Here Comes Science, the new release from They Might Be Giants, is the greatest children’s album in the history of recorded music.

I don’t have children of my own, and I don’t have any close friends with children, and I don’t even particularly like children, so I know next-to-nothing about the music that is typically aimed at them. But seeing as a quick search on Amazon suggests such inane drivel as 20 Simply Super Singable Silly Songs and Choo Choo Soul, I feel safe in my assumption. I’m also leaving out such classics as The Tiger Lillies’ masterpiece Shockheaded Peter, because that isn’t actually an album for children so much as it is an album for people who hate children. That being said, whether or not Here Comes Science is literally the best children’s album ever, the fact remains that it’s really fucking good.

Here Comes Science is TMBG’s third educational album for children, following Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. Both earlier efforts have their merits; though the subject matter is, understandably, limited. How much can you really say in a song about learning how to count? This new effort, in contrast, gives the Giants ample room to shine, which will be no surprise to long-term fans familiar with TMBG classics (found on regular albums aimed at adults!) like “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “Mammal.”

In its purist form, Here Comes Science is an album about how awesome science is. “I Am a Paleontologist,” for example, is about how exciting it is to have a career in a scientific profession. “My Brother the Ape” is a song about coming to terms with the realization that all life on Earth stems from a single common ancestor (with joyful results). Other songs get down to the business of straight education to catchy rhythms and metaphors, like “The Bloodmobile” (which compares the circulatory system to mass transit), “Solid Liquid Gas,” (which features a neat little device where the singing speeds up or slows down in relation to the movement of the atoms in each state of matter), and “Roy G. Biv” (which is so catchy it could be a standard pop song instead of a kids’ song).

One thing I love about Here Comes Science is that it never feels condescending or dumbed-down. The information is accurate and loaded with big words that children may not know on their first listening, but which they will assimilate given time (in other words, kids who own this album are likely to have the best vocabularies in their classes — hint hint, parents). Parents can listen to the album with their kids without wanting to bang their heads against the wall, and the subject matter is sure to be genuinely thought-provoking.

The real greatness behind Here Comes Science, however, is that it features Stephen Colbert-sized balls. One would expect, in a country where the rational regularly bend over backward to avoid offending the staunchly irrational, that anything potentially controversial might be edited out. This is not the case, and They Might Be Giants are to be commended for their bravery in this matter above all else. The album’s opening song, “Science is Real,” begins with the following 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…”

When those lyrics were revealed earlier this month, P.Z. Myers (scientist/atheist blogger superhero) posted a quick commentary on his blog displaying some of the angry comments the album received on Amazon.com even before the album was released:

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

Yeah. In other words, John and John are pissing off all the right people.

The best, and most potentially influential, song on Here Comes Science, in my opinion, is “Put it to the Test.” On its surface, it’s an educational song about the Scientific Method. In reality, it’s a scathing attack on all forms of bullshit. Relevant lyrics include:

“Are you sure that that thing is true?
Or did someone just tell it to you?
Come up with a test…

…Find a way to show what would happen
If you were incorrect
A fact is just a fantasy
Unless it can be checked…

…Don’t believe it ’cause they say it’s so
If it’s not true, you have a right to know
Put it to the test…”

Remember now, this is an album for children. And while the Scientific Method is the single greatest tool for every kind of experimentation, this song has a deeper meaning. TMBG is saying, “Hey kids! You know all those adults that tell you things? All those parents and teachers and politicians and clergymen? It’s quite possible that they’re full of shit. Don’t just take them at their word. Demand proof.” And that is the best lesson any child can learn. Thank you, very sincerely, Mr. Flansburgh and Mr. Linnell, for respecting us enough to try to save our future generations from becoming tomorrow’s gullible morons.

First he attempted to indoctrinate our kids in their classrooms. Now, Barack Obama’s agenda is taking another Great Leap Forward (see what I did there?) to include paramilitary training and “fitness testing” for all American students.

Under the euphemistic title of the “President’s Physical Fitness Test,” Obama’s plan will require children to participate in military-style drills, including pull-ups and a “mile run”. These tests will occur in every school in the nation, and will be evaluated on a national level — in other words, the test results of every child will be on file at a central location, and freely available to Washington operatives.

