Greydon Square on SGU

One of the podcasts I have followed regularly over the year is The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, a show produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS). Before listening to this show I had never really considered myself a “skeptic” but more so just a person with common sense. Such common sense would tell you psychics are simply cold readers, evolution and science have evidence, and UFO proponents are generally just nutty conspiracy theorists. One of my favorite episodes of the SGU was one with guest Greydon Square. Greydon certainly isn’t the typical guest of the SGU, evidence of such being that he rapped on the show. Generally the SGU, like all of science and the skeptical community, is stereotypically white and over 35, a group not generally associated with young black rappers. The demographic data and personal experiences speak for themselves here.
This is why episode 120 was certainly one of my favorites. Sure I’m biased to appreciate a more youthful take on the realities of skeptical/scientific thinking, but I also believe this is truly important. Increasingly in our young demographics we are consuming celebrity train wreck gossip, empty entertainment, and other assorted mindless confectionaries more than ever. Certainly one of the hallmarks of young thinking is to reject what those older than you appreciate/know, but I hope we can shed at least a part of that naïve thinking. As I indicated in a previous post that thinking came to its height around 50 years ago and is nothing more than arrogance sprinkled liberally with ignorance. All humans alive today are a unique fraternity coexisting on Earth for a relatively short time, and to dismiss the hard learned truths of our elders is plainly stupid. Sure all generations have made mistakes, but should we not learn from those mistakes and proofs? Science is the ultimate resource to learn from, and build upon, the knowledge of our forbearers, to do just that.
In this I think Greydon is a great representative of what I hope can be, in my generation. Urban culture, which I separate from rap culture, has many less than academic values, but this certainly does not mean we cannot appreciate an ideal rich in both street and science wisdom. “Street smarts”, which I feel is at the core of much of urban culture, is really quite analogous to science. That may seem to be a weird statement, but think about the 2, base decisions on fact and logic and you will prevail. Perhaps it’s not so crazy…
Basically I’m glad to see public advocates of “popular youth culture” (a stuffy term, I agree), such as Greydon, refusing to relegate themselves to worldly ignorance. Such ignorance may not be a fair label to put on street culture, but it tends to be the stereotype from where I’m sitting. This is not about your Chemistry professor trying to “hip it up”, and get “jiggy” (WTF?) while teaching endothermic reactions. This is about young culture becoming more than what your crappy guidance councilor thought you would by knowing/learning what works. Psychics, pseudoscience, and the like don’t work. Scientific method does work, and all you really need is the resulting evidence.