Bad Religion's Greg Graffin becomes an Ivy League professor, has prehistoric bird named after him

By Sean O'Neal | May 18, 2011 | 9:01pm

Aux Features Music

Bad Religion founder and only constant member Greg Graffin is no stranger to science, filtering his lyrics through a naturalist worldview he expounded on in last year’s memoir-cum-manifesto Anarchy Evolution. And of course, he’s been putting his PhD in zoology to use for years as a guest lecturer on life sciences and paleontology at UCLA. Now the punk rock professor is going Ivy League: According to a press release, Graffin is returning to his alma mater, Cornell University, to spend the next three years teaching a course on evolution that he also helped develop.

While this would seem to back up Graffin’s recent intimations that fans may not see too much of Bad Religion after this year—saying, in fact, that they planned to “do honest work”—Graffin does add that he only has to lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so there’s still ostensibly time for him to write some new songs. Of course, he also plans to “head overseas on the weekends,” perhaps paying a visit to China to visit the new species of bird fossil that was just named in Graffin’s honor, the Qiliania graffini. Hey, so now he and Mark Knopfler have something to talk about.