Performance, Feedback, Revision

So, when I first start writing these evolution raps, about six months ago, Some of the early drafts, they sounded kinda like this: “Yo, yo, the Origin of Species Ain’t no feces, dawg, believe me…” And that’s all I could think of So then I thought, this needs to be re-written And sometimes people ask: “How does your show get written?” Like this: performance, feedback, revision And how do I generally develop my lyricism? Like this: performance, feedback, revision And how do human beings ever learn to do anything? Like this: performance, feedback, revision And evolution is really an algorithm that goes Like this: performance, feedback, revision So the genetic code of every living thing was written. Like this: performance, feedback, revision See, the genes are like a text with a thousand pages. And revision occurs in the random changes That come from mutations, and when they see the light That’s the performance, that’s the phenotype And natural selection is the feedback side That’s about who survives and whose genes catch rides In the next generation, yes, what I’m saying Is that a rap performance like this is the best illustration Of the way descent with modification works ‘Cause the performance is necessary to change the words A reconstruction of ambulocetus the 'walking whale'. To decide which have an impact and which to send back To the drawing board, in fact I just did that When you failed to react, ’cause any line can change And mutations occur when I improvise on stage ‘Cause up until this moment, everything I said was off the page. But now it’s time for me to switch to freestyle, yeah, random speeches Charles Darwin was right, you could examine his thesis Even though creationists are always trying to smash it to pieces Evo devo people found for it up in an animal’s fetus. And archaeologists found evidence for it up in ambulocetus Yeah, that’s the bones they found of a walking whale. I’m kinda cocky with my tales, plus I see evidence for evolution Everytime I talk to females; You can see it in their eyes The way they sparkle, with my vocabulary Plus they’re kind of impressed that I rap on the Tales of Canterbury So when I talk to my ancestors in my sleep, I’m like “Thank you very Much!” ‘Cause you gave me the skills to leave mad descendants Yes, creationists are mad pretentious; I’m just tryin’ to smash these sentences I’m tryin’ to dispel all creationist myths like I was Daniel Dennett Because I think religion is pretty much just an anaesthetic But I’m gonna have to take it to that place, and rap frickin’ awesome Yes, you know I’m tryin’ to be the Hip-hop version of Richard Dawkins Even though his attitude can sometimes be a little pompous I think his powers of logic are frickin’ awesome Plus he’s dealin’ with the central problem of modern life It’s belief in reason versus passive belief in an afterlife Which leads to things like animal and human sacrifice Yeah, I’m tryin to come through kinda shifty Like I was a purse-snatcher; you can call me the word-master Most rappers next to me kinda look like Homo ergaster Or Homo erectus I’m just tryin’ to use Darwin To get a total perspective that’s right, that’s how I rip it up Creationists are trippin’ up; yes, I’m tryin’ to take it back To the days of Australopithecus, you could try to follow me But first you’d better study human nature and base it On primatology; otherwise it won’t be very worthy Just ask Ms Sarah Hrdy; yes, she had some theories That she tried to give to all of us, yes, I’m tryin’ to abolish All the creationist non-knowledge, and show them evidence Like the bones of Tiktaalik; yes, this is how I’m just Tryin’ to represent it for my fam; I learned about my origins Up in the Descent of Man And that’s how my show gets written and re-written Like this: performance, feedback, revision And anyone can use this algorithm to learn anything Like this: performance, feedback, revision But remember, you get the feedback, and you make the decision Like this: performance, feedback, revision You wanna know about evolution? This is the definition Like this: performance, feedback, revision