a Custom Rap
by Zeps
Let’s begin with medicine from back in the day
How did this evolve?
And watch out for mismatched environments
Six categories evolutionary framing
Mixed with some hip-hop to show it’s entertaining
Natural selections limitations, ask
About the mismatch between today and the past
Regarding the environment, it didn’t happen magically
Happy accident? Pathogens evolve rapidly
Invisible ninjas attackin’ us better with stealth
Trade-offs between costs and benefits to health
And plus, survival matters even less than reproduction
MCs are stuntmen, Evil Kineval jumpin’
Useful defenses that look like diseases
Like a fever, that’s how a virus gets heated and deleted
So get your body energized, memorize
Field of evolutionary medicine identified
The hygiene hypothesis, I’m making you listen
Sick dirty grimy beats boost your immune system
Evolution, medicine is part of it
Here’s a hypothesis, let me tell you something
An idea for humans known as ‘persistence hunting’
Because we evolved through a bunch of combinations
To run down prey with long-distance adaptations
Not a grooms BFF but yo, that’s the best man
Bodies finding ways to cool off using sweat glands
Now we wear sweatpants and shoes, let me explain this
Over deep time, leg and foot anatomy changes
Combined with the big brains required
To track a single animal until it’s very tired
By following complex signs and reasoning
Track a wild boar, make carnitas with some seasoning
Catch them in groups, find their paths and location
So now with your quail eggs you can have some bacon
Humans are born to run, hunt and argue, see
We come from a place where survival depended on all three!
Why we get sick
We crave nutrients that were scarce in the past
Now sugar, salt and grease is in the food that is fast
The Boomerang Effect, not blooming onion wait
But if I eat too many I’ll be Paul Bunyan’s weight
How did Babe the Blue Ox get so tall?
Maybe Paul evolved so he could dunk a basketball
Now we can reach massive heights, me I be rappin’ nice
Human ancestors had more intestinal parasites
‘Worms Our Old Friends’ can you believe it?
Without ’em we have more autoimmune diseases
Systems on high alert, now we call a medic first
And we have a metaverse; there goes our genetic quirks
It’s an arms race, looking for some brain space
I’m saying, that’s the cost of staying in the same place
This fellas gotta live, feeling hella positive
Zeps – now I’m livin’ like a healthy hominid
How did this evolve?