At the Epitome of the Scientific Age

At the Epitome of the Scientific Age

All the experiments have shown

that chance to choose is worth

the same as the better choice.

 

Evidently the system

reports prediction errors

to degrees not previously imagined.

 

It has even been suggested

that failure rates

even those subserving the most trivial activities,

micro-circuitry between neurons,

those gross, though banal, human interrelationships,

are algebraically predetermined.

 

Already we may infer them backwards

to genetic models,

already the experimentalists,

exhibiting their talent,

suggest that rats and radicals alike

may be made more complacent,

and that a deterministic,

more scientifically valid approach

as to how we choose our mates, for example,

and even the subjects

in which we may appropriately be educated

is in the offing.

 

Such is optimism at the epitome

of the scientific age.

It is like the Romanization

of Germanic tribes, an error which subsequently led,

though indirectly, to the ultimate fall of the Empire;

or that great Chinese Wall,

which was supposed to keep out those barbarian Manchus;

Ever the bubble before the collapse.

 

But are we not more complicated than these formulae?

Are not our genes more mutable,

more unpredictable than Cold Fusion,

now that population is plenteous?

So who would not barter for free choice

even if it is not for the better?

 

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