Remember that one cool professor you had in college, who let you skip classes as long as you turned in awesome papers and never minded if you came to lectures hung over? Well, now that Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin is teaching
Evolution at Cornell University this fall, there's definitely a new standard for awesome teachers.
It's common knowledge that the singer/songwriter (who just
finished a sold-out tour) has a PhD in zoology from Cornell University.
He's served as a lecturer in life sciences and paleontology at UCLA and
recently published a best selling science memoir entitled Anarchy
Evolution: Faith, Science and Bad Religion in a World Without God.
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“This is
the first year of three that I am slated to help develop the course and
lecture at Cornell,” Graffin explains in a statement. “I have a colleague who is a
gifted geneticist, Richard Harrison, who will be co-teaching with me. I
only have to lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That leaves plenty of
time to head overseas on the weekends!”
Here's more good news for Graffin:
In this month's Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society in London,
paleontologists including Dr. Jingmai O'Connor, have discovered an
ancient bird fossil in the Gansu Province of north-western China, and
have named this important find “Qiliania graffini” in honor of the
singer. As O'Connor explains, “The species name is in honor of Dr.
Gregory Graffin, PhD: paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, professor,
rock star, and inspiration to numerous budding and established
scientists around the world.”Dr. Graffin responds, “I am so happy that they have given me the
privilege of having an important fossil bird named in my honor. My love
of birds now must pass to the Cretaceous and the wonderful finds from
China that [the authors] are elucidating”
