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?