thomblake comments on "Put It To The Test" - Less Wrong

12 Post author: MBlume 03 February 2010 11:09PM

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Comment author: thomblake 04 February 2010 01:46:46PM *  8 points [-]

I was wondering whether I should write a review of that album here, and whether it would be on-topic - I ended up deciding against it because it's such old news. Of note to the interested:

The main theme of the album (aside from "science is cool") is skepticism.

The first song, "Science Is Real", replaces their usual kids' album first track (singing the name of the album), which was instead relegated to near the last position on the disc. "Science is Real" emphasizes that one should do science (actually look at the world) in order to arrive at knowledge. It became briefly reviled amongst the anti-science folks for its "angels, unicorns, and elves" line.

They reprise their popular cover of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" in a completely new style, but realized that it has some factual errors. And so they wrote a new song, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?", in which they address some of them, with catchy phrase like "That thesis has been rendered invalid!" It's an interesting juxtaposition intended to show that everything is up for revision.

"Put It to the Test" suggests that you shouldn't believe anyone's say-so if there's any reason to doubt them, and every claim demands empirical evidence.

Comment author: radical_negative_one 05 February 2010 12:30:03AM 2 points [-]

From the TMBG wiki:

The original "Why Does the Sun Shine?" was recorded in the 1950s and based on encyclopedic facts from the time, which were later discovered to be incorrect; rather than being made of gas, the sun exists mostly in the fourth state of matter—plasma. By the time the album's fact-checker, Eric Siegel, pointed this out to the band, they had already recorded the song and the accompanying video was already in the works. Not wanting to drop the fan-favorite song from the album but also not wanting to perpetuate incorrect information, the band was faced with a conundrum. While discussing the problem in the studio one day, one of the recording engineers, Jon Altschuler, suggested the band write an "answer song" called "The Sun Is A Miasma Of Incandescent Plasma," which is exactly what they did.

But the way you explain it, it's actually great how the Sun songs turned out. Because the first one was wrong on a technicality, now we get to see a scientific statement being revised.

Comment author: MBlume 04 February 2010 04:55:41PM 1 point [-]

They reprise their popular cover of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" in a completely new style

Actually this recording is quite similar to the live performance on Severe Tire Damage -- still my favorite recording of this song.

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