Stephen Baird

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Stephen Baird is a singer-songwriter, and member of The Galapagos Mountain Boys.[1] His specialty is adapting and parodying Christmas carols and hymns, replacing their original content with scientific and secular themes and lyrics.

Personal History

Stephen Miller Baird was born April 18, 1944 in Chelsea, Massachusetts.[2] He was raised in the Bible Belt before converting to rationalism as a student at Stanford University.[3] There he met Carol Davidson, whom he married in 1970. They have two sons and several grandchildren.

He went on to earn his MD from Stanford in 1971,[4] specialized in research in Leukemias and Lymphoma, and is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Pathology at UCSD's Moores Cancer Center.[5] He still practices anatomic & clinical pathology in San Diego, California.[6] His current area of research at UCSD is in murine leukemia virus receptors.[7]

Musical History

Stephen Baird was forced to play cello as a child, but let that training lapse. He learned to play guitar in the 1980s and began putting medical and scientific concepts to music while teaching medical school classes.[8] His bluegrass style is applied to topics ranging from gravity to sexually transmitted diseases to false gods.[9] He released his first album of self-described "scientific gospel"[10] music in 1998.[11] In 2000 he formed the band The Opossums of Truth with like-minded individuals Dwight Worden, Mike McColm, Ron Jackson and son Daniel Baird. Upon Jackson's untimely death in 2007, the band reformed as The Galapagos Mountain Boys.[12]

First with The Opossums of Truth and now with The Galapagos Mountain Boys, Baird has been a performer at Darwin Day[13] events since 2002,[14] drawing on his stable of tunes on evolution and natural selection.[15]

Discography

Dr. Stephen Baird has released six albums of scientific gospel music:[16]

  • Hallelujah! Evolution! (1998)
  • Ain't Gonna Be No Judgment Day (2002)
  • Water On Mars (2003)
  • Breakin' the Rules (2004)
  • Darwin, Darn It! (2009)
  • And For THIS You Expect A PhD?! (2009)

References