09. Dear Hank & John. 010. When Your Friend Likes Ayn Rand... Part 4/6
• [Question 6]
Hank: I have a question from José, who asks, "Dear Hank and John. If you two could replace any famous duo" John: Yeah.
Hank: "Who would it be and why?" John: Wait, now, would we in this situation, would we be becoming a famous duo?
Hank: No, we would... Yes. We would be becoming a famous duo that already exists. Like, we would be Batman and Robin or the Wright Brothers.
John: Yeah, I mean, not the Wright brothers, obviously, because one of them died in an airplane accident, and just knowing me, it would probably be me.
Hank: Well, in addition to that, we'd have to fly planes a lot, which is something neither of us really enjoy. John: Yeah, I don't even like being a passenger in a plane, let alone being responsible for the air flight. I'm also not really into engineering or construction, which were the other two things that the Wright brothers had to spend a lot of time doing. Hank: You know, John, I had a dream before VidCon that I was the pilot of a plane, and I crashed it and killed everyone, because anxiety.
John: I know what that's a metaphor for. Being the pilot of the plane that is VidCon. I'm gonna say Simon and Garfunkel, but I call Simon. I'm Simon. Hank: Oh. Oh, wow, wow.
John: I have a beautiful singing voice, I write songs, and then you harmonize with me, occasionally, and then eventually, I kick you out of my band and I go into a wonderful solo career, I have a nice, not permanent, but nice marriage to Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and I live happily ever after and you have very curly hair.
Hank: How about Hall and Oates then and you get to be Oates?
John: I'll take Oates. I don't mind being Oates. Oates has had a good life.
Hank: I actually know very little about Hall and Oates, except that I like their music a great deal.
John: Is that who you'd pick, you'd pick Hall and Oates? Hank: No. No.
John: What would you pick? What... Pick a duo.
Hank: Let's pick, let's replace Watson and Crick and then not be total d-bags about it. John: Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. We'll replace Watson and Crick and we will acknowledge the contributions of other scientists, especially women, to figuring out the structure of DNA. Hank: Yeah! And also not be racists.
John: That's good, that's a good policy. I have to say, one of the best science books I've ever written was unfortunately written by either Watson or Crick, I can't remember which one, and it's about the discovery of the double helix and of course, it's, or the figuring out of the double helix, I guess it wasn't discovered. And you know, it's of course, in retrospect, like, I didn't know this at the time when I was reading it in high school, but it's a completely sort of fabricated account that puts Watson and Crick at the center of things in ways that they really weren't, but, oh, but it's a good read. It's not fair that you should be able to both be a good scientist and a good writer, but it was a good read. Hank: I've never read that, and to be totally fair, it's Watson who has been the crazy sexist racist guy. I know...
John: Let me look up and see if it was, let me see who it was that wrote the book. It was, I think it might have been, I think it might have been, I think it might have been Crick.
Hank: Let's see. John: Uh, it was Watson.
Hank: Yeah, I figured it was Watson. He lived longer.
John: Anyway, very enjoyable books.
Hank: He's still around. John: Even if he turned out later to be a d-bag. I mean, so many good things are made by so many bad people, Hank. This is something that I've been struggling with in general. We talked about it before on the podcast, but many good things are made by bad people.