Children who excel at the test will also receive a certificate from the White House, which educators are being instructed to treat as an “award” worth being proud of. This is a clear and unambiguous case of indoctrination; our children are being trained to seek the approval of “their” President (shades of the Hitler Youth). When the inevitable call for strong young volunteers goes out, don’t be surprised if the recruiters from the ACORN/MoveOn cartel give preference to the children who received these certificates.

On top of all of these concerns, this is also a transparent power grab on the part Washington. As stated earlier, results are to be judged on a national level, effectively placing every student in the country in competition with one another. This is a dangerous first step toward nationalizing the public schools, and demonstrates a callous disregard for school board sovereignty. Even private schools and homeschoolers are encouraged to participate, placing them once and for all under the thumb of big government.

We must also ask whether this new found obsession with “fitness” figures into Obama’s socialist health care plan. Will poor results on the test result in a child being deemed “unfit” for medical care? Will failure to participate affect a child’s grades and potentially endanger his or her academic future and “worth” to society? Will Obama’s good squads take action against the parents of husky children?

Unfortunately, this plan has overwhelming support from both parties. Indeed, advocates of the plan are making the baseless claim that it dates back to the Johnson administration. All we can do is prepare our children to resist this indoctrination effort posing as “Physical Education”. Fortunately, history is on our side; I don’t know about you, but I fucking hated running the mile in gym.

Forgive me if I have a hard time forming coherent sentences, but holy fuck.

Ho. Lee. Fuck.

And if you want a little more context for that link, here it is: Barack Obama plans to make a speech to America’s schoolchildren, urging them to stay in school. But, as I linked above, conservatives are freaking the fuck out. They are seriously saying this is some kind of effort to indoctrinate children, possibly to prepare them for some kind of Hitler Youth scenario. I am not making that up. Even I have some standards, and I would not joke about that, partly because it’s offensive, but mostly because it’s so fucking stupid that there is just no way anyone would believe me.

Okay, couple of points here. First, this is the least controversial thing a human being could possibly do. If you went on TV and announced that kittens were cute, that would be more controversial than telling kids to stay in school, because you’d be excluding all the people who prefer puppies. But talking about kids? That’s safe. Most people love kids, and even the ones who don’t (e.g. me) still want them to go to school, so they can grow up to not be fucking dumbasses. Smart kids = smart adults = less bullshit for me to deal with.

Second, the whole thing is actually pretty insignificant, and we can’t stop it. You know why we can’t stop it? Because the technology to do it exists, and someone’s goddamn well going to use it. Remember on election night, how CNN had those fancy Star Wars-looking holograms? Guess what? They did not have fucking holograms. They had a green screen and some extra cameras pointed at a reporter. Wolf Blitzer could not see the hologram. Wolf Blitzer was talking to the reporter on the phone while staring at an empty spot on the floor. He was pretending. It’s like when Elmo is a presenter at the Emmys, and everyone just pretends like they don’t see the dude squatting behind the podium with his hand jammed into Elmo’s legless torso. The point is, they could do it, so they did. Compared to fake holograms and tuxedo-wearing Muppets, broadcasting a speech to thousands of schools is a fairly simple affair, so why let the technology go to waste?

And you know how I know it’s simple? Because George Bush did that shit in 1991! That’s old George Bush. Daddy George Bush. Shit, when I was in elementary school, I saw Old George Bush all the fucking time. Every other week, the janitor would wheel in one of the school’s sad little television sets, and the teacher would pop in a tape, and there would be Old George Bush, telling us to say no to drugs because otherwise Slimer and Mr. T would be very disappointed with us. You wanna talk about indoctrination? He had fucking Slimer. Our tiny child-brains didn’t stand a chance against that. Most of us already had Ecto-Cooler in our lunches. Bush could’ve told us to steal all the money out of mommy’s purse and mail it to 123 Suspicious Ave., Cayman Islands, and we would have done it as long as Slimer showed up after the speech and did something wacky.

Also, indoctrination? Isn’t that a bit dramatic? I mean, maybe if he was saying something really controversial, like “Racism is bad” or “I’m not evil,” because at least there’s a hint of ideology there. But “Stay in school”? Fucking seriously? The only thing kids will learn from this speech is that the President was on TV for a few minutes, and it was boring. Is that what we’re trying to hide from them? Are Republicans trying to somehow prevent their children from finding out that Obama is President, as though simply seeing him or hearing his name will be enough to ensnare them? Do they think he’s fucking Voldemort or something?

