak and the strong, who got it goin’ on?
We lived in the dark for so long
The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin’ on
Creationism is dead wrong
The weak and the strong, who got it goin’ on?
Whoever leaves the most spawn
The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin’ on
Creationism is… erroneous

I hear some people complain, like “I don’t wanna be an ape!
I never came from monkey DNA!
I believe God made me in a day – Jesus saves!”
Or maybe God uses evolution when He creates?!
Either way, nothing as advanced
And beautiful and intricate as the cosmic dance
Of evolution could possibly happen by chance
We must’ve descended from quadrupeds because of God’s plans!
Stop that – Darwin’s actual theory is
Not chance, and if you think it is you’re delirious
In the non-random survival of random variants
Over time, chance is insufficient but necessary
So intelligent design is impossible
Unless that intelligence is a product of the whole
Such as your own – there’s no God in control
If higher complexity always evolves from low
So let it go! We came from the war of nature
From struggles among fighters, feeders, and fornicators
And we’re nothing but genetic storage containers
And so what? Fuck it, I’m done with you Darwin-haters

The weak and the strong, who got it goin’ on
We lived in the dark for so long
The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin’ on
Creationism is dead wrong
The weak and the strong, who got it goin’ on?
Whoever leaves the most spawn
The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin’ on
Creationism is dead wrong

credits
from The Rap Guide to Evolution: Revised, released 26 June 2011
D. Brinkman, J. Simmonds
Additional Keys: Simon Kendall
Guitar: Tom Van Deursen
Cuts: Mr. Simmonds

Birthday bonus!

In a cinematic nod to Charles Darwin Terrence Malick’s movie Tree of Life — a romp through time from the birth of the universe through the 1980s — is a stylized story of evolution in all forms and it’s nominated for 3 Academy Awards this year, including the coveted Best Picture category. The film animates images from the Hubble Space Telescope to visually captivate the audience.