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"Storm" is a beat-poem by renowned comedian Tim Minchin. Recognised as a profound modern literary work, it discusses the challenges of defending knowledge, reasoning, and logic in our times.
TEACHER'S DISCRETION ADVISED, SOME USE OF STRONG LANGUAGE |
“Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.” - Tim Minchin, "Storm"
Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat
Rice paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host's a physician
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend's an actress
An old mate from home
And they're always great fun
So to dinner we've come.
The fifth guest is an unknown
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favour
because this girl's just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she's the sister of someone
Or has some connection.
As we make introductions
I'm struck by her beauty
She's irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits I admit I'm a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says "“I'm Sagittarian"”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.
Chatter is initially bright and light hearted
But it's not long before Storm gets started: “
"You can't know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”"
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment by me
“Not a good start” I think
We're only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, "Be Nice!"
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.
The food is delicious and Storm
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists “
"But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”"
My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there's a chance
That I'll be off on one of my rare, but fun rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it's becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because - like her meteorological namesake
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:
"“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It's time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”"
And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike “
"By definition”,"
I begin
“"Alternative medicine”,"
I continue “
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That's been proved to work?
Medicine.”"
“"So you don't believe In ANY
Natural remedies?”"
"“On the contrary actually,
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that's virtually side-effect free
It's got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Maspirin? Baspirin? Aspirin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore."
The debate
briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,
"“Shakespeare said it first,
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we're trained to look at reality,
It can't explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”"
I'm becoming aware
That I'm staring
I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it's the Hamlet she just misquothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:
“"Look , Storm, I don't mean to bore you
But there's no such thing as an aura.
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren't plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God's demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands."
"By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you're in touch with the other side?
That's just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there's no such thing as a psychic?"
"What, are we fucking two?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn't had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks Like John Edwards?"
Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition
"“You're so sure of your position
But you're just closed-minded I think you'll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”."
“Hmm, that's a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it's absolute bullshit.
"Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I'll spin on a fucking dime
I'll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It's a miracle!
Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it's memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it!"
"You show me that it works and how it works
And when I've recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve 'Fancy That' on the side of my cock.”"
Everyone's just staring at me now,
But I'm pretty pissed and I've dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:
“"Life is full of mystery, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?
Let's sit here and hope
Let's call up the fucking Pope
Let's go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra."
"If you're going to watch telly, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool because every time there's a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
Ever solved has turned out to be
Not Magic."
"Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?"
"Isn't this enough?"
"Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you're so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear: “
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green, Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
Then whatever, that's ok.
But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties."
"And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We'd as well be 10 minutes back in time
For all the chance you'll change your mind."
All white walls, white carpet, white cat
Rice paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host's a physician
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend's an actress
An old mate from home
And they're always great fun
So to dinner we've come.
The fifth guest is an unknown
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favour
because this girl's just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she's the sister of someone
Or has some connection.
As we make introductions
I'm struck by her beauty
She's irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits I admit I'm a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says "“I'm Sagittarian"”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.
Chatter is initially bright and light hearted
But it's not long before Storm gets started: “
"You can't know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”"
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment by me
“Not a good start” I think
We're only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, "Be Nice!"
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.
The food is delicious and Storm
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists “
"But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”"
My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there's a chance
That I'll be off on one of my rare, but fun rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it's becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because - like her meteorological namesake
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:
"“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It's time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”"
And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike “
"By definition”,"
I begin
“"Alternative medicine”,"
I continue “
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That's been proved to work?
Medicine.”"
“"So you don't believe In ANY
Natural remedies?”"
"“On the contrary actually,
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that's virtually side-effect free
It's got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Maspirin? Baspirin? Aspirin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore."
The debate
briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,
"“Shakespeare said it first,
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we're trained to look at reality,
It can't explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”"
I'm becoming aware
That I'm staring
I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it's the Hamlet she just misquothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:
“"Look , Storm, I don't mean to bore you
But there's no such thing as an aura.
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren't plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God's demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands."
"By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you're in touch with the other side?
That's just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there's no such thing as a psychic?"
"What, are we fucking two?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn't had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks Like John Edwards?"
Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition
"“You're so sure of your position
But you're just closed-minded I think you'll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”."
“Hmm, that's a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it's absolute bullshit.
"Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I'll spin on a fucking dime
I'll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It's a miracle!
Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it's memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it!"
"You show me that it works and how it works
And when I've recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve 'Fancy That' on the side of my cock.”"
Everyone's just staring at me now,
But I'm pretty pissed and I've dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:
“"Life is full of mystery, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?
Let's sit here and hope
Let's call up the fucking Pope
Let's go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra."
"If you're going to watch telly, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool because every time there's a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
Ever solved has turned out to be
Not Magic."
"Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?"
"Isn't this enough?"
"Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you're so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear: “
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green, Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
Then whatever, that's ok.
But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties."
"And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We'd as well be 10 minutes back in time
For all the chance you'll change your mind."
Ponder this
Could you explain Storm's hostility towards science?
Are "mysteries" necessary? Should they be preserved, or should we seek to explain everything in nature?
Discuss
Excluding recent examples of magic coconuts and exorcism kits, can you name a few other Malaysian superstitions that Storm might believe in? Why would she believe in them? Why shouldn't she?
Further readings
Tim Minchin, at Wikipedia
"The natural, the supernatural, and the nature of science", by Paul Braterman at Scientia Salon
God of the gaps, at RationalWiki
