> Next to zero artists or singers who are familiar with say, the laws of thermodynamics.

You don't have to dig very deep to find counterexamples. Dr. Brian May was the lead guitarist and a founding member of Queen. He holds a PhD in astrophysics. Tom Scholz was a founding member of Boston and has a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. Dr. Brian Holland is the lead vocalist for The Offspring and has a PhD in molecular biology.

As a more personal example, I spent my high school science classes competing on each test for top marks against Wesley MacInnes, who today is an actor and country music singer. (He was the school bully in the last Power Rangers movie. It was an amusing role. Wesley was an extraordinarily kind person in real high school.)

I would argue that their science career came first. Even if less remunerative.

> graduated as class valedictorian in 1984. During high school, Holland was the best student in mathematics in his year,

from wikipedia

Excuse me but what definition of “nerd” are you operating under because I want to travel back in time and not literally have the shit beaten out of me and go enjoy an art and history education for the pure academic joy of it.

Are you from the US? The whole jocks/nerds thing is a bit alien to me.

In my school, the top athletes were also good students. The dux was the linchpin of the football team and also wrote poetry.

I’m from the US. But the jocks/nerds thing is alien to me too for what it’s worth. In my experience the conflicting difference was jerks/nerds. I wasn’t close friends with many athletes but many of them were friendly, and yes great students. And one who I did become close friends with wasn’t particularly inclined to poetry AFAIK, but we did form a “band” and record an (embarrassing now) “album” together.