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Artificial Selection
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Baba Brinkman
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Artificial selection, it starts with a question
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How did people ever get cows, chickens and pigs
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And other animals and plants to act so domestic?
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We took them from the wild and we bred them, brethren
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Welcome to the Charles Darwin Bicentennial
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So, why does everybody think this guy is so special?
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Maybe because a man was born two centuries ago
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Who, as far as anyone knows, was the first
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To recognize the underlying pattern behind the pageant
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Affectionately known as "life on this planet"
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He was the first to understand it
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The first to translate his amazement
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At the wonder of life, into a way to explain it
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So this is a celebration of Darwin's greatness
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In the form of a rap "“ some would say "a debasement"
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I would say "be patient", just think of this as
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A manifestation of the evolutionary equation
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A recapitulation of life, a re-enactment
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So, how do you go from amoebas to rappers?
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You open The Origin of Species, and you read its chapters
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The first chapter is about the impact of people's actions
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On farm animals, pets, and domestic crops
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Where did they come from? From original stocks
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Of wild animals and plants, which were selected and crossed
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For the best properties, and thus became the effect of their cause
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But of course, not every selection was conscious
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Still, even if breeders in ancient Egypt couldn't see this
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And had no idea how to rework the features
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Of a species of sheep or increase the sweetness
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Of their peaches every season, when they chose to seed it
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Or to feed it or to breed it or to weed it out and delete it
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"˜Cause they didn't see it as needed, whether the preferences in question
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Were for bigger chicken breasts or whippets with a thinner mid-section
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Or if it was just an inner predilection to pick the best in
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Any mixed collection, that's artificial selection
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Artificial selection, it starts with a question
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How did people ever get cows, chickens and pigs
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And other animals and plants to act so domestic?
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We took them from the wild and we bred them, brethren
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But there's nothing artificial about domestication
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Ant colonies keep domestic aphids
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It's just an arrangement where one hand washes the other
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We protect the cow, and the cow offers the udder
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And even if there's never a conscious discussion
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If our little selections and little preferences
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Can change and enhance the critical differences
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Between wild and domestic breeds over the centuries
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Then maybe that can explain"¦ everything
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In nature it isn't us that makes the selections
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It's just survival and reproduction in the midst of competition
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Where slight differences that arise randomly
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Get selected by the pressures applied environmentally
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And eventually species divide like a family tree
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Into everything alive, from a fly to a manatee
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So how does this apply to the craft of the MC?
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Well, variation can be found in the styles on display
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Rappers all have different techniques when they're on stage
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And the results can be seen in the audience's face
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Like, for instance, at this moment, you all look amazed
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Like guppies removed abruptly from their aquatic space
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Your minds are probably racing over questions of style and race
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And genre and time and place, and some of your eyes are glazed
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Like "For God's sake, how long will this take?!?"
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But if you all feel that way, then soon I'll be replaced
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By someone more entertaining, like maybe Lil Wayne
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This is the rap version of the doctrine of Malthus
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It's the proportion of hungry mouths
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To food resources in the form of captive audiences
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Where crowds of two or more will always
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Be at least half as common as performers
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Can you see the mathematical problem?
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But survival on stage is a non-random process
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"˜Cause those who get massive responses tend to influence
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Those who aspire to get massive responses
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So if you say I sound like, for instance, Eminem, then I'll say
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"That's preposterous!" But if you catch me grabbing my crotch
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And acting obnoxious, then I might have to acknowledge
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That this is a form of imitation modified by experience
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Which is similar to the genetic basis of inheritance
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Except it's part Darwinism and part Lamarkism
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With genes and culture co-evolving as we rock to the rhythm
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But whether you think cultures really evolve
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Or if it's just a silly metaphor that's pretty but false
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Or whether you've never even thought about that
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I still think Darwin can teach us a lot about rap
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And vice verse; "˜cause it's all about that
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Competition for status with intricate language
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Delivered in battles, and it's all about getting that
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Fitness advantage and the different adaptive behaviour patterns
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That have us acting crazier than capercaillie mating dances
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But hey, that's natural selection; so just sit back and listen
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And witness the evolution of the rap profession
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Artificial selection, it starts with a question
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How did people ever get cows, chickens and pigs
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And other animals and plants to act so domestic?
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We took them from the wild and we bred them, brethren
Natural Selection - Baba Brinkman - Rap ...
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