For fuck’s sake, can we wait until the guy does one evil thing before we start talking about all the other evil shit he’s planning? It wouldn’t even have to be big. If he gets on TV and tells the kids to rat out their Republican relatives to the Secret Socialist Robot Police, fine. Then you can have your little revolution and homeschool your kids in the art of teabagging or whatever the fuck you people are always going on about. Until that happens, please calm the fuck down and assume that nobody is trying to recruit your slow-witted and presumably ugly children.

Slogging through the Digg cycle this evening, an article from BBC News caught my eye, as it has to do with many things dear to my brain: English teachers, esoteric knowledge, and complaining about dumb kids. The article in question is titled, “Students do not know the Bible,” and features an interview with UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who also occasionally teaches college-level English courses. Motion, it seems, feels that students need to know more about the (Judeo-Christian) Bible then they currently do, but here’s the kicker: Andrew Motion is an atheist.

And here’s where it gets cool, because Motion doesn’t appear to give a damn about the Bible in a religious context. No, his concern is entirely involved with the literary applications of Biblical texts (and other mythological texts), and how a strong background in such ancient texts aids comprehension of classic literature. In an interview with the BBC, Motion said,

“I’ve always been concerned about the levels of not-knowing since I started teaching, but quite recently I had a very bad experience of trying to teach some of my, in other respects, extremely good students about Paradise Lost. They knew so little about the context in which the poem was written and about the references that the poem itself makes that it was very difficult even to get beyond go in talking about it.”

Now, I’m all for keeping children away from religion, but Motion makes a good case. So much of our culture, both pop and canon, is saturated with references to earlier literary works that were once as commonly-known as Simpsons references are today. For example, while watching the new Neil Gaiman film Coraline, I was impressed that one scene featured acrobats reciting the “What a piece of work is man” speech from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I thought it was pretty cool, but my girlfriend quickly pointed out that it probably went over the heads of 90% of the screaming brats sitting in the auditorium, and that this, therefore, meant that those who enjoyed the reference were a severe minority. If they taught the Bard in kindergarten, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Motion is quick to point out that a Biblical/mythological education doesn’t have to mean a religious education:

“If people say this is about ramming religion down people’s throats, they aren’t thinking about it hard enough. It is more about the power of these words to connect with deep, recurring human truths, and also the story of the influence of that language and those stories.”

And beyond that, I’ve always been of the opinion that most people who claim to sincerely believe in the teachings of the Bible haven’t actually read the damn thing. If anything, a thorough reading of the Bible might serve the twin purposes of increasing contextual literary insight and encouraging atheism. Because, dude? The Bible is fucking crazy.

Today marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. All over the world, people are holding Darwin Day events, and if you get to that website early enough, you might still have time to attend one of them, if that’s your thing.

Meanwhile, only 39% of Americans believe in evolution. Indeed, the objections to Darwin’s theory are so widespread that even a respectable polling organization like Gallup discusses evolution in terms of believing. The poll’s intentions seem honorable enough; there’s no sign that they’re trying to tear down belief in evolution, and the accompanying text expresses alarm (of the restrained, Gallup-y variety) that so few people are willing to accept Darwin’s theory.

On the positive side, it also says that people who believe in evolution are the largest single group in the poll, followed by “No opinion either Way” at 36% and “Do not believe in evolution” at 25%. That’s a hell of a lot better than science has done in previous polls — so much better, in fact, that I’m wondering if something has gone horribly wrong with their methodology. Remember this chart from 2006?

(Click for larger image)

Yeah. Either a lot of people have changed their minds in the last couple of years, or Gallup just got lucky and called more indecisive people than crazy ones. Or one of a thousand other, more plausible solutions which I’m not addressing because they aren’t funny.

The worst part is, the Darwin Day festivities will almost certainly backfire. They will be treated as “proof” that scientists secretly worship Darwin, or evolution itself, just as their opponents worship God, or Xenu, or whoever. After all, Charles Darwin wasn’t born with a copy of On the Origin of Species in his hand. His birth has nothing to do with his scientific legacy. And yet, instead of celebrating the voyage of the Beagle, or the publication of his book, they’re holding events on his birthday. Seriously, I have heard this argument being made already.

