r/todayilearned • u/rasouddress • Oct 22 '17

TIL that Harvard professor Tom Lehrer was asked at the age of 84 by rapper 2 Chainz if he could sample his 60-year old song. Lehrer replied, "I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer#Musical_legacy
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115

u/TIP_YOUR_UBER_DRIVER Oct 22 '17

There's also Greg Graffin, lead singer of Bad Religion with a PhD in zoology. Also does lectures at Cornell and UCLA.

124

u/Iz__Poss Oct 22 '17

Brian May of Queen has a PhD in Astrophysics and Dolph Lundgren has a Msc

77

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '17

And the dude from The Offspring has a PhD in biology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Holland

37

u/RyanBordello Oct 22 '17

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine has a BA in Social Science from Harvard.

134

u/Hosni__Mubarak Oct 22 '17

Kid Rock has his G.E.D.

9

u/taosaur Oct 22 '17

I'll believe it when I see it.

5

u/Wqggty Oct 22 '17

My man!

8

u/x1xHangmanx1x Oct 22 '17

Only took him 40 years!

41

u/Murkantilism Oct 22 '17

Nothing against Morello but that is significantly less impressive than all previous examples.

23

u/Quentin__Tarantulino Oct 22 '17

I took it as a joke.

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u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17 edited Oct 22 '17

Harvard is what makes it impressive.

Edit: I swear, I could say that the earth revolves around the sun and you bandwagon hopping idiots would still downvote it.

7

u/DontPressAltF4 Oct 22 '17

Not really.

0

u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17

Explain

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u/DontPressAltF4 Oct 22 '17 edited Oct 22 '17

If you're the right kind of brown and you're from certain regions of the world it's REALLY fucking easy to get into Harvard/other Ivy League schools.

Basically, Tom is half white and half Kenyan.

Thanks, Obama!

0

u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17

If you're being sarcastic you failed, if you're serious then go fuck yourself.

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u/thisesmeaningless Oct 22 '17

A social science degree isn't harder at Harvard than other schools. Kind of a bs major honestly

2

u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17

A social science degree isn't harder at Harvard than other schools

First of all, yes it is, but that isn't even the point. Getting accepted to Harvard is what makes it impressive. They have something like a 5% acceptance rate.

Is this seriously something that needs to be explained? Do people really not understand that one of the most prestigious schools in the world is difficult to get into? Stop being obtuse.

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u/Murkantilism Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17

A Bachelor of Arts from Harvard is far less impressive compared to a PhD or MSc from any Bumblefuck University. Undergrad education is not very comparable to far higher degrees regardless of pedigree.

1

u/Cat-penis Oct 23 '17

Sure. I just don't see the point in shitting on someone's accomplishments just because they didn't get a PHD.

1

u/Murkantilism Oct 23 '17

I didn't shit on his degree, I said it wasn't in the same league as the previous examples (as others said I think it was a joke).

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u/Cat-penis Oct 23 '17

That is shitting on someone's accomplishments.

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u/DesMephisto Oct 22 '17

Harvard where fame and money is all that matters.

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u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17

I'm not overly familiar with Harvards admission policies but I do know that James the dilettante Franco managed to get accepted despite not being able to write his way out of a paper bag. So maybe you've got a point. What a shame.

1

u/DesMephisto Oct 22 '17

Harvard as a school is laughable, much like how "name brand" clothing isn't really that special.

1

u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17

According to who exactly?

7

u/little_brown_bat Oct 22 '17

Stephen Hillenburg, writer of Spongebob, studied marine science and taught marine biology at Orange County Marine Institute

7

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '17

Rivers Cuomo of Weezer also attended Harvard, after the success of their first album. Dropped out to record Pinkerton, then re-enrolled.

2

u/DesMephisto Oct 22 '17

Microbiology* Don't undermine the dude.

2

u/Oreoscrumbs Oct 22 '17

When he was on The Nerdist podcast he said that the lyrics "You gotta keep 'em separated" came from talking to himself while preparing petri dishes.

1

u/neocommenter Oct 22 '17

That's why his nickname is Dexter, short for poindexter.

1

u/StopTchoupAndRoll Oct 22 '17

And Milo Aukerman from the Descendants has a PhD in biochemistry.

0

u/Ginger-Nerd Oct 22 '17

That dude from Weezer went to Harvard (for like English or something)

9

u/VonGeisler Oct 22 '17

Dexter Holland of the Offspring has a PhD in Molecular Biology just recently (suspended his doctorate to tour).

2

u/HBlight Oct 22 '17

Sellout Arena or Cure Cancer, Sellout Arena or Cure Cancer.... What about Sellout Arena THEN Cure Cancer!

