Science is real?
I love my live-feed blogroll thingy; it’s nice to see what other bloggers are saying without having to expend the enormous energy of actually clicking over to their blogs. I’m all about conserving the clicks, man. This is a green blog, click-wise. There are drawbacks, of course; the other night Hugo Schwyzer was masturbating in my sidebar and it was all I could do to hit the kill button and stagger off to my room in a blind panic.
One thing that’s kind of interesting is seeing the same story pop up with different bloggers. Like tonight. First Pharyngula rolled up with a Science is Real link. I didn’t bother to click on it; I’m like, dude, isn’t that the theme of your blog? Figured it was a slow night and maybe P.Z. was just airing out his credo or something. But a little while later, up rolled Corrente with a Science is real! link. Huh, I thinks to myself; this appears to be burgeoning movement.
Anyhoo, it turns out that the topic of those two posts — and of this one — is a new video from They Might Be Giants. It’s called, appropriately enough, Science Is Real:
Charming, yes? I like it. Delightful animation, catchy little song. Very nice.
Here’s my question: what’s the purpose of this thing? I think it’s a comment on the state of our culture that at first I wasn’t sure. Is it for kindergarteners? Is it for a Congressional subcommittee hearing? Because I would totally believe either one.
(P.S. I googled and learned that the video is definitely for children, not Congresspersons. So, good for the kiddies. Though I bet you a billion clicks that kids whose parents buy them this DVD are kids who already know science is real.)
10 Responses to “Science is real?”
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LabRat says:
I doubt this is a specific attempt to educate so much as it is another in a line of catchy songs from TMBG that you could deem educational but are mostly for the sheer geeky fun of it. They’re the reason I could snap off all the basic criteria for a mammal by heart by the time I was fourteen or so, including the infraclasses.
Check out “Mammal” and “Why Does The Sun Shine”; both of them are better songs if you ask me.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pm EST -
Violet says:
Lord, I’m so old I remember when They Might Be Giants were doing grown-up music.
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Clay says:
The only problem is the implication of a false dichotomy between science and “religion,” observation and intuition. Where does one draw the line between “repeated and systematic observation” and “anecdotal evidence”? Further, in a patriarchal and anti-spiritual scientific culture, the field of things considered acceptable for systematic study is very limited, and any ventures into nontraditional realms are generally not undertaken in a truly investigative spirit.
Too serious for a cutesy children’s video/song?
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K.A. says:
I love TMBG. It’s just another typical nerd song of theirs, like the sciencey ones LabRat mentioned. They do non-sciencey nerd songs too, like the one about James K. Polk, and even one about The Edison Museum. They happen to be kid-friendly, but they’re more geek-friendly.
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simply wondered says:
gah! i was gonna say ‘i love tmbg’. bugger all point being the second to offer that piece of wisdom! how very dare you, k.a.
is science really real, then?
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Formerly Apostate says:
I’d like it but for the fact that the girls got only four frames, and there were no girl’s voices in the song. Science may be real, but apparently it’s real mostly for boys.
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slythwolf says:
Formerly Apostate, I don’t think there are any women in TMBG. It would have been nice to see more girls in the animation though.
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Joanne says:
Cute video, but I’m embarrassed, as an American, that such a video has to even be made in this day and age.
I remember reading the novel Inherit the Wind as a child, as well as seeing the movie. The novel was based on the Scopes trial in Tennessee in the 1920s, in which a teacher was indicted for teaching evolution. It was normal to assume then that Creationism was an archaic belief held by ignorant people in backwaters so out of touch they were like another country.
Who would ever think that there would be a “debate” about evolution? Who would ever think that a video would have to be made to convince children that science held more truth than stories about angels?
Weird. So much for progress throughout history being linear.
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FrankenBeans says:
OK. I didn’t know they ever made grownup music (maybe it was just geeky then, too.)
But, TMBG also sings the theme songs for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and I think some other Disney Channel Songs.
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FrankenBeans says:
But it is a good song, and I had not heard it. Now I might have to go searching for TMBG songs…