Well, guess what? It’s not science’s fault that our society places an inordinate amount of emphasis on birthdays and anniversaries. And it’s certainly not their fault that people love to celebrate milestones whenever they get a chance. On the Origin of Species will turn 150 in November, and I’d love to see another round of nerdy celebration when that happens. Richard Dawkins could give a keynote address, perhaps titled, “Apparently, It Takes More Than 150 Fucking Years For an Idea to Sink In.”

I shouldn’t let my frustration color this event any more than it already has. Happy Darwin Day, everyone. Now get your asses out there and evolve already.

P.S. Today marks another important birthday. On February 12, 1809 — the same day as Darwin — Abraham Lincoln was born. Lincoln had a far more profound effect on this country’s history than Darwin, and was the subject of far more controversy at the time, but his legacy is now more or less secure. While he still has his opponents, they are few and far between; nearly every group in America today wants to claim Lincoln as their own. But, in the interest of keeping banks open, we rescheduled his birthday to Presidents’ Day, and now celebrate it by buying shit at Target. It’s not the most dignified memorial for the man who freed the slaves, but I suspect Darwin would envy the public’s easygoing acceptance of Lincoln.

Last weekend my girlfriend and I were debating, 2006-style, the merits of christening Planet Eris versus the controversy of demoting Pluto to the status of Dwarf Planet, and why we could never remember what that other new planet’s name was. It occurred to me to check and see if any progress had been made in updating schoolchildrens’ textbooks to reflect the New Solar Order. What I discovered was even more absurd than I’d expected.

It seems that on June 11, 2008, the International Astronomical Union voted to change the official small-planet-thing classification from “Dwarf Planet” to “Plutoid.” Plutoid? What the fuck? You really expect us to start referring to the mighty Planet Eris as the Plutoid Eris? That’s mythologically inept.

Apparently the whole Plutoid debacle is playing havoc with schoolbook manufacturers, and we shouldn’t expect it to be sorted out anytime soon. But a little thing like official IAU categories isn’t going to keep nerds from getting comfy with the idea of an eleven-planet solar system. Which is why, back in February ‘08, National Geographic teamed up with pop-folk darling Lisa Loeb to sponsor a contest for children to invent a new mnemonic device for remembering the names of our star’s biggest and baddest rocks. When I informed Varius of this back in February, his reaction was poignant:

It’s like somebody said, “We need to get this announcement to the right audience. Who will find this exciting?” And somebody else said, “The sexy librarian demographic, and the people who love them.” And then the first person said, “Holy shit, you’re right. What’s Lisa Loeb doing?”

Eventually Lisa Loeb turned the winning entry into a song, called “11 Planets,” which you can listen to here. The song is charming and adorable, but the actual winning mnemonic is rather terrible: “My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.” Gahhk. Sure, it sounds charming coming out of Lisa’s mouth, but what the fuck is a Palace Elephant? It sounds suspiciously like some bastardization out of Richard F. Burton or Rudyard Kipling. The inclusion of the number nine is awkward in that it makes an uncomfortable subconscious reference to the old nine planet system. Furthermore, while I’m not certain about what the ideal verb is to describe the movement of a magic carpet, I know it damn well isn’t “sail.”

Dissatisfied with the winning mnemonic (which was invented by a 10-year-old girl from Montana), Varius (again, back in February when we first heard about all this) suggested the following alternatives:

“My Very Excitable Member Can’t Jizz Significantly Unless Nancy’s Performance Excites.”

“Many Vultures Eat Moldy, Crumbling, Jagged Skeletons Until New People Expire.”

I countered with the following:

“Mothra Versus Ebirah Makes China Jiggle Sharply Under North Pacific Eddies.”

“Many Violent Ends Motivated Concerned Japanese to Surrender Under New Pacifist Ethos.”

“Motörhead Versus Elvis: Musical Cacophony Jarring Surprised Underlings Near Powerful Echoes.”

(Ebirah is a giant lobster.) As a final sally, Varius rejoined with this:

“My Vivacious Escort Makes Crusty Jews Sport Unique Nuclear-Powered Erections.”

I can’t decide which one I like best, but damnit, I bet you’ll never forget the new planets again. Even that new fifth one, what is it, er… Ceres! Goddamnit, Planet Ceres. Or Plutoid Ceres. Whatever. I’m guessing that you all stopped reading after “Nuclear-Powered Erections” anyway.