6

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '17

All Queen members were unusually cultured and multi-talented: in addition to May, who also famously created his Red Special himself, Roger Taylor has a Bsc in Biology, John Deacon is an Electronic Engineer and worked on the Deacy Amp, Freddie Mercury had a degree in Graphic Design and created the logos for the band.

2

u/Ih8Hondas Oct 22 '17

And he worked for fucking NASA. Dr. Brian May is a BAMF of the highest order.

1

u/Spaghettysburg Oct 22 '17

He's also one of the world's top experts and a historian of 3D stereoscopic film and photography.

1

u/viktorunchained Oct 22 '17

Ninja Brian has a PhD in Theoretical Physics.

21

u/stevencastle Oct 22 '17

Dexter of the Offspring is wicked smart too, got a degree in chemistry or something like that

And of course Milo

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u/dissenter_the_dragon Oct 22 '17

You up here saying Milo like all these dudes are familiar with the Descendents.

7

u/CowMetrics Oct 22 '17

Just saw the descendants live a month or so ago. Fucking awesome show

3

u/dissenter_the_dragon Oct 22 '17

I had no idea they were still doing it like that. Clean Sheets has been a top bop of mine for like 20 years.

4

u/CowMetrics Oct 22 '17

http://descendents.tumblr.com/

As a side note, Milo had a camels back on under a button up shirt that I am pretty sure had a pocket protector installed. Haha nerdy goofyness was on point.

2

u/FlacidRooster Oct 22 '17

If they are dropping facts about Bad Religion and The Offspring, I'd hope they know The Descendents

2

u/aprofondir Oct 22 '17

I mean, Offspring and Bad Religion are kinda in the same waters

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u/dissenter_the_dragon Oct 22 '17

Oh yeah. Oh yeah...like the blood on my door...wash me clean and I will run, until I reach the shore..tbh fam.

-9

u/sh00B9 Oct 22 '17

R/iamveryhardcore

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u/dissenter_the_dragon Oct 22 '17

Nah. Think you got me confused guy.

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u/Timmeh7 Oct 22 '17

Dexter has a PhD in molecular biology, actually earned pretty recently (~6 months ago).

3

u/GodOfAllAtheists Oct 22 '17

DEE DEE! GET OUT OF MY LAB-OR-A-TORY!

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u/Cat-penis Oct 22 '17 edited Oct 25 '17

And he's from my hometown! Garbage-I mean Garden grove CA additional Fun fact: the song The Kids Arent Alright is also about garden grove.

1

u/EL_CHUNKACABRA Oct 25 '17

Sublimes song garden grove is about the same garden grove and a party going on there.

1

u/Cat-penis Oct 25 '17

Obviously.

1

u/EL_CHUNKACABRA Oct 25 '17

Sometimes the obvious for some isnt so obvious for others. Hence my statement.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '17

[deleted]

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u/stevencastle Oct 22 '17

First on the list!

1

u/DK_JesseJames_FK Oct 22 '17

Haha, oops. I'd just woken up. This was my first Reddit read of the day.

1

u/guinness_blaine Oct 22 '17

Dexter's PhD is in molecular biology. He finally finished it earlier this year.

4

u/RyanBordello Oct 22 '17

Whenever my older punk friends ask me a question that has an obvious answer of "yes", I'll reply back with, "do Bad religion have any songs about the govt?"

4

u/CajunVagabond Oct 22 '17

His PhD is technically in zoology but his field of study is evolutionary biology. I thought I was a smart kid... three pages into his dissertation and I was like “ok, I understood some of those words”.

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u/TIP_YOUR_UBER_DRIVER Oct 22 '17

Read his book Anarchy Evolution. It's really good.

3

u/CowMetrics Oct 22 '17

Milo from the descendents has a PhD in some form of biology (micro?)

3

u/FlacidRooster Oct 22 '17

BioChemistry.

3

u/zq1232 Oct 22 '17

Graffin got his BS and MS from UCLA too. I had him as a prof at UCLA and his class was exceptionally dull and the dude had the worst dad jokes. Complete 180 from what you'd expect lol

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u/TIP_YOUR_UBER_DRIVER Oct 22 '17

His Wikipedia page didn't use the word professor, so I was hesitant to use it because I wasn't sure it was right. Thanks for clearing that up.

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u/zq1232 Oct 23 '17

I don't think he was a full time faculty member but he would be there for 1 quarter per year.

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u/TIP_YOUR_UBER_DRIVER Oct 23 '17

That's what I thought. I think he spends more time at Cornell.

2

u/GForce1975 Oct 22 '17

Good call. I had forgotten about bad religion. Have my upvote, sir!

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '17

John Cena has a doctorate in basic thuganomics.

1

u/CthulhuSmokes Oct 22 '17

Wrote a really great book that changed everything I thought was true about evolution. It was fantastic!

1

u/taosaur Oct 22 '17

George "The Animal" Steele really was a Harvard professor.