the skeptics’ anthem, now in hip hop

Baba Brinkman is an interesting skeptical phenomenon. He’s a scholar of Medieval English who created the infamous Rap Guide to Evolution and uses his talents to spread science and logic. This is why he decided to borrow one of Jay-z’s recent tracks and remix it into a full fledged anthem for skeptical bloggers, scientists, and all those whose mission in life is to encourage logic, reason and discovery. His message? If you want to keep moving forward, you need the respect the scientific method because that’s what produces results. Here is a little taste of the sleek music video made by Brinkman and his friends at the New Humanist magazine…

If you want to see the whole clip, make your way over to Brinkman’s site and check out some of his work. But before you do, there was one line in this track I really wanted to highlight. Note when those who want to enjoy the fruits of modern science, all the research that lead to germ theory, electricity, antibiotics, space travel, and microwaves, but aren’t willing to respect the process that produces them, are called out as hypocrites.

Seems to me that calling quacks, cranks and denialists who shout down the scientific method on blogs, news sites, and anywhere else they think someone will listen, hypocrites is too soft. No, there’s a much better term for all those who take something from a system and return nothing to it except contempt. The word I have in mind is parasites, and their effect on society is hauntingly similar to that of crazed zealots on school boards…