Melinda Wenner rarely updates her blog, but when she does it’s always great! This week she posted an article she wrote for The Scientist about The Amygdaloids.
The Amygdaloids are a New York based band, playing live shows at clubs. Nothing special so far, except that all band members are biologists and neuroscientists during the day, and all their songs are about science.
They formed this past fall, and play in New York City, but will also perform at the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas in December.
Other bands by scientists are Wild Type at Johns Hopkins, and Cellmates at Yale. Although, I can’t find anything more recent than 2002 for Wild Type, and I’ve heard that Cellmates bassist Ira Mellman will be relocating his lab to the West Coast, so I’m unsure about the activity of either band. (Both were previously mentioned here)
Thanks for the kind words about my blog! I enjoy Easternblot too. Maybe your post is the nudge I need to start posting more often.
Cheers,
Melinda
Little outburst,
From a musician and music teacher about The Amygdaloids ( with expected forebearance for the quality of english, being french )
Though the idea arouses all my sympathies, the result as songs by the amygdaloids are a disgrace for both communities of scientists and music lovers. How would Joseph LeDoux would have reacted if I had come with formless misinterpretations of his works of neuroscience, turned into songs or poetry, no matter how elegantly phrased, though saying anything but what he meant ?
Their songs are so bad and so badly played, that it leads exactly to the opposite of what they were intended to provide us. The credits of the discoveries vanish as we try to dispel the embarrassment for our ears, and luckily nothing goes so far as to cross our eardrums to reach our brains. Worst than that, it is difficult to keep sympathies or respect for someone whose necessary intuition and self-consciousness for good science, seem strangely lacking in the musical exercise. The alternative explanation is maybe worse, if self-consciousness and intuition are used while practicing neuroscience ( what seems the case ), then their lack observed in the writing and playing the songs reveal how much LeDoux and Co must patronize music and music lovers. Once more, and fortunately very rare among scientists, example of vicious side effect of the hubris of specialization, usually noticed more often within philosophers or religious communities.
I can’t wait for the soon coming new books of Brian Greene’s recipes, Lisa Randall’s suggestions for gardening and Surfing for the beginners by David Chalmers, all in my shoes for Christmas brought to me by Daniel Dennett, who obviously will meet less difficulties to fulfil his new job than his fellow scientists.